CNXBKKMAN

I am speculating here not knowing the full details but this is not a regular Air India BKK India UK ticket or Turkish Airlines BKK Istanbul UK where your bags are checked through and you are ust transferring onto the next connecting flight. These would be legit methods of getting back. With the destination being the UK and her being a full UK citizen UK, the rip should cause no problem. The UK won't refuse her entry even with a damaged passport. The ticket she seems to have booked is one shown on Skyscanner or Google Flights. Its normally the "cheapest" option but for 99.9% off people should never be booked. It should be shown with that warning too! Its a bunch of unconnected low cost airlines. So indigo to India. Then possibly indigo or another Indian airline to Abu Dhabi, Shariah, Dubai etc. Then probably Pegasus to possibly the UK via Istanbul. It might not go to the UK, some of them go Budapest or Milan etc then its Wizz Air or Easyjet from there. I believe she had one of these type of tickets. You may need a visa for India? You may need to change airport somewhere on the route. You may be allowed a piece hang luggage on one at 10kg, but 5kg on another and none the next one( a nightmare of grief and on the spot payments) If you add a suitcase to every sector this <deleted>ty set of flights becomes more expensive than a regular flight like Thai Airways one way direct to London 18000 baht ish. The online booking sites that offer these daft combination of flights should never be booked with ever. I think she had one these joke tickets and its right you can't travel anywhere on a damaged passport with exception of your own country pretty much.

I renewed my passport in June and it took about 3 weeks and cost £147. Yes the staff are friendly and at least there is an office in Chiang Mai. It could be worse. It's 2024 and if I was renewing a UK passport neighbouring Malaysia its an online process with no agents(VFS) involved and the cost is £101. I didn't go through every step with the online form, there may be some other charges but it's a good £30 cheaper to renew in Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong etc. £30 must be VFS's cut. I renewed my passport in Hong Kong in the past and it took about 2 days. I renewed in Taiwan which was covered by the Hong Kong office and that took 5 days. So from my perspective things have not improved. The cost is higher, its slower and the passport is now made in Poland! UK production has been shut down.

Get a new passport asap. Then visit immigration to get the visa transferred into the new pp and have all the docs ready for the 1 year extension. Play dumb when they notice they made a mistake giving you a extension beyond the May date. Play on their mistake and you acted in good faith etc. They can fix it they want to, bend the rules however they see fit. If you are lucky they will sort it out. If not you may have to pay a fine and hopefully not be black listed. Depart Thailand and get a new o visa. Return and go through the process of a new retirement/marriage extension.

Chiang Mai immigration offered me a one month extension to my marriage renewal last year. The Immigration officer said because I had never made a one month extension to my o visa, just yearly marriage extensions, I could so it.

If you have never extended your O visa you can pay for normal one month extension of 30 days 1900 baht. That will make your enewal due around 20 July. I was had a similar situation last year. The immigration officer said I could do this no problem but in the end I just accepted the under consideration block on travel and cancelled my plans.

If you look on ebay uk and use the filter "sold completed items" you can see what the current prices are from recent sales. List it on FB marketplace, specific thai FB watch groups, kaidee? etc at at small discount on the current secondhand price and see how it goes. A real buyer may want to haggle a bit from this price but it probably way higher than you will get from a shop in Bangkok.

I have not posted on here for a while. The adverts especially ANA are relentless! Google maps reviews are useless. I tried a burger pizza place in Santitham. It was cheap and I wasnt expecting much. I ordered a pizza and a burger to take home. It was truly the worst food I could ever remember eating. Tossed it in the bin after a couple of bites. Later I check the reviews for it on Google maps and they were glowing, delicious, so good, the best... blah blah blah. This is when I realised Google maps reviews are mostly bogus and useless.

Traditionally it was possible to stay out all night in bars if you wanted to. Go home at dawn. That all ended when Thaksin Shinwatra's government clamped down on nightlife and introduced midnight closing about 20 odd years ago. Now his team is back in charge they are reversing it. If you are going to do it why wait until the new year?

The third paragraph is where i dismissed the whole article as a waste of my time.

I doubt there will be more than 3 or 4 flights during the middle of the night, with a spike during CNY. Most foreign tourists want beaches and islands which CM doesn't have.

I have not made my application yet but i hope you are right.

I visited the Chiang Mai VFS office today and asked the question. They said at the moment some people get a passport in 3 or 4 weeks but other people it can take months. Fast or slow you only find out after making the application.

