radjag

I was holding the return half of an EVA Business ticket SEA/TPE/BKK. I was very pleased that EVA honored the ticket and sent me confirmation emails quickly.

I booked an LSQ in Pattaya, very fast and professional response, no deposit required till my COE is approved.

I got insurance online.

At the time of my application online to the Washington DC Thai embassy site existing Retirement Extensions were not mentioned, so I assumed that I would have to take a TR visa and sort out my Retirement Extension once I got to home in Pattaya. 

I got an email confirming that my application had been automatically transferred to the LAX Consulate and would get a call or email within 7 to 15 working days.

A few days later this forum reported that  Retirement Extensions were deemed OK, so I sent an email to the LAX consulate seeking clarification and attaching photos of my passport details and visa stamp pages.

I have heard nothing more, getting nervous!

Anybody successfully got a CoE (and/or TR Visa) from the LA Consulate very recently?

I submitted my application online 9 working days ago. No response so far. Starting to get nervous. I have tickets, ASQ, evidence of funds, insurance, all as then required.

I very much doubt that acquiring a fresh passport with the same name and other details will "cover your tracks".

It is quite hard for me to meet all of the requirements for an O-A or O-X here in USA. I am a UK passport older and because of COVID have become a "documented illegal" so asking a Federal Bureau to give me documentation is problematic.

So, I will submit an application for a TR visa as soon as I get my ALQ hotel confirmation, I've now got everything else in hand. Fingers crossed.

I will try to renew/replace my Retirement Extension as soon as I clear Quarantine. If that turns out to be impossible, so be it, I will extend as long as I can beyond 90 days then, hopefully, return to USA. Once I am "legal" again in USA I could then apply for an O-X in due course.

OK, Peter, thanks for that clarification.

If that is the case then I shall just apply for a TR Visa and COE. Once I get all of the papers together I shall submit and see how it goes from there.

From what I've read this morning, it appears that my current Retirement Extension is still valid and I only need a CoE, but that remains to be proven. I'm waiting for confirmation of flights, ASQ hotel and, most importantly, Insurance from LMG in BKK. Once I get all of that I will submit the application online for a CoE and will then see whether I actually need a fresh visa or not. 

If I have to get a fresh TR visa and that automatically invalidates my existing Retirement Extension that is still OK. As UbonJoe has stated, I will then just have to start again at IO Jomtien, get 90 days then extend. A PITA, but not outrageous.

My pal in BKK also just warned me to be careful about potentially booking an ASQ in Pattaya (there are now 3 listed on one of the latest ASQ lists I've seen) because TAT stated last week (reported in the BKK Post) that only ASQ hotels in BKK are permitted. I'm trying to verify that now.

John - Piscis,

Wow, thanks. I had just started filling in online application on the Thai Embassy in Washington site, but there does not appear to be a "save" option.

I will now shift to the site you refer.

Great. Thanks.

I tried to call the Visa Section at the Thai Embassy in Washington DC this morning, several times, did not pick up.

Based upon the very helpful advice above I am going to simply apply for a TR visa and try to get back to Thailand in December. Hopefully I can then renew my Non-B Retirement Extension at my local Immigration Department as usual in early January.

Fingers crossed!

I just went to the link provided by Ubonjoe.

I then clicked on the "application here" button. That brought me to the first page of the application procedure. It states as follows:-

============================================

Currently, the following types of visas are NOT permitted to enter Thailand: Transit passengers (TS), Sports visa holders (S), Monks and other religious visa holders (R) and their spouses or children, Volunteers (O), and non-formal students visa holders (such as language schools, diving schools, boxing schools). 

Due to a high number of infection rate, the APEC card holders and the applicants who are currently in the USA and wish to obtain Special Tourist Visa (STV) do not fall under the categories that could enter Thailand at the moment, please check back regularly for any updates.

============================================

I will try to call the Embassy tomorrow to seek clarification - the wording is not perfectly explicit, but, as best that I can judge, I am not currently permitted to apply for an STV in USA due to the high level of COVID here (even though it is a documented fact that the COVID rate in the State and County where I reside is not high).

I only just got to read the replies - sorry I am not familiar with this Forum's system.

Thanks to all of you, particularly to Peter Denis - those Insurance Guidance documents are very helpful.

OK, so my current Retirement Visa "Extension" is useless. I cannot apply for an O-A in USA. I am really not keen on going to UK to hang out in a hotel (in a high COVID area) for several weeks waiting to get an O-A there.

I thought that Singapore might be an option - but now I realise that as a non-Singaporean or PR there, I cannot apply to the Thai Embassy in Singapore.

