BritTim

It sounds as though you have a tough office. Demanding a criminal records check for a retirement extension is especially unusual.

Flexible tickets that allow flight changes are expensive these days. It is possible to buy "fully refundable" tickets, but they are not really "fully refundable". There are always some costs, and you need to pay for a very expensive ticket up front then wait months for a refund. By all means do your research, but the results are going to disappoint you.

Single entry tourist visa (60 days) and 30-day extension at Immigration; or Enter Thailand visa exempt (30 days, 29 nights), short break outside Thailand, maybe somewhere like Siem Reap, return for a further 30-day visa exemption, if necessary, get an extension at Immigration.

A good starting point is https://www.skyscanner.co.th. Use From Thailand, To Anywhere, Depart Whole Month and click search. The results are not completely reliable but very useful for directing your research.

At many offices, they no longer require any for a retirement extension! I guess the official found you handsome, and wanted copies for her personal use. Seriously, which office was this?

You meet the requirements for residence to apply for an e-visa from the UK. You will usually want to ensure that you apply for a Non O visa, and not a Non O-A (long stay) visa. The latter has onerous initial and ongoing requirements.

As a practical matter, that is usually the way it works. However, another immigration office is allowed to do it when you require some service from them, and you have moved your place of residence across the country. The new immigration office just needs to coordinate the stamp transfers with the office that originally issued them. Since this is a hassle, most immigration offices will only do this under extreme circumstances (such as when they are provided financial incentives).

The commonest misconception about Thai immigration is that the visa and permission to stay are directly linked. That is not the case. A visa is used to get an initial permission to stay after which the visa can be ignored. Subsequently, you do not extend "visas", you extend "temporary permissions to stay". A one-year permission to stay in Thailand is a completely different animal from a Non O visa you could use to enter Thailand, receiving a 90-day permission to stay. A Non O visa (dependant) will not usually be issued based on their spouse having a Non O visa entitling them to a short (90-day) visit to Thailand. When you have a long-term permission to stay, your spouse is eligible for a Non O visa as your dependant, and future one-year extensions of the initial 90-day permission to stay from entering with the visa.

In my experience, Vientiane is the friendliest nearby location for visas. They probably would not give a Non O visa (dependant) to your wife if you just had a Non O visa. However, I assume you are on a one-year extension based on retirement, right? In that case, it is normal for the Non O (dependant) visa to be issued if you meet other criteria. The main one will be financials, and (to answer the obvious next question) no, I am not sure exactly what they will require. A big bank balance is easiest.

Yes. I personally think you could successfully apply for the Non O visa in Vientiane, as long as you have a healthy bank balance, but I cannot back that up with recent examples. Changing the reason for your permission to stay in Thailand is done all the time. The strategy I would employ in your position would be to try for the Non O visa in Vientiane, falling back on the visa exemption and Non Ed if (I think unlikely) it should prove necessary.

I am quite sure he was not a troll. I saw the raw emails which would have been extremely difficult to fake.

What the agent is suggesting is perfectly legal, and you could do it yourself without using an agent. The rule for an extension of stay based on being a dependant requires that you are on a Non Immigrant entry. It does not matter which Non Immigrant visa you originally used. Thus, Non Ed visa (90 day permission to stay) and one 90-day extension. After that the one-year extensions as your dependant.

Years ago, Thailand decided to construct its immigration laws to limit the opportunities for corruption by officials. Part of this was creating firm rules for when you would be granted entry to the country and when you would be denied entry. However, visa exempt entry has long been an issue. Many attempts have been made to devise clear-cut rules that eliminate what the authorities perceive as misuse of visa exemptions by long stay tourists (for instance, limiting them to 90 days in each six month period). These all proved too complex or otherwise flawed and were promptly dropped. The current rules, enforced for a few years now, is to have a firm rule of only two visa exempt entries per calendar year when entering by land (no discretion for officials that can be used to extort bribes) but give officials at airports discretion to decide if you are using visa exempt entries appropriately. The general guidelines they are told to follow is preventing back-to-back visa exemptions from being used to stay longer than is compatible with regular tourism. However, a former prime minister instructed that these guidelines should be enforced "flexibly". The result, as far as long stay tourists is concerned, is that entering visa exempt by land is safe (as long as you only do this twice per year). Entering visa exempt by air is subject to the discretion of the immigration officials. Different airports and different officials vary in how strict they are in "preventing abuse".

As long as you have both passports, and return before the expiry date specified on your re-entry permit, there should be no issue with the airline or airport immigration. Since you, presumably, intend applying for a further extension of your permission to stay, it will be important that your girlfriend does a TM30 notification.

He has not been on AseanNow for over two weeks.

The requirement (often, but not always, enforced by airlines) to have an onward flight within 30 days when planning to enter without a visa has long existed. It has nothing to do with the recent suspension of the TM6 entry/departure card for airport arrivals. The date stamp on the TM6 departure section just duplicates what is already on the entry stamp placed in your passport. What the suspension of TM6 at airports might have done is contributed to the stricter enforcement of TM30 notifications. The TM6 arrival section had a field for your address in Thailand which used to make the TM30 somewhat superfluous.

The OP has heard the various, widely divergent opinions on how he should live his life, and whether he should consider a long distance relationship with his family as real. I do not think further discussion is going to help him. It is up to him now to make his own decisions. This thread is CLOSED

When an application is taken "under consideration", it is pretty common for the documents not to be returned to the local office by the report back date. The addition of an app is not going to improve the efficiency of Division headquarters. Unless you have a need for urgent travel, just try to relax and wait it out.

The airline check in staff can check that you have a valid reservation. They are unable to check whether that ticket will be cancelled 24 hours later. That is the basic mechanism under which the better ticket rental services are operating. It has worked for years, and the airlines have no incentive to crack down on a system that makes them money.

Which document do you think you need to fill out when you go to Immigration to register, and what kinds of supporting documents do you think they will ask for?

I am pretty impressed that, because you are younger, you are able to competently teach your children violin, drums and taekwondo. Do you home school them also? Surely, you would not pay anyone else to help teach your children.

See https://warsaw.thaiembassy.org/en/publicservice/e-visa-application?page=618bbdb022204467e33f4702&menu=635e8099df94dd17f3489183 There is a lot of outdated information on the Warsaw embassy's site.

Take out a short term loan of 40,000 baht near the end of the month. Repay the loan once you have the monthly statement.

I take this to mean that, if the officials like what you are doping, it is OK. Clearly, "for the benefit of" is not an objective qualification.

I assume you are under age 50. If not, see if you qualify for the superior LTR-WP (Long Term Resident Wealthy Pensioner) visa instead. Changing from a permission to stay based on working (it is not a visa, Non B or otherwise) to a permission to stay based on investment is possible. The permission to stay based on working is cancelled at BOI with the effective date of termination a couple of weeks in the future (coordinate with the employer to ensure this). You then apply for a new extension of stay at ChaengWattana immigration. I am unfamiliar with agents assisting investment extensions. Maybe, your contacts at BOI have suggestions. If all else fails, Siam Legal is almost certainly one (horribly expensive) option.