JoeHo

Thanks a lot for your suggestions! To be fair I didn't know in Thailand there are cross-province transfer fees, although it won't really matter in my case. I don't plan to stay in CM forever. The thing is that I wasn't planning on coming back to BKK within the 60-days period. I'll just see if I can make it work in that tight time window, otherwise bad luck and an early BKK return ???? Although I am more than happy to pay via a Thai bank, what I don't get is that they offer it as the only option. How is someone supposed to pay via a Thai account while you're not allowed to open it without having the proper visa? Opening a Thai bank account is for me actually one of the many reasons to apply for LTR visa anyways. Also, I think I won't be the only one. It applies to all foreign working professionals that haven't been to Thailand before and opt for pickup at the OSS in BKK. But well, it is what it is, left or right there's probably a way around it. Thanks again!

Hi all, Until now I've been an account-less, silent reader learning from your very helpful experiences. It's useful, thanks! But now I've created an account due to a pressing question that I have about payment of the 50k THB for the visa stamp. I've read from both @ThailandRyan and @BKKNono that payment can only be done by QR app banking. But how to pay if you'll arrive in Thailand on a (tourist) visa exemption? On a tourist visa I'm not eligible to open a Thai bank account, so how should I pay? I am mostly interested how BKKNono has managed to pay (since you also are granted a WFTP visa), did you already find a way to open a Thai bank account prior to visa issuance? For those interested, my experience so far: I submitted all docs for a WFTP in the System, then was asked to upload some additional docs like additional tax returns & salary slips. I applied Sept 8th and got approval on Oct 3rd (yay!). I was then asked to submit additional info in the System, being my preferred visa pickup point, current and latest visa information, and health insurance. The bottleneck until now has been my visa information. Selecting OSS as pickup point, required me to fill in "current" and "latest" visa info. Since I won't arrive in Thailand until Oct 24th, for my "current" visa I filled in the from- and until-dates of the 45-day tourist visa exemption that I expect to receive on Oct 24. For the "latest" visa information, I filled in the details of my latest tourist visa exemption that I got during a one-day transit to Vietnam last September. Three days after submitting that, I got an email from BOI where they apologized for glitches in the System and requested to have further communication via email. They wanted a copy of my current visa, which as such I couldn't yet provide. They explained me that I could not make an appointment at the OSS until I arrived in Thailand and provided them with a photocopy of my current visa. For me that is rather unfortunate, because after I arrive the 24th I have a one-way flight to Chiang Mai 3 days later. By applying early Sept, I expected to be in a position where I could well in advance make an appointment with BOI within those 3 days. Unfortunately, BOI did not want/could not make a provisional appointment already, so now my hopes are that they will give me the final approval within 2 days after I arrive in BKK and that I can make an appointment the next day. I preferably don't fly back and forth for a 1-hour visa issuance session. However, if I do manage to make an appointment within that small timeframe, I don't want to be sent away because I cannot pay the 50k. I want to be well prepared, hence my question about payment. I must say that BOI in this entire process has been very responsive to me, apart from the payment question. So I hope someone can help me out with that one!