JandT

First time isnt the problem. Your 2nd and 3rd year renewals are.

Just so you know that since you can only get 3 education visas in Thailand( beginner intermediate and advanced) the one that you did have that is now invalid will be counted as 1 Visa so when you go back to school and get another one (if you were on your first when this happened) it will be a new 2nd ed Visa which is only good for 10 months and 3 weeks max. And you can no longer get it at any of the neighboring countries here you will have to go back to your home country to get it. None of the neighboring embassies will issue back-to-back education Visas any longer.

Same here. Occasionally I would get a double fish meal with a Big Mac delivered and it went from 179 baht to 220 and with the 40 Baht delivery fee that just ended it for me. With delivery it used to be around 350. Now it's 420 . We have a thai friend who works at McDonald's and she said that many of the workers are complaining about the prices because it's driving away customers. It's getting as bad as Burger King where it's 375 Baht for a Double Whopper with bacon and cheese and large drink and Fry.

Wow this is the type of dumb response I've come to expect from people on this board.

Nope, we are not! As you said the reason was that they want to see money. A perfectly fair requirement, due to that you can´t live and stay if you do not have. This is probably an effect of that too many people have been living on ED visas year after year, and attending 1-2 lessons per week, at the same time as working to have money for stay. I would say it´s a shape up and a smart move to get rid of a part of the people that otherwise would abuse their permission to stay.

What doesnt make any sense is that the people are getting the documents from the Thai Ministry of Education giving them permission to study in Thailand and yet are still being denied at the embassy when they go to apply. If they don't want people to study in Thailand why are they even approving those documents in the first place?

Soon it will be only one or max 2 ed visa and next consecutive one denied. Few threads with rejection of ed visa not just in Vientiane. Current thread rejected in Saigon. However had history of visas. Problem is similar to Cambodia your pp could be returned with visa and void stamp. Makes for problem to return los if you don't have visa exempt option up your sleeve for border entry.
 

I wanted to make everyone aware that Hanoi Vietnam is becoming extremely difficult to get ed visas for language studies. I attend a Thai language School in hangdong, chiang mai and recently had went to Hanoi a month ago to get my third year visa and I had absolutely no problem. My first two years in Thailand I went to Vientiane and had no problems but with the new changes I decided to go to Hanoi because another student had went about two months prior and also had no problems. I had my paperwork and my bank statement and was literally less than 5 minutes the day I dropped off my paperwork and the next day when I picked up the Visa. But now fast forward about 30 days ... the school that I attend said that two new students that had never had a Thai education Visa before went to Hanoi because other people had went and it was easy but when they gave them the paperwork they denied them and said they needed a new paper because the rules had changed just recently but they gave them no reason and no clear explanation of what they needed. They did give them a piece of paper that said the reason could be because they want to Simply do border runs to stay in Thailand which makes no sense because you have to make a border run to get almost any Visa here. The school I attend was very confused and told them to go to Vientiane and try. one person went there and was also denied in Vientiane. mind you this is their first on ed visa and they had all correct paperwork. They were given no explanation there also and when they went back into Thailand they asked to have a 60-day stamp and the officer would only give them 30 days. The school contacted someone at immigration to ask them what was going on and they were told that Hanoi does not want to approve people who don't have money anymore. They only want people to come into Thailand that have money. So this is a heads up for anyone going to Hanoi Vietnam or Vientiane at this time. I saw the paper with my own eyes that the embassy gave them as well as the message that came back from the immigration person when I was at school so this is not here say this is factual information. I'm afraid we're seeing a Cascade and domino effect of embassies shutting down certain foreigners wanting visas to come to Thailand. It began in Vientiane and will probably spread to all of them eventually

Sent from my SM-J730GM using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app

It's sad to see that almost half of the people decided to criticize what I posted instead of just being thankful for the information. This is why the current Society is in the decline that it is.

To those of you who actually appreciated the post I'm glad I could help. If you have any other questions please contact assist Thai Visa.

I would imagine.  I'm attending lanna language school. It's a good legit school.

I just wanted to let everyone know how easy it was for me to get my nonimmigrant education Visa which is extendable up to one year. Im from the us and My wife and I plan to stay for a few years so this is one way to begin. My 60 day tourist visa was about to expire so I went to assist Thai Visa in chiang mai with my Thai wife and they took care of contacting a local language school for me and getting the paperwork so everything taken care of and all I had to do was make a trip to the laos Vientiane border. Total cost for everything including the 3 Visa extensions and the 1 year of school was around 39,000 baht.

You can take a 8 to 9 hour bus ride there from chiang mai but Definitely if you have the extra money it's much easier to take Nok Air Lines from Chiang mai to the udon airport (1 hour flight) and then grab a limousine Charter van from there to the Thai border (1 hour) and then get another van from there to the Friendship Bridge Crossing (5 minutes) on the laos side because then they will take you straight into the hotel.(about 30 min) We stayed at the loagolden hotel for $30 a night it wasn't the greatest Hotel but it was very affordable and they offer free breakfast. We walked to the Thai consulate the next morning on Tuesday (about 10-15 min walk) and got there around 7:30am and they started letting people in around 8 to sit in the outdoor area. There was about 50 people around 830 so not too busy. Everyone got up and one at a Time and took their paperwork to several ladies that were standing there separating them and they would give certain people a number and tell them to go wait till that number was called to goto one of the windows nearby. It didn't take more than just a few minutes for your number to be called when they start. You walk up and they verify the information and tell you it's 2000 baht and to come back tomorrow and pay and pick up your passport. We went back the next day around 1 and at 1:30 they start calling the numbers for people to come up usually about 10 at a time and we were number 16 once they started calling the numbers it only took about 10 minutes we walked up paid the fee they handed us the passport with the new VISA inside and we left. We stayed over one more night so we didn't have to rush and the next day we grabbed a bus back to the Friendship Bridge border and from there we took the limousine taxi from there back to the airport the Thai border and then all the way to the udon airport. It was very easy and quick the only thing to remember is have your paperwork, 2 small photos on a white background ( you can get photos for cheap and also document copies made right beside the consulate to the right there's a little place there where they have a chair and a white background set up and will take your photo for just a little bit of money and it makes it quick and convenient if you don't have them) also have your thai address ready and make sure you have a correct copy of the visa application that has the front and back sections. if you print it off the website it tends to cut it off at the bottom and you will not get the back of it printed. This was one issue that assist Thai Visa needs to be aware of but other than that the whole experience was very painless. Another quick tip is you can use Baht at nearly any restaurant or business in Lao while you are there and they will give you change back in laos kip but please make sure you convert it back at the border before you enter Thailand again because their currency is utterly worthless anywhere else and no bank will be willing to convert it to Thai baht for you. Another tip is the tuk tuk drivers tend to charge a good bit of money if you're coming out of a hotel or if you need a trip to the Border. Your best bet to save money is to take the bus back to the border so you can have a tuk tuk take you to the bus station but our driver actually charged double what he was going to charge simply because I'm a foreigner and my wife is Thai. He told her fifty Baht and turned around and charged us a hundred. he actually wanted more but she said absolutely not. It will cost you 20 baht to leave laos as well but nothing to enter Thailand. We plan on doing the marriage visa when this year is up. All we need is our american marriage certificate, an Affidavit of income which is very easy to get at the American embassy and then have the forms translated into Thai and then notarized at the Thai City Hall. Anyway I hope these tips will help somebody because I know dealing with visas here can be a real struggle if your new to it. I'm looking forward to learning Thai this year and hopefully I can start having conversations with more folks in this country. :)