Previously i have renewed my passport at the Hong Kong consulate. No appointment just turn up and collect it 2 days later. Same price as the UK. Also in Taipei just turn up fill the forms and it took 5 days as the passport was actually created in Hong Kong and posted to the Taipei consulate. This was all in the past. I am in Chiang Mai now and you have to use VFS Global who at least have an office in the city. Email for an appointment. Colour copies of every page of your passport required, download the forms, print, get some photos etc. You have to do it all yourself. Passport cost is £138 including postage. VFS charge 1520 baht for accepting your application and forwarding to the UK. Current turn around time is 3 or 4 weeks if its fast and many months if its slow. Fast or slow you will find out only after applying.

I have just skimmed this thread. The UK Consulate dont seem to reply to any queries. Does anybody have the latest turn around times for a renewing a UK passport with VFS?

Whats the latest on the turn around time for a UK passport renewal with VFS from people who have done it recently? UK Gov online its advising up to 11 weeks and £138 total for a 50 page passport.

Its hard to say. It can be one of the following. Cool season comes early. Get up early and you will feel the chill in of 18-20'c. Afternoon 30'c ish and noticeably cool in the evening. Dry and sunny. Cool seasons do come early but not very often. 20/1 outsider. Its seems unseasonably hot, very little or no rain. No hint of the cool season. Rainy season has ended. This would be my predication for this year. Some years the end of Oct early Nov is very wet and the feeling is, will the rainy season never end? Floods in the city but only in the usual places by the river. No hint of the cool season. You could also get a combination of all 3. A couple or wet days, generally hot and sunny and one or two cool season mornings. Also the air quality will be much better than FEB MAR so no worries there.

The existing 700 baht departure/tourist tax has been running smoothly for years. The easiest thing would be to tab the new 300 baht tourist/arrival tax onto existing departure tax setup? Yes it makes an expensive tax and out of line with other asian countries. Pretending its only 300 baht still makes a 1000 baht arrival/departure tax total. The main problem seems to be how to make thai passport holders exempt from the gauging.

There are copy shops all over the city especially near colleges and universities. Regular photocopying or pdf's, docs off a usb drive, internet. The shop owner normally operates the machine just tell them what you want.

First name and surname must match the passport. Middle names are not essential. This is how 99.9% of airlines operate. So no worries with Bangkok Airways. I would not even phone them.

There was a 6.0 a few years ago which was supposed to be once in a hundred years earthquake. https://www.chiangmaicitylife.com/citynews/local/earthquake-rocks-chiang-mai/

If its busy the appointment should help you and if its free why not? I did a marriage extension earlier in the month. Arrived just after 13:00 no appointment, got the forms checked outside. Checked again at the counter inside and then straight to the proper immigration officer who needed a few signatures. Told to sit down and we were all done within 30 mins ish. Compared to a few years ago when you had to at arrive at 05:30 with no idea if you would be lucky and get a number, immigration is working like a dream.

I would visit the office and speak to experienced imm officer and tell him or her the problems this date is causing. They can fix it if they want. The guy who sits at 90 day drive through is very friendly and always chatty. He is about 50 ish years old and has been there long enough to get things done. At the very least he may pass you to somebody who can help. You may have just missed out on an easy way to change the date. My non o marriage renewal was always in August. During covid there were auto extension of stays for all kinds of visas. I ignored it all and just renewed my extension of stay on my normal august date. Last year instead of a normal one month after expiry under consideration stamp i got a 2 month under consideration. I queried it and they said something about covid. Now my renewal date has moved on one month into September i gained a extra month. Like i said i didnt pay attention to all the covid extensions over the previous years but thinking back i may be able to add 6 months or whatever to my visa and moved the renewal from august to JAN, FEB ?

Apologies i thought you were in CM. Facebook groups will exist in BKK for selling secondhand and yard sales.

Various yard sales are happening every weekend around CM city. They are listed on two Facebook groups i know of. Seconhand Chiang Mai and Chiang Mai Buy Sell Swap which seems to be more popular. Take some photos, list everything, put guide prices on stuff, open to offers, everything must go etc. Set your start time end time, sat only whatever, draw a map, google maps link. If you get rid of it, plus the cash and people get a good deal its a win win. Thai people are buying and selling secondhand stuff all the time i would not worry about what the neighbours think. Only people who are interested will make the effort to visit so dont worry about big crowds of people swamping your home.

Bangkok Airways allow you to purchase extra baggage allowance. They can also check your bags all the way through with a list of airlines. Its all on their website. Thai Smile may do the same with Star Alliance airlines. Singapore Airlines seem to be the only airline offering flights from CNX to the world. They use daily flights with Scoot to Singapore and then connect on from there. They depart at different times on different days but it usually means a couple of days have decent connection times and other days dont work as well unless you want to do a Singapore Stopover package that the airline offers which can be a good deal.