Digitalbanana

which will make airlines even more concerned about pax without visa/tickets.

Agreed. I checked with Air Asia before boarding this recent flight to BKK if an onward ticket was needed with no visa in a UK pp, and they said it wouldn't be a problem and let me on. Maybe different for Indonesians on the same flight though. There certainly are not any signs in BKK airport listing this as a requirement. No pink paper signs seen mentioned in earlier posts on this thread.

Just to confirm what one member has already mentioned. All the Immigration entry booths have a new Yellow A4 sheet posted prominently stating the following requirements for entry:

1. Passport

2. Arrival/Departure card

3. Boarding pass

4. Return ticket/e-ticket

I would hazard a guess and say that requirement 4 only pertains to entries without visa. Both my Filipino companion and I had tourist visas and were not asked to show return tickets. We entered on June 1.

What nationality are you, where did you come from and are you talking about BKK airport? I came through 4th June and saw none of what you say. Only items 1-3 in your list were asked for and posted on a sign at the immigration check in. I was arriving on a 30 day visa exempt entry on an Air Asia flight with a UK pp with no onward ticket? So IMHO this whole thread has unnecessarily created a wrong warning signal. As far as I saw the situation at BKK airport is completely unchanged. The immigration staff were all very efficient and helpful. Luckily I didn't waste money beforehand buying an unnecessary onward ticket, as I am not sure where I get to fly to next - depends on where my overseas company will send me? One should take what one reads on these forums with a pinch of salt it seems?

For those doing back to back Jack Golf type visa runs won't it be simpler to buy the follow up visa run trip at same time as first and show that as your onward ticket out the country 30 days hence, at least for the 2nd visa run?

they dont scrutanise the printed ticket,, they just check that its a confirmation and the DATE, (that its within 30 days)

How do they check this? With airlines on computer terminals or just eyeballing the e-ticket printout you hand them? If the latter, it's hardly worth the time or effort is it as the check is as valueless as the paper it is written on?

I did exactly that only a couple of months ago.. Took my passport that I didnt use for entry to Thailand up to BKK.. Showed them there was only 1.5 pages spare.. Made an application and paid the money.. Fresh clean new passport with no notes or other passport numbers EMS'ed to my Phuket home I think 4 days later.

I hold 2 passports from the UK but they never asked or mentioned it.

Ah ok. I went last year and was told to produce a company headed letter explaining need for a second passport even though I had used two for several years before they would proceed. Faxes and copies of said letter not allowed then. It also took them 10 working days = two weeks inc weekends to process as for any pp so you must have been lucky with 4 days?

A Thai passport lasts ONLY 5 years and costs 1,500 baht I believe….inside Thailand.

So what’s the problem paying 180 quid for a 10 year passport issued outside the UK …..?

These 10 YEAR 32 page pp's don't last anywhere near that time in reality. Mine is usually full in 3-4 years of stamps.

I always smile and grit my teeth at the same time when the kind immigration official untidily stamps half the page wasting a lot of space around the small rubber stamp mark and money when I pass through. I only get 25 usable pages in the new 32 page bio passport as the rest is full of pp jargon. I wonder also how the UK embassy justifies the large price mark up for additional 16 pages for the 48 page version at 10,368baht? Is the paper that expensive or are there any extra expenses involved in giving me a larger pp that I might manage to fill over 5 years out of the 10? I miss the days of my 2 old 90 page black passports, I couldn't fill those bstrds :-)

One assumes at airports this is done on a selective basis as is common in other countries where ethnicity and passenger origin are the main deciding factors? They are more likely to check someone looking less well off than a visiting business type? At Aranypratet borders everyone is treated as third class?

and for an outbound ticket within 30 days (closely checked).

Just curious how do the immigration guys closely check this? Not that I am advising breaking any laws but with all the computer generated e-tickets these days it must be easy to fake one? Are they actually checking with airlines? If not the whole process seems superfluous?

Hence why I would always plan ahead and 'flip' my aging / filling up passport to a empty one BEFORE getting a new one here in Thailand.. Then theres no issue with immigration as the full passport does not have my current entry and exit chops.. No visits to any immigration needed and no trail..

You just have to think about what your doing..

I always think about what I am doing ;-)

If you try and renew a second pp (at the UK embassy in BKK at least) that wasn't used to enter Thailand you will need, in addition, an authorizing document explaining the requirement for the second pp renewal.

I have multiple passports.. And of the multiple PP's they are all replacing previous full passports.. None of them have any indication that they are either a second passport or the number of the passport they have replaced..

My embassy doesn't indicate second or renewed pp's but if a foreign pp is renewed whilst in Thailand a trip to Thai immigration is needed for the current Thai immigration stamp to be transferred to the new pp and Thai Immigration then write in the new pp the old pp number and immigration stamp source.

Just curious if there is a system or meaning to the colour highlight pen swipes that immigration officials apply to visa exempt stamps? I have had greens and one yellow so far? Are there any other colours and what do they all mean to an immigration official?

My last colour was yellow, does that mean I get one more go?

In this weeks Stick Mark II?

