BritTim

It appears some (including myself) are concerned that, when applying for an e-visa, the embassy may start to take pains to check whether you are in the UK while applying. I personally see no prospect of Immigration at the airport trying to figure out if your visa was issued when not in the UK. Certainly, this kind of airport visa check has never been reported in the past.

Most of the issues that worry you do not apply when applying for a Non O visa for retirement through Immigration. If you do not intend to get a permanent address, that can be an issue. At many immigration offices, they will insist on seeing that you have a fixed address before issuing you with a visa or extension. However, they may accept an explanation that you are temporarily using hotels until you can find a suitable long term rental.

Is your statement about the checks by immigration at the airport based on personal experience? It is the first I have heard of such an issue. If denied entry, what reason under Section 12 of the Immigration Act is used in the denial stamp in your passport?

Do you already have a Thai bank account? Are you able to deposit 800,000 baht into that account? If the answer to both of those questions is "yes", you do not need an agent. The process to get the Non O visa on the basis of retirement, followed by the one-year extension, is pretty straightforward.

The original lifetime Elite membership was not really intended for those who simply want to vegetate in Thailand (though it is possible to use it for that purpose). It is ideal for frequent travellers who want to use Thailand as their base, but often travel to other countries. For these people, the very convenient entry without visas, limos and other benefits made it a wise purchase. For those who want to, I believe Thailand Elite will allow converting the old lifetime membership into a regular 20-year membership with the one-year entry stamps and extensions, but without most of the other perks.

I am replying to this because it contains a common and dangerous misconception. People tend to assume that the embassy/consulate are the experts on all things related to Thai officialdom, and especially immigration matters. THEY ARE NOT! They can tell you the requirements to apply for visas and other services they provide themselves. On anything else, if you are lucky, they may admit they do not know. Much worse, they will often give you a confident and totally wrong answer. Similarly, treat anything written on an embassy/consulate website with suspicion. It is often totally incorrect or 20 years out of date. The OP has received advice on a safe way to approach his issue: get a throwaway ticket or rental ticket. He may get on the flight without. (I have multiple times talked my way on without a requested onward flight ticket by assuring the airline supervisor that I will not be denied entry, and agreeing to sign an indemnification form. That was not with Finnair, and not recommended to those of a nervous disposition.)

The simple answer is, whether using a VPN or not, you might well succeed. There was one thread reporting success in applying for an eVisa while in Thailand. However, it is not something you are supposed to do. Further, one of the requirements in the application is to upload a copy of all stamps relating to visits to Thailand over the last year. If you satisfy that requirement, and the stamps are carefully scrutinised, your deception might be discovered.

The Thai e-visa system allows you to apply for essentially all visa types. There are a number of multiple entry visas if you can qualify for them. One is the multiple entry tourist visa (METV) which permits unlimited 60-day entries into Thailand for a period of six months after it is issued. It is possible to get over eight months stay out of an METV by using border bounces and, as is allowed for any 60-day entry, extending the last entry from just before visa expiry by 30 days at Immigration.

If you use the service they provide to make everything easy, you do not need a photo or to fill in the form yourself. You just need an extra 200 baht. However, there is nothing preventing you from downloading and filling out a form yourself in advance, along with providing your own photo. They will accept that.

Most Thailand Elite members do not have transferrable memberships. Those who do, and might be willing to sell, most often have the old lifetime memberships, and they expect pretty hefty offers to part with them.

There has never been any official rule limiting the number of entries with a visa or (at airports) visa exempt. Indeed, if you have a visa, the conditions under which you can be denied entry are clearly laid out in Section 12 of the Immigration Act. When entering visa exempt, officials at the airports have the power (more accurately, are ordered) to deny you entry if in their sole judgement you are abusing visa exemptions to stay longer in Thailand than is compatible with regular tourism.

No ... for denied entry (referred to as INAD: Inadmissible passenger) the airline that carried you to Thailand is ordered to take you out of Thailand as soon as possible. Most often, if you will be able to enter there, you will be taken back to the last airport where you boarded the flight to Thailand. This can be negotiable if you can get the airline representative to talk to you about it.

