JJBloke

Hi just a report fwiw after getting a TP-LINK MR100 mentioned above (the right solution for sure in our case) today after getting my head round the thread (JiD or Powerbuy Market Village 1590b):   get home to Cha Am/Hua Hin, put my AIS Sim in, it found the internet and great strong signal for streaming which is what we do...but my deal with AIS is a cheapo, they give me a quoted 2Mbps unlimited for 120/month (after seeing me spend nil for years lol), so the idea is get a proper prepaid pkg (or contract...) and it'll be vastly faster...(online speedetest says AIS best option round here and shop guy says same).... in fact we used the LAN out direct to the Android box option from the tp-link instead of the wifi

I've succeeded, after having the same problems as everybody reports. I've written up what I did on a new thread: I really think this should work, but apologies if there's anyone who it doesn't solve this for : 

That's good info about getting the 90 day Non O at consulates outside Thailand, and didn't know that was on the menu at Sav'kht.

Especially good for US citizens who don't want to open a foreign account and have all the f**ca stuff.

Interesting that it's CW that has the rep for making a fuss about source. It would be nice to know what % of applicants they pull up on this.

Anyway I'm well informed now, a bit wiser,

Cheers team!

OP here again. Brit who lives near CW, so easier to get things done there. I quite fancy a trip with no Embassy visit, possibly Mandalay, so not to go back to the old visa run days!

Thanks for all replies, thanks Joe, but no income to combine with.

So the seasoning can begin after the conversion, i.e. happen during the initial 90 Day Non O?  i.e. on conversion you just have to show that the funds are there, but see below about source of funds.

I do understand that, when beginning, the funds are supposed to be verified coming from overseas, I did have to do that before, and have seen some posts here about some offices being very fussy about that.

So I have wondered about when people get into this position and whether the history of the funds has to be dug up again . Some people void the extension by mistake for various reasons, not necessarily going below the 800k.

Thanks all

Hi, my extension is till Nov 7th, so the 800k has to be there from August 7th. I will have money coming in but it won't be till after Aug 7th so I'll have to void my extension and start again. Thinking of a little trip to Myanmar in November then back in on a 30 day stamp then start the process again.

1. Is it correct that I will first get a 90 Day Non-O on the day I get the conversion and then go back near the end of that for the full year? (Can't remember)

2. If that's right, do the funds only need to be there on the day of extension application and can 'season' during that 90 days ? (only 2 months required initially I know)

3. For the conversion, is it minimum 15 days or 21 that need to be remaining on the 30 Day stamp?

4. My main question: The amount transferred from abroad will be enough to top up my funds in the bank already, probably I'll transfer about 500k. Will I need to verify a second time that the amount already in my account came from abroad, which it did, about 2 years ago, or could that be inferred by the fact that I've had a retirement extension recently? Is there any difficulty getting a proof from K Bank from so long ago if that's what I need to do?

Thanks in advance for considering q's 1-4,

JJB

Monday 19th December 2016, went all the way over to Major Hollywood Suksawat to do a 90 day report w/o the hours of wait at CW. I got there, all the lights off, and 1 security guy outside who told me this was Day 1 of it being closed and showed a map to Big C Rat Burana where I could do the 90 day. I got a cab to there and there was a little office/area downstairs doing the reports (only 1 other non-Asian there besides me), process took about 40 mins. They also had a re-entry permit desk. Didn't know where the hell I was by then, another cab to get back across the river.

The staff were telling a few people about a new office for doing reporting about to be opened in Saphan Mai (which is Phahonyothin south of Don Muang), handy for me, and an alternative for anyone going to Chaeng Wattana as it's fairly near-ish to that. No visa extensions, only reports, let's be clear.

Anyone know how long Major Hollywood will be closed, is it permanent?

I don't remember the location they described for the Saphan Mai office, does any one know where that is/will be?

It's nice to see they're doing at least something to relieve the congestion at desk A in CW.

Merry Christmas all !

If someone enters on the 30 day visa exempt I know they can get another 30 days at local immigration office = 60 days

Would this allow sufficient time to do an O based on retirement ( thinking of the requirement that the money has to be in the bank account for 60 days ) ?

There is no seasoning requirement for the conversion. Since visa issued by conversion permits stay for 90 days, then there is ample time for the extension,

Good info, a bit more clarification pls:

So, you can season during the 90 days of the extension which you get at conversion, if I understand you.

For the conversion, do you still have to show the 800k is in a Thai Bank already (even if not yet for 60 days) and show proof from the Thai bank that it came from abroad,.... is that correct?

