khunjeff

This is phrased to make it sound as though this is some silly excuse that these countries have invented, which it isn't. Unfortunately, the reality is that Thais have a long history of overstaying and working illegally in both western countries and wealthy Asian nations, and those countries are well aware of that history. For the US in particular, one of the requirements for joining the Visa Waiver Program is a visitor visa refusal rate under 3%. The refusal rate for Thais is closer to 20%, which means there's a long, long way to go before a mutual visa exemption has any chance at all of being implemented. As noted above, it's not "hubris", but reality. And yes, Thailand absolutely could decide to only exempt visas for nationalities whose own countries do the same for Thais, just as Brazil and Indonesia have periodically done in the name of third-world honor. That would be shooting themselves in the foot, though, and laying waste to a very lucrative tourism industry for no reason other than feeling a momentary glow of nationalistic pride.

This is all turning into low comedy.

BINGO 😁

I really wish the Thaiger would stop using Chat GPT to write its articles - the overuse of adjectives becomes exhausting to read.

The place appears to be the size of a football field, so the "secret" must not have been kept very well.

"The September 15th order imposes a clearer obligation in relation to tax reporting for foreign residents in Thailand. "In any case, this applies even if they are registered in their own countries and can take advantage of tax treaties with 59 countries that Thailand has agreements with. All foreign residents, in theory, must still account for tax on an annual basis." This rather dramatic interpretation of the new rule appears to be an invention of the writer, as it isn't what the actual text of the rule says at all. In fact, we still have no idea what the precise impact of the change will be.

Prior to reorganization, Thai Airways had many A330s in its fleet, but decided to stop using them. What has changed?

It was supposed to have moved back to its original location next to the Mo Chit BTS station once construction of the BTS was completed, but instead the land there has been used for...absolutely nothing. The planned high rise over the train depot was never built, and the land in front of the depot is used for free car parking.

Those are all triple the price of what the OP is looking at in China.

So they arrested the trafficking victims rather than offering them protection - this is one of the specific reasons that they keep getting low rankings on the Trafficking in Persons Reports, and yet they keep doing it (and then keep complaining about their low ranking).

But you're not a convicted felon serving a prison sentence. If you've ever dealt with the Thai corrections system, you would know that they typically afford prisoners no privacy rights whatsoever - except, miraculously, in the case of Thaksin, where those rights are suddenly sacrosanct.

Yes but you have to register your marriage in the US , and chase a whole different paper trail . You do not have to "register" a foreign marriage in the US, and in fact there is no way of doing so. As others have noted, foreign marriages are fully recognized in the US, and are equivalent to US marriages when it comes to US immigration matters. Also, many people are assuming that the OP will need to file for a K1 in order to marry in the US. From the way he phrased his question, though, I'm assuming that his wife already has a US tourist visa, so they would just be registering their marriage during a brief US holiday (which is perfectly legal). He might get more useful advice if he could clarify that issue.

They've been running essentially the same article every few weeks for the last several months, so we already know about these grand plans. How about if we hold off on more stories until there's actually real progress to report?

If you have a passport from a country on their visa exemption list, yes. That list doesn't include the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, or many others.

I really wish they would stop this idiocy of referring to everything around this time of year as "a gift to the people", as though the cost won't eventually be paid by those same people via taxes.

Every holiday season, the authorities face the same dilemma: "how can we lower the number of road fatalities in a way that involves absolutely no work on our part?"

Another member has already confirmed that Visa-branded debit cards are accepted. As for the exchange rate, that depends on the card issuer, but the conversion is usually done by Visa itself - their rate is updated daily, and is normally very good. I don't know whether the e-visa validity is the same for all nationalities, but when I got one last month as a US passport holder, it was valid for entry within three months of the issuance date, with an authorized stay of 30 days from the date of entry.

This particular Fast Track lane is no longer available to First/Business Class pax. The sign has been changed, and the officer on duty at the door will send you to the Premium Lane next to the Thai Citizen lane. Correct, this is where Premium Class pax are now sent. Just show your Business Class boarding pass - no additional voucher or payment required.

Thai airports have been getting electronic Advance Passenger Information (API) since 2015. Information on EVERY incoming passenger is sent to Thai Immigration before the flight departs the origin airport, so they already know exactly which flight every person was on. (By the way, you pay a fee of US$1 on every international flight ticket for this fine service.) "Thai Immigration Bureau will pre-process every passenger arriving, departing or transiting through Thailand and reply back to airline with boarding directive Such as, “Board if DOCS OK” or “Do not Board”." https://dcs.aero/product/thailand-api/

This has been discussed repeatedly for years and years. Since the countries involved all have completely different visa policies, though, it's hard to see how anything will ever come of it.

Perhaps you're just trolling, but the sign didn't say "sanam bin" in Thai - it used the more formal term "tha ahkatsayan" (or however you choose to transliterate it).

Virtually every article published these days says the same thing, and yet I can only see 10 lines, no matter how hard I count (even using my toes). Where are these two invisible train lines? (Non-operating lines such as the eastern Orange Line certainly shouldn't count.) Does @Crossy know what they're referring to? 1 - Light Green 2 - Dark Green 3 - Blue 4 - Purple 5 - Gold 6 - Pink 7 - Yellow 8 - Light Red 9 - Dark Red 10 - ARL 11 - ? 12 - ?

As written, it's incomprehensible. They talk about "transferring" operation, yet the Grey Line doesn't exist, and a "Bang Na-Suvarnabhumi airport Blue Line extension" not only doesn't exist, but doesn't seem possible, since the Blue Line doesn't go to either of those endpoints. Meanwhile, there is no explanation of how or why operation of the Gold Line would be taken away from BTSC, other than some cryptic word salad about advertising revenues.

I'm interpreting this to mean that in the past there was no planning at all, while now there's some planning, but it isn't sufficient to meet the city's needs, so a more effective system is required. But, yeah, it's confusing, so I might be totally wrong 🤷

"Chinese tourists now prefer to travel independently. Currently, up to 90% of Chinese tourists entering Thailand are Free Independent Travellers (FIT), while the market for Chinese tour groups accounts for only 10%." https://www.nationthailand.com/thailand/tourism/40028934