skatewash

In pursuing your extension of stay for tourism (30 days) immigration will not be interested in seeing an onward ticket out of Thailand.

Going to Phuket Immigration to get your 30 day extension for tourism is a good idea. Here are the requirements: https://piv-phuket.com/short-stay-extenions/visa-exemption/ You need to have a TM-30 done on your behalf. It is the legal obligation of the landlord or manager of the place you are staying. Go to them and ask if they have registered you as staying overnight at their address with Phuket Immigration. They can do this online. If they have done it ask them for a screenshot of the screen showing that you have been registered with immigration. The alternative if you landlord/manager will not cooperate you have two choices. You can register yourself but this requires cooperation from your landlord which is unlikely given their attitude toward their existing legal obligations. They would have to give you things like a copy of their Thai ID and Blue House Registration book. Again, this is probably a waste of time because your landlord is a scofflaw. In the event you get no help from your landlord, my recommendation is to check into the absolutely cheapest hotel/hostel you can find and make sure they register your address with immigration (that is, file a TM-30 online for you). You don't have to stay there, just get a screenshot of your address registration. Take that with you to immigration to prove your address. The 30 day extension you will be granted at immigration is added on to your existing permission to stay. You will lose no days by applying early. Next time you stay somewhere in Thailand your first question to your landlord/hotel is are you going to report my stay to immigration. If the answer is no, stay somewhere else.

It makes perfect sense to me to get the re-entry permit immediately after you get your new annual extension of stay: 1) you are already at the immigration office 2) there's no convenience fee for getting the re-entry permit at the immigration office (while there can be at the airport) 3) your re-entry permit, wherever obtained, is good until your current extension of stay expires 4) while the form may ask for your travel plans there's no penalty for not answering those questions (they are optional) and moreover your answers are ignored by immigration anyway. That is, you get a re-entry permit good up until your permission to stay expires, not up until when you say you are going to be traveling out of Thailand. 5) the only guarantee that you will be able to do something tomorrow is to have already done it today or yesterday ???? 6) one less thing to do at the airport

That's not my understanding of how it works. I believe what are being quoted are marginal interest rates. So for example, if I have 800,000 baht in the Mee Tae Dai account the first 100,000 baht earns 1.1% interest APR, the next 900,000 baht earns 0.9%. So, if you had 2,000,999 baht in the account, first 100,000 baht earns 1.1%, next 1,900,000 earns 0.9%, and the last 999 baht earns only 0.5%. Interest rates quoted from Krungsri Bank: https://www.krungsri.com/Krungsri2020/media/Banking-Rate/deposit-rates/en/deposit-rates-21042565-en.pdf

First of all one sets up to the maximum extent possible "paperless" preferences with all your correspondent businesses. The volume of snail mail is very small, but not zero. From financial institutions it is mostly new credit cards, which you can have forwarded to you unopened or have it opened and scanned per your choice and then forwarded. I don't receive bank statements by snail mail. Second, even letters that do contain account numbers, etc., often don't show the entire number, masking most of the number and showing only the last four digits for instance. In the 10 years I've been with travelingmailbox.com I've not had any problems. Finally, I guess I'm more comfortable with staff at a virtual mailbox who handle hundreds of scans per day and to whom I'm an impersonal box number looking at my personal information than I would friends or family, which is my only alternative.

I'm a satisfied user of this service for over 10 years. You can get a Florida address (Tallahassee) for an extra charge. I successfully opened a Charles Schwab Checking account using my virtual mailbox address from Thailand. However, if anyone is really interested in whether the virtual address is a residential address or not (it's not) they can easily find out from the USPS. In other words, Schwab could have easily determined that my address was not residential, but they didn't do so (at the time, this was several years ago). So, if the virtual address satisfies a bank it's down to the bank not really being interested enough to check.

As the OP is American he should know that US passport renewal takes about 2-3 weeks, and is handled entirely by mail by US Embassy Bangkok. Very easy to do this: https://th.usembassy.gov/u-s-citizen-services/passports/adult-passport-renew/

Value Plus at Central Festival in Phuket Town (4th floor banking zone in the old Central Mall Building, standalone booth amongst all the banks). Other branches around Phuket. https://www.google.com/search?q=value plus phuket&oq=value+plus+phuket

https://www.foodforforeignersthailand.com/ https://www.facebook.com/FFFFoodForForeigners/

The Mee Tae Dai savings account at Krungsri Bank is what I use for my 800k baht (0.9% APR interest). My branch is small and usually I go in on one day to request the letter and 12-month bank statement and pick it up when the bank opens the next day. They can produce it while you wait but actually I rather like the way they do it as I don't wait at the bank very long at all. Bangkok Bank on the other hand took a little over a week for the statement to be ready.

Interesting recent news out of Phuket: https://www.thephuketnews.com/expats-caught-up-in-phuket-visa-scams-face-being-forced-to-leave-the-country-84812.php

Interesting about Kasikorn dispersing up to 50k baht. I haven't tried it. Know that Krungsri Bank's limit per transaction is 30 bills or 30,000 baht and Bangkok Bank's is 25 bills or 25,000 baht. Using the Charles Schwab card I have a per withdrawal/daily limit of $1,000 USD so wouldn't be able to take full advantage of the Kasikorn capacity unless there's a marked change in the USD-THB exchange rate. ????

