Thalueng

When you apply for the new passport in SA ask them not to invalidate the page with your visa. Bring both passports to Thailand, border control will stamp permitted to stay in the Kingdom according to your visa. Once you are in the country, go to your local immigration to transfer your visa from old to new passport. If I remember correctly the fee for the transfer is 500 Baht. After that, you don't need to carry both passports anymore.

That's why the pandemic is still on and we have drastic increase of cases every day.

It's not hysteria it's a reasonable reaction to the current situation not much different to what many European countries are enforcing. In countries with highly developed health care systems the hospitals are running out of ICU beds and cannot treat cancer patients properly anymore, now look at Thailand where many remote locations do not even have access to proper health care. Frustrated? Yes most people are, also and specially Thai people. Scared? Almost everyone, except maybe the brave posters in this forum.

How many girls back home would do a one night stand with a guy they can choose for 5000 £ a night? This is not really about moral standards, except that the Thai girls would send most of the money back home, where girls back home would keep every single penny.

Add to that that Thailand pre- or post- compensates holidays which fall on weekends. If for example the Buddhist Lent day falls on a Sunday like this year then Monday is off "in lieu".

You might want to bring one or two recent envelopes addressed to your house, from the bank, credit card company, etc. This most likely will work, did for me a few years back.

As long as you don't do a stop-over in Abu Dhabi (less than 24 hours, cannot leave the airport air-side) only original point of origin is considered for quarantine requirements.

It's not the connection, but your fare gets calculated differently now than it did a while ago. Many airlines do the same now that travelling to some destinations becomes more likely to attract customers. 475 from the US is a great deal which probably will never come back.

That is what I would do.

7 for inoculated people from other than the 45 low-risk countries, 14 for people from high-risk countries without inoculation, you could read it up if you wanted. Just wondering why so many who post here need such negative comments to hide their lack of knowledge or understanding.

Really? But if it does it's because of all those Thai residents who travel domestically and are not yet vaccinated rather than the vaccinated foreigners, as the likelihood they catch Covid is 10x smaller, and the likelihood that a infected vaccinated tourist is transmitting the disease is 10x smaller too.

Should have mentioned that I got vaccinated abroad.

My vaccine certificate does not have the passport number, only name and dob. Accepted for sandbox and everywhere I have been in the meantime where certificate was requested. Related to this, when you get issued a new passport with your visa stamp in the previous passport you need to get the visa stamp transferred to the new passport at Thai immigration office. You will get an additional stamp with the visa history and old passport number marked in the new passport. With this you will not need to carry the old passport.

There is a good chance it will be handled the same way as current sandbox. When flying to Ko Samui you need to make a booking to Bangkok with connection to Ko Samui on a sandbox flight. These are flights which only accept sandbox travellers, no domestic passengers, and must be in the same booking as the international flight. As you cannot do this yet you might be better off to book to Bangkok, and hop on a domestic flight after you are released from quarantine or sandbox in Bangkok.

Just returned with my wife through sandbox, which is now 7 days. All same requirements except she does not need covid insurance, but coe, hotel confirmed and paid, 2 pcr tests in case of sandbox. From 1 Nov nobody knows yet...

For extensions based on marriage this is not correct, every IO must follow the same procedure and dead lines. These extensions are run through the central family register in Bangkok and take 30 days to process. You should extend 30-45 days before expiry. If you extend less than 30 days before expiry you will get a temporary visa for 30 days and asked to go back to immigration after 30 days to receive the stamp for the remaining 11 months.

Normally you should get the confirmation letter within 7 days before application from the branch where you opened the account. They used to be the only ones who could or were allowed to issue such documentation on your account, and I think that's still the case. You should then deposit or withdraw a small amount and update your bank book on the day of application. For this you don't need to go to your branch, or even any branch, you can do this at an ATM, many have a bank book printer built in. Signing every page of your documents is not ridiculous. In Thailand this is the way to ensure it's a document copy submitted by you at the time of application, and that nobody tampered with it. Every formal documentation requires this, at immigration, at the bank, when running a business, etc. Might be an old habit from a time before everything went digital.