Thx from a 49 and 3/4 year old

PS: Can't find the edit button, but Cafe Chez Boon is in the square where it says "Old Market", also called Dalaat Dao Hooang

if you're asking someone the way

Tourist Map and tips For an Enjoyable Stay in Savannakhet

Hopefully attached below is the best tourist map available, it could do a with enlarging a bit, but can be read fairly easily. It shows the "Historic Walk" near to the old Consulate, the river, and Cafe Boon (which on the map is a grey block in the little square at the left hand end of Senna St, around the tour route and Catholic church etc)

The 2 day system is actually a bit more fun and relaxing than the 1 day.

Hotels: Tripadvisor is full of plaintive customers who booked though Agoda etc and were horrified to find sub-standard hotels with unattentive staff, who also took up to an hour to verify the existence of an online booking, if there were any staff there!. The prices seem to have been much higher online than walk-in, which added to people's disappointment, and then they're stuck with their choice. The ones on the map all still exist....Leena is there, but it's not especially rated on tripadvisor, but I guess the good reports are from having English speaking staff. The best thing to do is have a rough look at where they all are on the map and go in person....The Sala Savan near the Catholic church looks interesting and comfy.

Often there will be no one at the desk and just a number to summon staff.... it's all like southern France 40 years ago.

Get yourself a bicycle asap that has no flat tyres etc, and that is perfect for getting around...... Cafe Boon is well-known and a great hang-out..... Also Linn's Cafe, on the tour route, is really nice frenchy-farang place. If you go along the riverfront, the best place with proper cold beers and food and a toilet and proper building is Sala Beer, where you can look over to Muk.... so cheep it's almost free!

Tuk-tuks: Here's a good tip to minimise the annoying advances from tuk-tuk drivers, who will lurk around for hours if they think you will be a fare.... The Muk-Sav international bus goes to the Sav Bus Station, from where you can easily walk to the Consulate ( This isn't on the map, but you can see it on the bus ride in) And don't forget that after you come out with your visa, all those tuk-tuk drivers are only going to take you to the bridge to met the bus, so why not walk to the bus station and get onto it at source?

Savannakhet can be fun and relaxing..... helps if you speak Thai, or even French.

Just a different perspective after so many posts about how boring it is, including from me.

Here's the map, hopefully:

I'm sure many are as interested in this subject as I am..I'd like to hear more about it

If the law is that you have to exit the country, then if you can show you've just arrived from a foreign airport, you obviously have done that. The transit area of Hong Kong airport may not be Hong Kong, but it's definitely not in Thailand.

In the case of Cambodia for example it would be possible to save on both the Visa fee and the airport tax for exit.

So she was super kind and gave me a $10 discount because a thai speaker was a brick wall?

Er, no I am a UK citizen and the fee is $35 or 1500B

Also I understood perfectly her asking me for "Rian?" which means coins

I did the border run at this place (Friendship Brigde #3) last week. The appeal was I had read that it was quiet, which it was.

At the first window where you hand in the fee and do the first of 2 PP checks, the uniformed lady assisting the man who was checking my PP through the computer came the window clutching the $35, and said, in Lao, words to the effect of "Hmmmm $35, have you got some coins or anything?" She was speaking very casually and so her dialect wasn't very easy to pick up either.

I thought to myself, and replied in Thai: "Coins? No, I haven't got any coins..." She persisted a bit more, and I just said to her that I speak Thai well but I wasn't picking up her Lao so well. She then shrugged and gave up this pathetic attempt to ponce some money off me.(OR was I misunderstanding?....don't think so). I was the only customer at the window.

I suppose it's something that with the low traffic there at the new bridge, they seem to be at the rather amateur stages of scamming, and just have the mere faintest aspirations of adding a little here and there to their pockets. (Coins, Lol)

Btw, FWIW, a report on this border run: There were no reports of it but I arranged to fly from Don Mueng to Nakhon Phanom on the A.M. Nok Air flight landing at 11.15, then taking a mini-van from the desk in arrivals for 100B to the bus station at Nakhon Phanom, a 10-15 minute drive, then getting the International bus across the bridge and back, and getting back to the airport for the 4.55 Air Asia back to DM. Only a few flights per day on this route.

I made it back in time, but not without a few worries as I watched the driver milling around, reading the paper etc while the Intnl bus sat in the bus station a whole 2 hours before setting off. Then when we reached the bridge, during the coins incident, I saw that the return bus had already pulled in Thai-side, and I ran over and asked the driver to make sure he waited for me as I still had to enter and exit Laos, and he kindly said go and get your stamp. I was the last person on the bus and that got me back to the bus station in plenty of time, but the next one probably would have made it very tight to catch the flight if he hadn't waited (the 2 buses always meet up at the border, he told me). Amateur taxi offers back to the airport were waiting at the bus station, and 100B or a bit more should be negotiable with them. Little annoyances can really put you off on these trips, but this was a great improvement on sitting in a bus for many many hours, it was quite a cheap flight both ways, and crossing a land border with friendly IO's really appealed to me and it was nice to get back to DM as a domestic passenger.