In my experience I am able to take up to $1,000 equivalent out of Krungsri Bank ATM (maximum of 30,000 baht) in a single withdrawal, so in my case that is my single withdrawal and daily withdrawal maximum with Schwab ATM Debit card. This is the "High-yield" checking account.

Yes, but was able to open one from Thailand using a US virtual mailbox address (CMRA called Traveling Mailbox). US citizen. Schwab could have determined it was a Commercial Mail Receiving Agency rather than a residential address but they didn't investigate. This was about 7 years ago.

AEON is only 150 baht/withdrawal with foreign ATM card, which is the cheapest in Thailand except possibly using your CitiBank card at the CitiBank ATMs in Bangkok if you have a foreign CitiBank account.

Charles Schwab does, full reimbursement shows up at the end of the month in my account. There are no known limits to how often, but am limited to 1,000 USD/day by CS.

As stated, make sure you really "have" to use an agent and are not using one simply because it's "easy" or "convenient" or "all the cool kids are doing it" because sometimes it ends all rather badly. https://www.thephuketnews.com/expats-caught-up-in-phuket-visa-scams-face-being-forced-to-leave-the-country-84812.php

The current ATM withdrawal fee in Thailand for foreign ATM Debit cards is 220 baht. You pay the same fee if it's a Charles Schwab or Fidelity card, but you will get reimbursed for the full amount of the fee. In the case of CS you get reimbursed once a month (if needed) toward the end of the month. This article explains some alternatives if you don't have a card that will reimburse you the ATM fees: https://ramblingj.com/how-can-i-avoid-atm-fees-in-thailand-3/

Update: https://www.thephuketnews.com/expats-caught-up-in-phuket-visa-scams-face-being-forced-to-leave-the-country-84812.php?fbclid=IwAR0GePPllQJxEp2E_V8A1CfSTjq4sUNL_GpiYZtJmzCRBgkfIDjdkRC5EWo

Cardless ATM Withdrawal at SCB Instructions: https://www.scb.co.th/en/personal-banking/digital-banking/scb-easy/how-to/cardless.html I believe the ATM Debit card you can get from SCB is a Mastercard and costs annually something like 200-300 baht.

I got an ATM Debit card for my SCB EZ Savings Account and I'm not a Thai citizen (just a retirement extension holder). As an aside: I think it's possible to use an SCB ATM without an ATM card: https://www.scb.co.th/en/personal-banking/digital-banking/scb-easy/cardless-atm-info.html

It can seem like they ask for all passport pages, but really all they are interested in is the following: Copies from following passport pages: Detail page Current visa/extension All extensions from last Non-O visa or transfer stamp to new passport. (If applicable) Last entry stamp TM6 departure card Passport size picture.\ Item 4 can be a long chain if you're working with years of extensions and encompass many pages. That's why I was pleased that they seem to draw the line at your newest passport, which has been pointed out has the information relating to your original visa in the stamps that are transferred from the old passport.

Can confirm that they want all three of these at Phuket: Signed and stamped bank letter AND Signed and stamped bank statement showing the required money and duration before application date. Copy updated Thai bank book name page and last 12 months transactions. (aquire all bank papers and update bankbook on the day of the application or the application can be denied) Please make sure that all papers have the same balance mentioned https://piv-phuket.com/long-stay-extensions/retirement/

Good report, thanks! One point of clarification: I was able to get a retirement extension with just my new passport (which only had the stamps transferred from the old passport). However, advisable to bring your old passport just in case. Better to have things you don't use, than to need things you don't have. ????

Thank you for all the replies. It turns out I have a 1,000 Mbps download and 500 Mbps upload speed plan from CAT for 890.00 baht/month. It looks like there are 1,542 more different plans than there need to be but thanks to the previous suggestions I think I've narrowed it down to the following (in order of desirability). Note: all of these plans offer download speed of 1,000 Mbps and upload speed of 500 Mbps: 1) AIS has a fiber optic plan called "2 Power4 GIGA Special II" for 529.50 baht/month. Requires a 2 year contract and comes with the following free extras: Get a new SIM number, AIS Unlimited, Speed 10 Mbps, free calls to all networks, 200 minutes. AIS PLAYbox box, PLAY Family for 24 months, VIU Premium for 12 months. 2) True "Gigatex PRO CYOD" for 399.00 baht/month (Note: CYOD means that you have to purchase a router, available from True for 1,690 baht.). Requires a 1 year contract. (The annual cost of this plan is 6,478 baht, while that for AIS is only 6,354 baht.) 3) TOT "MAX DFiber" for 590.00 baht/month. 4) 3BB "GIGAFiber" for 700.00 baht/month. Seems like an easy choice at the moment. One seems to get a lot of extras with the AIS plan (phone data plan and calls, PLAY Family and VIU Premium TV). Doesn't seem like the 2 year contract is a bad deal with the 529.50 baht/month price tag. There are cheaper plans available at slower speeds but since I've become accustomed to 1,000/500 Mbps, it didn't seem advisable to downgrade just to save even more money. Hoping to be able to port my existing phone number from DTAC to AIS with option 1. Thanks again for the advice!