Red Phoenix

~ Dr Jack is correct. But there is a small snag. You can apply for the 60-day extension of stay to visit your wife to bridge the 2-month seasoning requirement imposed by Jomtien Immigration, and then apply for the 1-year extension of your Non Imm O-A Visa. However, the first time you do this it has to be 'for reason of retirement', which requires both +800K on your personal Thai bank-account and a Non Imm O-A compliant health-insurance policy issued by a Thai TGIA-associated insurer. For your NEXT 1-year extension you could then consider switching to apply for the 1-year extension for reason of Marriage, as in that case there is no need for a health-insurance policy.

~ When you are married to a Thai national you can always apply once per Pemission to stay for the 60-day extension of stay for reason of visiting your Thai wife. Be it when you entered VisaExempt or on a Tourist Visa, or whether you have a Non Imm O Visa for reason of retirement or for reason of marriage. And just to clarify > When you are married with a Thai national (like in your case) you can apply for that 60-day extension of stay for reason of visiting your wife. It can be done only once per original or extended Permission to Stay. It costs 1.900,- THB (like any other extension) and you would need to bring your original marriage certificate, as well as a Marriage statement certificate (Kor-Ror-2) which is an extract from the Thai national Marriaqe register showing that on date of issuance of that document you are still married to your Thai wife. It can be gotten at any Thai amphur for approx 50-100 THB. When dong the application your wife has to be with you. Note that such 60-day extension is not linked to an application for the 90-day Non Imm O Visa for reason of marriage, so you can get that 60-day extension for reason of marriage to your thai wife and subsequently apply for the 90-day Non Imm O Visa for reason of retirement.

~ You can only apply for a 30-day extension of stay when having entered VisaExempt or on a Tourist Visa. In your case - being on a Permission to stay from a Non Imm O-A Visa - your only extension option would be to apply for a 60-day extension for reason of visiting your Thai wife, but obviously that can only be done when you are married to a Thai national. So in your case - due to the rogue Jomtien office requiring 2 month seasoning of the funds for your 90-day Non Imm O Visa for reason of retirement - your only option would be to do a border-run and return VisaExempt which will provide you with a 30 day Permission to stay. Exiting Thailand 5 Dec (last day of your current Permission to stay) and applying 18 or 19 Dec for the 90-day Non Imm O Visa for reason of retirement (at least 15 days before Permission to stay expiry date), is tight but is doable. And of course you could also apply for a 30-day extension of stay after having returned VisaExempt, which would give you ample time to apply for the 90-day Non Imm O Visa for reason of retirement.

~ Your insurance agent has a point. When applying for the 1-year ME Non Imm O-A Visa you can - when certain conditions are met - make use of foreign Health-Insurance to meet the insurance requirement. However, when applying in Thailand at your local Imm Office for the 1-year extension of that Non Imm O-A Visa, ONLY policies from Thai insurers associated with the TGIA are accepted. And likewise, it might cause a problem when wanting to re-enter Thailand at the end of the 1-year Visa validity with a renewed insurance policy that was not issued by a TGIA associated Thai insurer.

I think Pfizer just made a HUGE mistake to start this legal case, but as it involves money their greedy reflex got the upper hand as usual. Anyway, Poland should (and probably will) stand its ground and use all means possible to expose the scam and not only refuse to pay but also require compensation from Pfizer... I cannot imagine a legal case without the currently still secret EU-contract finally be made public, and that would hopefully lead to a Tsunami of payment-refusals and court-cases by other EU countries that will bankrupt Pfizer and Moderna.

"U.S. pharmaceutical giant Pfizer is taking the Polish government to court over missing payments for 60 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine it developed with BioNTech. The lawsuit, which comes as Poland prepares for a change in government following its October election, marks the culmination of a 19-month struggle between Warsaw and Pfizer over a glut of vaccine doses. But the roots of the clash can be traced back further: to the enormous 1.1 billion-dose contract the European Commission signed with Pfizer in 2021, which has become controversial for the reported exchange of text messages between Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla in the run-up to negotiations. Source: https://www.politico.eu/article/pfizer-is-suing-poland-over-covid-vaccines-this-is-how-we-got-here/