I read about a European guy who went to Cambodia and found a way to get an STV (or some other type of permit) and entered Thailand from there, but that all sounds a bit "iffy" and my Thai missus is not keen at all on me getting stuck in Cambodia!

No doubt there are many, many others in much worse predicaments than me, but I'm not looking forward to a winter in USA.

I'm in USA (in a relatively low-COVID area). I want to return to Thailand soonest - my O visa expires on 09Jan21 and I'd like to renew it in Chonburi if possible.

Unfortunately I only have a "common law" relationship with my Thai wife of more than 30 years and all of our property in Thailand is in her name, so I most likely cannot meet the requirements for a "Spouse" permit. (I do have more than sufficient funds in Thai bank accounts to meet the financial criteria). The "Rules" suggest that only OA Visas are suitable (the YouTube video from the US Lawyer in BKK clarified the difference between an O and an OA - good job), but COVID related rules and decisions seem to be changing on an almost daily basis.

Will the Thai Embassy in USA process my application and issue to me a COE if I comply with all of the insurance and other requirements?

I will be contacting the Embassy, but thought it worthwhile to ask here first.

Overseas travel and tourism has boomed in China in the past 10 years or so along with all of their general economic growth. Yes, most of the tour bus loads of Chinese we all see in Pattaya/Phuket are very likely on their first ever overseas trip. They are often herded around by the "zero dollar" tour operators, but that poor treatment very quickly gets reported back through social media which has become very popular amongst average Chinese. The smaller groups of independent tourists are most likely on their second + visit and know better what they want and how to get it. But there is an almost endless supply of first timers, nowadays more often from the Provincial Cities - like Wuhan!

The Chinese outnumber everyone else on the planet and so yes, of course, they become the dominant group in every tourism market. Australia is usually swamped (bush fires and now the virus are a double whammy), cruise liner fulls swamping Venice, etc., etc. It is not likely to change anytime soon.

Currently my bank (Krungsri) permits online transfers of up to USD10k (converted from Baht at prevailing rate) per day. There is already a requirement to provide name and address details of both sender and receiver (in my case, usually one and the same name, different addresses). We'll see how/whether this proposed change works out. Hope that it is simply photo ID at both ends (my bank here has a copy of my passport on file and it is easy to provide similar photo ID for the other end which could also be put on file. Hopefully, the banks will organise the admin of the new rules and it will be relatively painless. Fingers crossed.

I've read several threads on this subject - then did some serious foot-slogging to check things out.

Best place by far - IMHO - is in MEGA PLAZA Wangburapa on the north corner of Yaowarat Road and Chakphet Road intersection in Chinatown. Easiest way to get there is to take the MRT to Hua Lamphong then walk about 20 minutes (or grab a Tuk-Tuk, motorcycle, taxi, etc).  There are several stores selling Airsoft stuff, in amongst dozens of specialist kid's toy shops. There is a McDonalds on the ground floor.

BIgGun at A346 on 3rd Floor is excellent, the staff can speak a little English and they will order for you if not in stock.

BB Gun Smith at A280 on 2nd floor is a repair shop with a lot of spare parts and the owner seems to be quite experienced - doesn't speak English, but take you broken gun there and I'm sure that he will figure it out.

Nearby there is an arcade known as Klong Thom Corner on Charoen Krung Road opposite Charoen Krung 15 Alley. There are several market stalls and three or four good shops. There is a specialist optics shop with the best selection of scope sights, red dots, lasers, etc., that I've seen. Also nearby is the Old Siam Plaza on Burapha Road which is the centre of the "real gun" district. Lots of interesting shop windows to look at, but they don't really appreciate foreigners and generally don't stock airgun or BB stuff. Although there are several street stalls with gun optics on offer. I walked all around the original Klong Thom centre, but did not find any stalls selling gun stuff. It is a serious PITA to walk around that market, very cramped and difficult to remember which alleys you've already checked - forget it! There are several street stalls along Yaowarat Road offering very cheap Airsoft BB guns, but mostly just rubbish, IMHO.

Seacon Square on Srinakharin Road has an area called Klong Thom  at the north end under the cinema. There are several stalls, best one is right at the entrance of that area (immediately above the Dairy Queen). If you are driving, get into the underground car park and try to park in zones 21 or 22 towards the north end. Take the escalator up two floors into the mall then another two floors up past the DQ. Good selection of stuff, but probably a little more expensive than ChinaTown.