I am quite surprised to hear that you don't need to enter and exit immigration on a border-run by air.

Would another reason be that you wouldn't be charged the entry fee, and in the case of Cambodia the exit fee also, and also not have to use up a whole page in your PP when you get a visa stuck in it?

I know that in Malaysia you don't get a full page visa, just a stamp (Singapore too?), and there is no entry/exit fee, but if this is possible it makes other places a viable option too when scouting for the current best deal. Also i imagine you can book the return flight closer to the landing time as e.g. KL Immigration can take a while sometimes and I have previously booked the flight after next to be sure. If you do it this way, you may well be on the same plane you came on.

Re: Cheap flights, I saw on here last week that someone said that Scoot, a new airline, is offering flights to S'pore from Don Mueng for unbelievably around 500B. I glanced at their site and it appeared to be true!

OK the good news is as promised I will never comment on an ED thread again. Ubonjoe is in fact totally 110% correct, and please remove my wrong comment.

I am very sorry. My only excuse is that the senior teacher and resident expert at school, usually correct, had repeated this to me so many times, and i therefore went on or so close to the date that it was not easy to count exactly on the stamps. I just did.

....btw if I had known I would have got an extn before the 29th August and got the full 3 months extn, and not been incorrectly deterred by loss of a month's time.

Ubonjoe is proven infallable again, and another plonker humbly bites the dust. I stand by my promise. Apologies again.

I have just completed 2 years on ED visa. I am very sorry to contradict Ubonjoe, for whom I am most grateful and who has helped literally thousands of people here.

My experience is that ED Visas are the one exception in that you will only be extended from the date of extension, and not from the date of the ened of the stamp. For that reason, often people's circumstances have meant that they require a 5th extension letter, or even 6th, during a year of study. The 5th can often be for a very short time if the person has only been a few days early a couple of times, and of course each one will cost 1900B.

Schools don't have 4 extension letters, the have 1 which they can issue to you as many times as needed over the period of study.

Note: I am describing the 1 year length of study as was the case befor 29th August this year.

Another point is that it appears that at CW rigourous testing is taking place and IO's are giving out only 60 or even 30 days arbitrarily even to ppl who've only been stuying for 3 months, and depending on which school.

I know ED Visa threads are hard work to moderate always, that's enough of a job, but I get the impression that the ED Visa subject is not Ubonjoe's area of greatest expertise. This year when the August changes happened, Ubonjoe was saying from his wide experience that the ministry is not in the habit of enforcing visa changes retrospectively to people already holding a valid visa, in this case 2nd years in the 1st 3 months of the new year for example, and then precisely on the 29th, where no info had been available from anyone at immigration or anywhere on the subject, they suddenly started giving such ppl only 7 days extension allowing no time to do the re-application from MoE before thet had to leave the country.

I have been something of the loong pee at my school, being the most senior, and have always carefully relayed info to students making sure that my info is sound, and where news is rarely passed on to them.

If I am wrong on my main point above, I promise I will never comment on ED Visas again.

Maximum respect to UbonJoe.

i'm of the opinion that due to the somewhat high profile and aggressive promotion of their services and the avenues they could open to assist their students to obtain an Ed Visa might well have attracted the attention of the immigration department and as such this particular ''educational''establishment is now on the hit list.

I won't mention which school, but a friend was told at CW last week that Immigration did not like his school, and advised him to change schools, and was giving its students a particularly hard time.

Mr Walen, however, is a thoroughly decent man and a sponsor of this site.

After the first time do you still need a bank letter saying it came from abroad?

....If you spend some during the year and top it up again 3 months before renewal, with e.g. a cash deposit in Thailand.... would that be a problem?

Thanks

If you are buying a ticket to Koh Samui, remember that besides Surat Thani, there is the same option of bus and ferry if you book to nearby Nakhon Sri Thammarat airport. (Air Asia "Fly-Ride" section when booking online, all booked as one)

When I went down from Bkk a little while ago, the cheapest deal with Air Asia at the time was to use Surat thani on the way there and Nakhon Sri Thammarat on the way home.

Best part of the holiday? The beautiful ferry trip through the Ang Thong National Park area, on the way, in my case, to Koh Phangan.

As, for KP, you have to go from Airport in KS to get a ferry anyway, the cheaper option for KP makes most sense, and the time could be identical, if, as for my trip, the bus link managed to catch am earlier ferry on the way (the 10 AM) and knock 2 or 3 hours off the advertised time..