~ #1 - Very unfortunate for you and due to misunderstanding of the process. The procedure is that you will be stamped in - for 12 months from date of entry when the Non Imm O-A Visa is still valid OR - till expiry date of the Non Imm O-A compliant Health insurance policy, whichever is shortest. Obviously you should have renewed your Non Imm O-A compliant Health insurance policy prior to entering Thailand on October 14 on your valid till Nov 22 Non Imm O-A Visa. Border-immigration would then have stamped you in for a full year (till October 13, 2024). #2 - Jomtien Imm Office is correct. In order to apply for the 1-year extension of your Non Imm O-A Visa, you need to show 800K+ on a personal Thai bank-account seasoned for at least 2 months and with foreign origins proven. As you wired the funds on Oct 17, the funds will not be seasoned for 2 months by time of application which needs to be done latest on date of expiry of your Permission to stay (i.e. 5 Dec). But actually it is somewhat of a Blessing in Disguise, as you will now be applying for a Non Imm O Visa for reason of retirement and subsequent 1-year extensions, which does NOT require Health-Insurance provided by a TGIA associated Thai insurer. #3 - It is once again unfortunate that you will be applying for that 90-day Non Imm O Visa at the Jomtien Office, as that is a notoriously rogue office and the ONLY one in Thailand that requires also the 2-month seasoning of the funds when applying for the 90-day Non Imm O Visa. So earliest you could apply for that 90-day Non Imm O Visa for reason of retirement is at Dec 17 (when the +800K funds are already 2 months on your personal thai bank-account). And so it looks that you will have to do a border-run on 5 Dec (the actual day that your current permission to stay expires). That will provide you with a 30-day Permission to stay when re-entering VisaExempt (till 4 January). And that will give you just enough time to apply for the 90-day Non Imm O Visa for reason of retirement, as that application has to be done when you still have at least 15 days left on your Permission to stay. It's cutting it very close but it can (and should) be done on Monday 18 December or Tuesday 19 December (15 days before Permission to stay expiry), and your funds are seasoned exactly 2 months as Jomtien requires. #4 - When applying for the 90-day Non Imm O Visa for reason of retirement, you should bring the Bank-Account statement of KrungSri and a same-day 18 or 19 Dec updated Passbook showing that the +800K have been seasoned for 2 months. And you would also need to bring with you the 'credit-advice' from Bangkok Bank showing that the funds originated from abroad and were then transferred to your personal KrungSri bank-account. It is recommended that you already now get hold of that 'credit-advice' statement from Bangkok Bank, as it might take some time before they wlll be able to provide it to you (100 or 200 THB will be charged for that service)

When applying for the 90-day Non Imm O Visa for reason of retirement, from a VisaExempt or Tourist Visa entry, the funds (+800.000 THB with foreign origins proven) only need to be on your personal Thai bank-account at the moment of application. HOWEVER, there have been several reports that the rogue Jomtien Imm Office wants the funds to be seasoned already for 2 months at moment of application. This to siphon applicants to make use of a Visa Agent (guaranteeing a brown envelope for the corrupt Jomtien Imm Office). Re the foreign origins of the funds: a) When you transferred the funds from a foreign bank-account to a Thai bank-account you can ask the Thai bank that received the funds to provide you with a credit-advice as evidence of that transaction. If you have transferred the funds from the Thai bank that received the funds to another Thai bank that would be a domestic transfer and it would not show up as 'international'. However the evidence of +800K funds on your thai bank-account and the evidence that the original funds were transferrered from a foreign bank-account would be accepted. b) In case your +800K has already been already long time on your Thai bank-account, there will also be no need to prove their original foreign origins.

Hope there will be a follow-up to this outrageous scam, and that the officials involved will be fired on the spot without the option to ever having an official function again. But this is Thailand, so can only hope...

~ Exactly right! And do notice the phrasing of that Factcheck 'debunking' piece. Words like might, likely, suggest, etc. abound, and it's not just scientists that they quote but 'some' scientists, like the one still claiming that mRNA vaccines are injected into the muscles, where the bulk of the vaccine remains.

COVID-19 Vaccines Have Not Been Shown to Alter DNA, Cause Cancer "Small amounts of DNA from the manufacturing process may remain in the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines. Purification and quality control steps ensure any leftover DNA is present within regulatory limits. There isn’t reason to think that this residual DNA would alter a person’s DNA or cause cancer, contrary to claims made online." Source: https://www.factcheck.org/2023/10/scicheck-covid-19-vaccines-have-not-been-shown-to-alter-dna-cause-cancer

Yes, you can apply first for a one-time extension of 30 days and then for a 60-day extension for reason of visiting your wife. Every extension costs 1.900,- THB, so it is only worthwhile doing so when you do not have enough time to get hold of all the documents needed for the 90-day Non Imm O Marriage Visa application (which costs 2.000,- THB). Note that you might also apply for those other temporary extensions first when the timing of your Non Imm O Marriage Visa would not be convenient for you (e.g. the under consideration period during which you need to be available at short notice).