When you are entering visa exempt at an airport, the airport immigration has the same role as a consular official when applying for a visa. They are actually under instructions to screen those requesting visa exempt entry to judge if they are using the visa exempt entry to stay longer than is compatible with normal tourism. Obviously, that is very much open to interpretation by the officials. Airports vary a lot in how strictly they interpret those guidelines. Complaining that they denied visa exempt entry by following the instructions they have been given would be fruitless. Denying entry to those with visas issued by embassies/consulates is a very different matter. They are only supposed to do that pursuant to conditions specified in Section 12 of the Immigration Act. On this, immigration officials at some airports follow the law, and some do not. When they decide to deny entry improperly to those with visas, they pretend (in the system and documentation) that this is for one of the reasons specified in the Immigration Act, but they will verbally tell you their real (improper) reason.

As for a tourist visa from Seoul, I have not seen any recent reports. However, the rules back around 2018-2019 were that you could, in principle, apply. However, they would refuse to provide a tourist visa to someone who has recently been in Thailand as a tourist.

It is very unusual for Immigration to ask for proof of funds when doing a standard 30-day extension of a tourist entry (including visa exempt). I suspect he was looking for a 60-day "Covid" extension, rather than the virtually 100% automatic normal 30-day extension. If a normal extension, he should check into a hotel in another province for one night, and apply for the extension there. If he is looking for a "Covid" extension, someone here can probably advise on a good immigration office to use if we know his current location. There is an outside chance he might be on a Special Tourist Visa (STV). Special conditions apply when extending that, and the issue might be that he could not show the required insurance.

Yes, you can ... as long, as I wrote above, you can get your wife's signature on the required document copies before going to Savannakhet.

I think your best bet (if you cannot borrow 400,000 baht) is the multiple entry Non O from Savannakhet. Your wife does not need to go with you, but you need your marriage certificate, along with signed copies of that and your wife's id card. If your wife is unwilling to provide any assistance at all, usually a 5,000 baht to 10,000 baht offer will change their mind.

The extra competition for bargirls pushes up the prices. He apparently is under the impression that the Thai authorities are less informed about the Covid epidemic than he is, and their decision to make it easy for tourists to remain here is a mistake, based on the erroneous belief of the Thai cabinet that there are no international flights available from Bangkok at this time.

I cannot answer your questions directly. However, one of the moderators here, @CharlieH, has I know used this crossing in the past, and may be able to advise you. The distance between the Thai and Lao border posts is not that far. If you have a strong young person to push, it should should not be too difficult to get across in a wheelchair. Unlike with the Cambodian crossings, it is uncommon for an agent to be able to carry your passport across and back for stamps at Lao crossings. You need to actually go across yourself. One word of warning: back in 2019, it was announced that visa-on-arrival service was to be suspended at some remote crossings, including this one. (See https://laotiantimes.com/2019/10/18/nine-border-checkpoints-to-discontinue-visa-on-arrival-services/) Before going, you had better check that a visa-on-arrival is possible.

Most recent reports indicate that the bridge at Mae Sot remains closed, not because of Covid, but because of military conflicts on the Myanmar side. No one can predict how long the closure might last.

A Lao eVisa is only eligible for use at a few entry points. The bridge at Chiang Khong is not one of them.

Going for a tourist visa from HCMC is a decent plan. Doing that, in addition to avoiding entering Thailand via either of the Bangkok airports would be even better. There is a small risk of Immigration (improperly) denying entry with a tourist visa at the Bangkok airports. This has not been reported ever at Chiang Mai airport as far as I am aware. Also safe, twice per calendar year, is visa exempt entry at almost all land crossings. It is only at airports where there is close scrutiny of your immigration history.

Last year, when it appeared the STV scheme was going to end, there were announcements that new extensions based on entry with an STV would end on the same date that entry with STV visas ended. That does not mean the policy will be the same if issuing of STV visas is again extended. It is a bit of a worrying indication though.

The bus you took going from Vientiane to Udon also runs in the opposite direction. However, they will not allow you to take the bus going to Vientiane unless you already have a Lao visa. If you are not in a hurry, the Mukdahan to Savannakhet bus ticket includes the leg from the border to Savannakhet bus station. However, you might have to wait anything up to 30 minutes for a bus to come to pick you up.

The retirement extensions at Jomtien are dead easy. What can be a problem is the application for the Non O visa. A different set of officials handles that, and they have been known to be problematic. I hope all goes well.