>>At this stage it is a rumour, and I repeat that, JUST A RUMOUR, but a leak from the Thai embassy in London suggests that the whole visa on arrival / visa exemption system currently in place for visitors to Thailand may be abolished altogether. If that was the case it would mean that EVERY person visiting Thailand would require a visa i.e. you would have to go to a Thai embassy or consulate outside of Thailand and apply for a visa, before entering the country. For a country which receives well in excess of 10 million visitors a year, this could turn out to be an administrative nightmare and it has the potential to put people off visiting Thailand in favour of somewhere else. Can you imagine the queues at Thai missions around the world? Time will tell if this rumour becomes reality.

The problem is that it is against the law to secure a new visa unless the farang himself or herself shows the passport for checking and validation at a Thai airport or border post. Using third parties is a no-no.

Does anyone have the actual legal document wording that covers this law?

As far as I know one can courier a passport out of Thailand to obtain visas for other countries that do not have embassies in Thailand and then get them returned - but just not for Thailand itself?

All good info, but unfortunately doesn't answer the thread question. Anyone else have an answer? I usually just fly Air Asia as I cannot be bothered anymore.

Last time I went (on a thursday) the gates opened at 9.00 AM ...

Pickup is from the gatehouse next morning at 11 ish, done in less than a minute

Thanks, sounds a breeze, I'll be there in a fortnight.

and avoid mondays its usually pretty quick.

Are Mondays queues that bad? What about other days? How long a wait is expected, what times to get there by for a TV?

Below copy pasted from Stickmans weekly. Make of it what you will.

In what I truly believe is the most confusing of all of the new visa regulations implemented so far - and don't even start to think they have finished - it would seem the visa on arrival - that is the 30 day stamp - is limiting not just in terms of the number of days you stay in a 180 day period, but by the 180 day period itself. This is a little confusing so please bear with me. We know that in a 180 day period you can only stay a maximum of 90 days. That part is easy to understand. What is not clear is that this first visa on arrival essentially creates a "block", and you cannot stay beyond the end of that block. At the end of the 180 days, you MUST leave the country. You can return and a new block would commence. Here's an example. You enter Thailand on October 1st and get a 30 day stamp. That means that the end of the 180 day period is March 27. If you leave Thailand and then return on March 24, you will only be allowed to stay for 3 days at which point you will have to exit the country! It doesn't matter that you didn't exceed the 90 days in 180 day period. This incredibly confusing rule is going to trip up many people and force people who have never even heard the term "visa run" to make a mad dash to the border to remain legal. And of course some visitors to the Kingdom won't even notice that they have only been given a limited number of days in country and will inevitably overstay. Madness, just madness. To really make things worse, the enforcement of the latest round of visa rules seems to be inconsistent. I can only imagine that the poor Immigration officers are confused themselves!

I myself have previously overstayed not by that much though, i think the imm officers caught on to this and this is why overstay money got raised, the more people that do it the money will keep rising.

So it was all your fault?

But Thai Immigration told me that they do not have the time to count the days especially when there are alot of Tourists queuing.

If this is true, which I find hard to believe, perhaps turning up with a printed calculation of your allowable days will help these retards out? If not then one hopes their superiors can be referred to to resolve the issue at the time?

I always put No Income. If they ever ask, which they haven't, I will say it relates to the income I make in Thailand which will be true. I see it as no ones business but my own. Heck, I don't even tell the Mrs!

If it was me, I'd leave the country and re-enter either on another TV or a visa exempt entry. The overstay has overruled all other options now. Perhaps others can confer?

I dont worry about getting caught, and I'm not "criminally" late anyway. I don't carry my passport for general ID and police never ask for it when I'm occassionally stopped along with other motorbike drivers just for routine checks.

I see a number of red alarm bells in the above statement,

1. You are taking a risk if the above is true. You ARE "criminally" overstaying so are at risk.

2. Not carrying a passport for ID is also illegal.

3. Getting stopped for routine checks on a bike makes points 1 and 2 above all the more worry some and should be corrected ASAP. Just MHO.

Cheers

Does anybody knows if it is possible to get a tourist visa (60 days) from Pattaya or Bangkok immigration ? I arrived in Thailand with a 30 days stay permit. But, now, I am ovr 90 days in Thailand, so if I go to Cambodia or Laos I might not be able to re-entry the kingdom and I will not get a new 30 days permit. I only need a 2 weeks extension.

If I go to Vientiane or Pnom Pen will it be possible to get that visa ?

I don't think they will but you can always try the immigration and ask for an extension for the 2 weeks you need. if they refuse you can then still go to get a visa as Lop suggested.

With a 60day overstay or more if they refuse, won't he be sent to a detention center?

She came up with 31 days, which I told her was incorrect,

or even get a real visa

If the OP had only 31 days (or less as implied by saying the Imm Officer was wrong) then there is no need for a real visa. Some of us have no time to hang around consulates applying for TV's, we are in and out of Thailand too much.

These are not normally extendable although if you have outgoing flight tickets and plead a lot you may get lucky with a 7 day extension, cost 1900 Baht.

I presume the above information is totally wrong?

Last time I went 30 day visa exempt extensions of 10 days were available for 1900B, though it sounds like only 7 days now from others posts, which may or may not be wrong>? Any definative answer please?