On the West side of Vibhavardi Rangsit Road inside an Army facility is the First Airsoft Shop (with a gaming range next door). There is an entrance with armed guards about 250m north of the Veterans General Hospital. Just drive in and then turn right, the shop is on the right next to a soccer goods store. Good selection, friendly service and a little English spoken. Reasonable prices. 

Happens that I rode the Skytrain in BKK a few times today. It was busy. I could not help noticing that several female Thai's adjacent to me spent the entire time flipping through photos - mostly of themselves - selfish narcissism at it's finest!

As for the comment about loss of productive work hours. Please!! Do me a favour. In my experience, sadly, most Thai's who work in office/retail spend most of their working hours doing absolutely nothing productive all day. OK, I admit that such staff get paid peanuts and have almost zero chance of career progression. And, BTW, this same story could equally well be applied to China, Indonesia and most other countries in Asia.

Chonsawat was previously into racing cars - it was reported in the BKK Post that he owns dozens of luxury cars. I wonder whether AMLO or Customs will take a look at the registration and tax records of those - I doubt it.

I banked with HSBC Offshore (and also HSBC in Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, China, Australia and USA at various times) for over 30 years. The bureaucracy and ineptitude progressively got worse.

When HSBC sold their retail operation in Thailand to BAY Krungsri I was quite upset, but it turned out to be a godsend. My HSBC Thailand relationship manager moved over to BAY and very quickly organised for me a Platinum VISA card and all of the accounts I need (both in Baht and US$). Service is excellent - much, much, much better than HSBC, even though it is generally their old staff.

I have now closed all of my HSBC accounts in several countries and will never darken their doors again.

IMHO.

The best quality boxed wine is the Mar Sol brand from Chile. It seems to be 100% real wine (rather than a wine/juice blend that is in most of the other boxes). The white is particularly good.

Price is about THB900 for a 4litre box. Available in Foodland and, sometimes, Big C. I have noticed that it is often out of stock, so must be popular.

A few others have mentioned the BOI tax breaks.

I have been told that Triumph did not get their application for BOI priviledges quite right when they originally started their factories in Thailand. At that time no-one was manufacturing any bikes bigger than 200cc here and the market for big bikes was very small. The Japanese (notably Kawasaki first I believe) who have huge production operations here anyway, were able to commence big bike production and their BOI licenses permitted them to sell to the domestic market directly.

I guess that it is not easy to amend a BOI licence. Seems that Triumph have now been able to do that.

A few days ago I posted a message asking whether other users in Pattaya were experiencing slow service during the past few weeks.

I got several immediate responses - thanks to all. But, sadly, most of the responses were not helpful.

I was away for a couple of days. When I got home and checked my system this afternoon, lo and behold, the bandwidth was back up to > 700kbs. Excellent!!!

For the record. Amnex TT&T is, as far as I can reasonably ascertain, a legitimate Internet Service Provider. I receive monthly printed statements by normal (snail) mail. I go to pay those monthly bills at the TT&T office on the Big C floor of the big mall half way down Pattaya Klang. There are ad's for their service and examples of the ADSL modem on display there. It costs ~THB630/mth for unlimited use (within the available bandwidth of course). Their system simply uses the existing home phone copper wire. Phone can be used normally, both incoming and outgoing calls, only minor issue is that when you lift the receiver to make an outgoing call there is some background hiss, but that stops when a call is connected.

The service is not perfect. During the night time it seems to work well. But during the daytime there are are some interruptions and the bandwidth is not steady. At the time of writing this I am seeing 710kB/s. Which is more than enough for me.

One year ago I checked with True and BBB, they both advised me that they could not run a line into my home, even though our moobahn is close to Sukhumvit in the middle of Pattaya. Maybe it is to do with the moobahn administrators - I don't know.

The Amnex/TT&T agent came to my home, provided and installed an ADSL WiFi modem free of charge and it has worked OK ever since. I just pay the ~THB630 every month. It is not possible to set up an online payment, so have to go to Big C once a month, but that is actually no big hardship.

So, for those who state vehemently that TT&T is not an internet service provider - nonsense!!!!

I do not care to go research the ownership and organisation of the TT&T. I just use their service and pay accordingly - till it stops - TIT.

Up until about two months ago I used to get a steady 400kbs or faster download speed via my Amnex TT&T ADSL connection (over a normal copper line phone connection) and was quite satisfied with that for reasonable price and simple installation. Whilst not blazing fast, it was good enough to keep up with my demand over night.

Recently I don't see speeds above about 150kbs and there are many interruptions. I am located near Pattaya Klang.

Is it only me??