OP here again: I called today to ask if I could now use the card again now the address is UK. Answer: No, the card has been permanently blocked, and is defunct as far as Thailand is concerned. I can order a card to the UK address, get it activated by my friend there, and get it sent here, then get it authorised on the phone for use here. But to order the card on the phone I have to wait 1 month, although a card can be ordered immediately with online banking.

As far as the restricted list, I am not sure about other SE Asian countries, the Santander person started reading out Afghanistan, plus some African countries.... remember though that if you have your address in your home country, none of these issues seem to apply.

In the last few days, Santander has put Thailand on its list of restricted countries (apparently it has put Greece on that list too, a list which otherwise contains what you might call the 'usual supects')

I changed my address on my UK current account some time ago to my Thai address, so that they could send me a new card when mine expires.

I was just making an online payment this evening with my debit card, a payment I have made before, along with plane tickets, hotels, etc. , and the card was declined.

I called security in the UK and they told me it was as I have explained above. I can't use my card at ATMs either, it's now useless here. Apparently they have sent me a letter explaining this, on 5th November. I have about 800B right now, lol,so thank God I have someone here who I can tap for some money while I make other arrangements.

It was quite a shock... I asked them what about people on holiday and they said it was only Thai addresses that had been cancelled. I then asked if a solution would be to change my address to a UK address and they said that would work, and I was put through to someone who did that for me over the phone. I then have to wait 1 month before I can order a card to that address and then get someone to send it on to me from there.

It just occurs to me writing this that now I have changed address back to UK, maybe I can get my existing card re-authorised for here and start using it again??.... I'll probably give them a call tomorrow (Nov 8th) and ask about that. Might give it a try in the ATM also.

Anyway, I recently set up a payment to HiFX from my Santander a/c. HiFX is a really cheap and efficient Forex company ( The NZ branch covers Thailand, so put NZ in the search for the correct website ) and I really should have got round alreay to transferring money through them to my Kasikorn a/c and not paying the rip-off 180B every time I use the ATM.

So I'm just writing this to warn people with UK Debit cards who have a Thai address, maybe not many people do, but it is interesting that Santander has suddenly decided to downgrade Thailand... the person on the phone suggested that they might be tired of losing loads of dosh fro ATMs in places of high criminal activity, sounds about right, but surely people using their bank with a Thai address are a small minority, and are just the same risk if they change back their address. Nice bit of oriental logic from what has been a really good bank in my experience.

I did exactly what you are asking about doing, double entry tourist visa after ED Visa in Savannakhet 3 weeks ago. No problems.

Good info on going there is in the thread called "Worry-free non-O visa savannakhet", which although it is about marriage visas has all the latest info on the trip, if you just google that plus thai visa

Hi, The new Consulate is now open in Savanakhet.... I was there on Thursday Sept 11th.... I believe details of its location are earlier on this thread....but it's much nearer the bridge..... you can negotiate tuk-tuks as a group for about 40B p/p especially on the way back....perhaps a more senior member can spread the word on the place being now open...

The new place has the service windows outside,.... a visa window with an info window next to it.... it's very impersonal, not really time to ask anything really, but everyone seemed to get their desired visa, still on the same day and everything as above in this thread...

Tuk tuks don't all know that it has moved, so watch out for that when going back to pick up.....doors opened on time morning and afternoon

The recommendation on this thread about the cafe Chez Boon was very useful... there is literally nothing to do and nowhere to go apart from here.... If you want to go there, ask the tuk tuk driver to take you to :"Gaffay Boon" ...it's at a market called dalaad dao hooang, which is NOT the market next to the bus station, which is really crappy..... TIP: There is a massage place next door where you can take a shower before a massage in the freezing cool a/c and refresh yourself from all sweat, heat and dust, and kill an hour or 2..a lovely conservative massage by cute staff !!.... take a change of clothes is a good idea... if they are busy there's another place just across the market (ask cafe to show you)....

I.m writing this from the hotel Baandala,in Mukhdahan... which is a really lovely hotel and amazing value.... it is walkable distance to and from the bus station from which the international bus goes to and from savanakhet,..... just go outside,hotel turn left and walk about 200m... bus station is called Bor-Kor-Sor... which is Thai for BKS.... it's a good way to get on the bus at source instead of meeting it at the bridge.... the hotel is away from the riverside, but truthfully there is absolutely nothing to do anywhere anyway... ( strangely the Hor Gaew tower is surrounded by only brothels with neon lights at night, and doesn't have the sort of beer bar you might imagine)... and a tuk tuk will take you down to Indochina Market from the hotel for no more than 50B anyway.... good hotel, read agoda reports///

Overall in Savanakhet, be prepared for a really backward and unimpressive place compared to Mukdahan, but people are still very nice.

Hope all this helps, just random info as i am still travelling.... you'll feel great once you've got your visa and it all seems well worth it once you cross back over!!!