SHA+ does not equal testing, nor does it mean expensive. Hotels which obtain SHA+ certificate have fully vaccinated staff, follow defined health procedures such as disinfecting certain areas regularly, and have a set and working process in case a guest falls ill including transportation to a hospital. The cheapest SHA+ 4* hotel in Phuket I observed last week was 390 Baht per night for 2 not including breakfast, not exactly a rip off.

All ATK's have a high false positive rate and, if administered correctly, a low false negative rate. Each positive result must be confirmed with a PCR test.

The 1m is sort of a membership fee to allow you to stay in Thailand up to 1 year instead of the 30 days (under the visa waiver program) as a tourist. I do not see why the government or immigration should change this, as it does not grant you a status in the country other than being a tourist. Everybody has his or her own reasons for choice of visa, my preference is a marriage visa. It definitely gives you a different standing than a tourist, but whether that has any value for you I don't know. Financially, you probably need to weigh the 1m against 20 years of 1900 Baht annual visa renewal fees plus 1000 Baht per trip reentry permit fee or 3800 Baht per year multiple reentry permit fee. As for the 90 days reporting, which you need to do irrespective of the visa type unless you leave before 90 days and reenter, why are you not doing it online? It's simple and fast and does not require you to visit immigration.

If you are married to a Thai and have all required documents including Thai form of marriage registration and the 400k in a Thai bank account in your name as you said it is unlikely that the officer asked for 20k. If he did you must have received a receipt. If you did then this officer is in serious trouble, even in Thailand. Yes, there are cases where special money is required, but those are usually to solve issues where compliance with the law is not possible or not desired.

I would suggest getting married in Thailand, it's simple. You would need a document which certifies that you can marry (that you currently are not married - whatever is the equivalent document in Australia like proof of divorce, etc.) and your passport, and your wife to be will need equivalent documentation which all will be in Thai language. You need an affidavit from your embassy in Thailand on that document, and have it translated to Thai by an accepted translation office (check with your local administration office where you plan to marry). After marriage, and if you intend to register your marriage in Australia, you will only need to translate the Thai marriage certificate back to English, and submit it to your embassy. You might want to check with your embassy what they require in addition to that. As for a possible divorce or last will and subsequent division of your assets, this will not depend on where you marry but how you structure your last will and where it get's executed.

I did not need a termination letter in HH, got a 60 days extension right away and old visa got cancelled. I would suggest you go to your immigration office (the one of the province you are living in) and check with them.

Get your foreign marriage certificate affirmed by the Thai embassy before you leave (affidavit). After arrival in Thailand get the document with the affidavit translated to Thai, but you might want to check with the Amphoe first which translation offices they accept. Bring this to the Amphoe (city or district administration office) to register your marriage, after which you can apply for an extension of stay based on marriage at the province or district immigration office. You also need 400k Baht in a Thai bank account in your name (no joint account) for 2 month prior application, but you normally cannot open the account before you get the visa. Go to immigration first, they will give you a 60 day extension which allows you to open the bank account. There are other requirements which even vary by province, so I suggest you get some advice from the immigration office on this. Some effort but easy to do.

Mostly correct. If you buy property reserved for foreign ownership (49% of a building on land owned by Thai majority) you must prove the origin of the funds. If you buy as Thai (eg your wife who is Thai, or throughsome other Thai representative), or if you build a house on leasehold land you don't need to. If you do it does not matter what you state when sending the money, the Thai bank will confirm with you the purpose of transfer anyway after receiving the money and before crediting your account, where you would need to state purpose and intended property. Transfer any amount, one time transfer imposes slightly smaller fees. My foreign bank would heavily limit the amount transferred online, so for me going to the counter would be the better option. In any case you should have your Thai bank issue a FETF, which will facilitate sending money back if you ever need to, even smaller amount. In Thailand you cannot remit to abroad online. Thai banks keep records, but after years or if you change your bank it will be more difficult to trace back. This also applies if beneficiaries of your last will are outside of Thailand.