Caldera

What day does he plan to leave? My view is that nowadays it's best to avoid overstays that are avoidable. Immigration isn't quite as relaxed about overstays any longer as they used to be, so it's difficult to predict if they will come back to bite you one day.

Entering Thailand is a breeze, unless and until it isn't. I think that's the catch, without any clear limits on longterm tourism.

There you have it. She didn't decline your application "for no reason" as per your title. Her reason couldn't have been more obvious, in fact. Let's just say she's a known quantity.

I wouldn't take baht. You could get dong at SuperRich, but the spread is much larger than for USD. Personally, I'd get about 10,000 baht worth of dong and the rest in USD.

He was convicted and sentenced for two murders. I don't have a problem with the decision of the Nepalese court to release him after 19 years served, applying their laws as they see fit. What doesn't sit well with me is that he wasn't even tried for most of his crimes. Other countries did a shameful job at prosecuting him, or failing to do so. Hello, Thailand.

Will you return to the UK or need to go to another country? Big difference.

With your history, you'll have no problems flying in.

It just says "per family", there's no written limit on the number of family members traveling together.

This thread is about the 30 day extension for tourists (visa exempt or tourist visa entries), and Thai Visa Centre advised my friend that it would take 1-2 weeks, hence my comments here.

So how did you make the problem go away?

They're open every day, including holidays. Christmas isn't a holiday anyway, but New Year is.

Yeah I get that. For longterm extensions (e.g. retirement), I think that processing time is fine. But for tourists on the move who need their passport on a regular basis, it's too long. @ozfarangreported that it was actually done much quicker than expected, but I wonder what you do if it really takes 2 weeks. Just sit around in Bangkok until the passport comes back? That can ruin a holiday, spending half a day at immigration looks like the lesser evil.

You answered the "how could they" question yourself: by falsifying the evidence - some IOs don't seem to have any problem with that. Or didn't, I haven't seen any post-Covid reports of that happening yet.

If a foreign embassy refuses to renew an overstayer's passport, they effectively take away that overstayer's ability to resolve the situation by themselves, as Thai immigration won't let them fly out on an expired passport. So they know that this overstayer will eventually become THEIR problem, as they'll have to go to the IDC to process the passport renewal and might even need to assist with the deportation procedure that could have been avoided otherwise. Clearly, an embassy has no interest in any of this. As long as you aren't wanted in your home country, they have no reason to care about the Thai overstay and prefer you deal with it yourself.

Thieving Pattaya Beach Road "girls", rejoice, more gold is on the way.

This serves as a reminder for those on yearly retirement extensions in Thailand that they cannot be taken for granted beyond the permitted to stay until date. Things can change, often on a whim. Malaysia did something very similar to their 2nd home program.

He's power tripping, he will accept the vote of the plebs only when it suits him.

It's unfortunate that they aren't flexible with regards to the date a visa is valid from, but that's just the way it is, it always starts from when it's being issued. They could make it more clear for applicants who aren't familiar with that, but there's no point in trying to appeal this - the fee has been collected, the visa has been issued as per their rules, case closed.

Visa run companies haven't used the Aranyaprathet/Poipet checkpoint since a long time.

Thai Visa Centre might be a victim of their own success. When a friend of mine asked them about this extension service about a month ago, they told him it would take 1-2 weeks. What tourist can give away their passport to an agent for 1-2 weeks? They need it for hotels, domestic flights, money exchange etc.

Nothing much to see, it's just a blend of incompetence and power tripping at work. They're members of the same police farce that can comb Pattaya and claim they haven't found any prostitutes, after all.

You can apply for another re-entry permit at either your immigration office ahead of your trip or at the airport when you fly out.

I'd guess a sensible assumption would be that a "successful longterm overstayer" (as per the premise of this thread) knows about TM30 and is smart enough not to check in at a hotel under their own name. Maybe they don't travel, maybe they have a Thai wife who does it for them, not a real problem in itself.

Denying entry to someone with a valid visa is quite a rare thing with Thai immigration, it has only been reported from a few airports and the Aranyaprathet border checkpoint. If you've come across a report contradicting what I wrote, then by all means, post a link.

As long as you avoid entering in Aranyaprathet (Poipet on the Cambodian side) , land border checkpoints with Cambodia aren't known to cause trouble to tourist visa holders.