The problem of rejecting your application for a 90-day Non Imm O Visa from a VisaExempt or TouristVisa entry is only at the Chiang-Rai Imm Office. There would be no problem doing such application at the Chiang-Mai Imm Office. Be aware that at the CM Imm Office you need to have at least 21 days left on your Permission to stay at date of application. So it has to be done in the first week when you return VisaExempt.

When you would be applying for the 'change of Visa process' from a VisaExempt or TouristVisa entry to a 90-day Non Imm O Visa, be aware that there have been reports that the Imm Offices in Chiang-Rai do not provide that service. And that they advise to those applying to get a 90-day Non Imm O Visa at the Thai Embassy in Vientiane (!!!). So better check first with the Imm Office of the district/province where you have your residence in Chiang-Rai province, in order not be turned away.

Phuket

As mentioned in previous posts, it is very rare that an Application 'under consideration' is refused. The fact alone that the local Imm Office accepted the application is already proof that you met all the requirements. So the only reasons for such very rare refusal are: - When the Divisional Headquarter that has to approve the application, finds a reason for not granting such approval; - When the house-visit goes sideways and the Imm Officer conducting that check gives a negative advice. Note: The latter case happened recently to a female friend of mine. She was not home when the visit took place, and her Thai husband had a bad hang-over or was drunk when the female Imm Officer arrived. When checking the status of her application on the local Immigration website, my female friend saw that it was refused, and when she went with her Thai husband to the Imm Office to enquire, the Imm Officer said 'drunk'.

~ Think you have your answer there. Use your Singapore account to transfer funds via WISE to your son's Thai bank-account.

If you have a passport from the EU, you could open a bank-account at N26, a Germany based Internet bank voted last year best bank in the world. I opened an account with them while in Thailand, so it is possible to do it from abroad and since it is an Internet bank you will never be bothered with having to present yourself in person at a branche. Note that if you are a UK citizen, you could probably do the same with Revolut.

Do you have a bank-account in another country than UAE? If so you could use that one to transfer funds via WISE to a Thai bank-account.

Wow, are you not allowed in EUA to transfer money from your local account to WISE (which would then simply pay-out the funds to the local bank-account of the recipient)?

As several posters already indicated, the easiest way would be to open a WISE account, which allows to transfer money abroad to any bank-account (it's fast, fully transparent and almost always the cheapest compared with other options).

In that case: - If the 1-year Non Imm O-A Visa validity has NOT expired on date you will return, there is no need for a Re-Entry Permit (as the Non Imm O-A Visa is MultipleEntry during its validity) - If the 1-year Non Imm O-A Visa validity has expired on date you will return, you will need a Re-Entry Permit to protect the Permission to stay date as provided during your last entry on the Non Imm O-A Visa while it was still valid. > And in both cases you would need also to show a non expired Non Imm O-A compliant Health-Insurance policy from a Thai TGIA associated insurer. You will then be stamped in - for 12 months when your Non Imm O-A Visa did not already expire, or will be stamped in again till same date of your Re-Entry Permit protected Permission to stay OR - till the expiry date of that mandatory Non Imm O-A compliant Health Insurance policy, whatever is shortest.

Undoubtedly he will be endorsed by Thailand as their esteemed candidate for the next Nobel Prize in Medicine.

~ When re-entering Thailand on a Non Imm O-A Visa, Thai border-immigration will look for the validity date of the Visa in your passport, in conjunction with the expiry date of the Health-Insurance policy certificate, and stamp you in accordingly. They will only be looking for a Re-Entry Permit when your Non Imm O-A Visa validity has expired, and you are re-entering on the Permission to Stay stamped in your passport when your last entered when the Visa was still valid. Once your Visa has expired, that Permission to stay needs to be protected by a Re-Entry Permit when re-entering Thailand (otherwise it will be voided, and you would receive a 'simple' Visa Exempt 30-day Permission to stay). Be aware that due to the original Non Imm O-A Visa on which you entered, that you always also have to provide proof of a valid Health-Insurance policy certificate (as your Permission to stay will be capped to the expiry date of that policy).

~ Normally that should not be required as you are not applying for the Visa in Thailand. But you might have difficulty providing accepted evidence of having the equivalent of +400K on a foreign bank-account. Showing the Pass-book of your Thai Bank-account with +400K on a date very close to you application (and providing copies of all pages) would be accepted without problems.