Almudena

If you're already on a long term extension, you should still be able to open one up yourself. Just need a resident certificate from immigration and pop down the bank yourself. It's the folks here without a long term visa that will have difficulty. From my past experience last year, I found it impossible myself to open a BKK bank in Pattaya. Just before I left the branch the girl whispered in my ear and winked "Use another branch in Chonburi province". Went up to Chonburi city the next day and the account was opened within 10 minutes and wasn't forced to but their insurance either.

Other agents in other provinces can help opening an account, but they won't help you unless you using their visa services as well.

All of us retirees already on retirement extensions will have already got a Thai bank account. It was the renewals that was concerning some of us.

Correct! I know of two western women in the village, married to Thai blokes, have children together and now they hold Thai passports. Also they didn't have to show the 400K in the bank when they were on marriage extensions.

Every time I visit Pattaya once a week and visit a new restaurant in Pattaya, I always prefer to pay upfront as it saves time when leaving. However most of the establishments I've visited insist that I pay after (same as in Spain).

I don't think that's an issue, it's the 65K per month method that they want to see that's coming in from abroad. If you use an agent, tell them that you already have 800K in the bank as their fees will be cheaper than having them loaning you the money.

Correct, but If using a Pattaya agent, it's cheaper to have a local Chon Buri Bank account as for the agent to transfer 800K in and out to an account in another province and back into their accounts means hefty transfer fees. Even with the hefty transfer fees, it's still cheaper to leave the 800K in the UK and use the interest to cover the agent fees.

You can open another Bangkok Bank account in another province and keep the old one, meaning you'll have two accounts, I did this myself last week. The Bangkok Bank in Pattaya refused to do this saying that you can only have one account linked to one passport. I then called them on 1333 and they said it could be done. Went to another branch in the province of Chonburi well away from Pattaya and walked out within 20 minutes with a new passbook, both accounts linked together on the banking app and was offered but not forced to buy insurance. Being retired means not working and free to move around wherever you want in Thailand. The visa extension can be renewed at any immigration office (at their own discretion).

It can be done, I went from a non-ed to a non-o myself. First talk to your local immigration and ask if it's OK to put 800K in to the bank for 3 months prior the change of reason on your non-ed or use an agent. Note, some immigration offices can do it and some won't, as it's at their own discretion.

Depends on the day, officer etc. Every time in the past coming back via an airport, some officers had commented by the number of stamps in my passport and I've told them straight that I'm not working here when I can earn 4 to 5 times more back in the UK and spend my earnings here in Thailand. Then they just stamp my passport, give a smile and let me thorough.

This may be a bit irrelevant, but going the other way. Every time I've had a flight arrive into BKK around 23:30ish and purposely walked slowly up to the immigration desks to present myself after midnight, they've always stamped me in on the date I've presented myself and not the date the flight arrived. I actually asked a immigration supervisor at the airport about this a few years back and she told me her officers are told to change their date stamps at midnight.

It's always best to carry a hard copy of the report with you as mobile devices can breakdown. It only costs less than a couple of baht for a shop to print it off and my bike mechanic's wife prints my reports off for free.

Yes it can be changed, but many Pattaya agents won't do it and many of those agents won't even do the renewal even if you've already changed the reason to retirement giving the excuse that the local immigration won't allow it with a previous non-ED. However many of the BKK agents can to it and renewals are around the same price as what the agents in Pattaya charge. My local immigration office up country insisted that the reason can be legally changed once I turned 50 a few years ago. I went from a non-B to non-ED then finally to non-O. Please note that when you change the non-imm reason, the extension date will start from the date of the application and not on the date of the pervious permission to stay expiry.

Most of us up in Issan tend to use reputable agents in Pattaya as most things can be done by post and the things that can't will just mean a mini-break in or near Pattaya, whist the agent sorts things out.