Red Phoenix

On 4/2/2024 at 3:37 PM, richard_smith237 said:

...

The issue is more complex than that - the key issue is the ID Page not being damaged (and its usually laminated so it isn't).

ID records are also held on the Immigration Database.... so as long as the Biometrics are readable and the ID page is identifiable, Immigration are capable of identifying the 'UK foreigner' upon departure.

 

As such, an emergency passport may not be required - but its still something I'd want in my back pocket anyway, just in case and if the Op lives in Bangkok already, a visit to the Embassy is easy enough.

Fully agree with Richard Smith's post.

I had a somewhat similar experience with a damaged passport > almost half of the back-cover of my Belgian passport was eaten by our dog. But luckily the ID-page and all the stamps were still pristine.

I researched the matter and majority of sources indicated that travelling with a damaged passport to your home-country is allowed, but it's a definite no-no for travel to other countries. 

The only hick-up I faced was that I flew to Belgium with Emirates, and Thai border-immigration made an issue about that 'transit in another country' (where they didn't even check my passport by the way), but the Emirates staff helped me out on that one. 

On arrival in my home-country I applied for a new passport, and flew back to Thailand with both the damaged and new passport.  I needed the damaged passport as it contained my Re-Entry Permit to protect the Permission to stay date based on my Non Imm O Visa for reason of retirement. So on arrival in BKK the border Imm Officer stamped my new passport with the Permission to stay based on that Re-Entry Permit.  And 3 months later when I had to do my 90-day report (new passport so not possible to do it on-line) I did both my 90-day report and my local Imm Office transfered all the relevant information from my old passport to my new one.  

5 hours ago, AAArdvark said:

incorrect, i did not have to,  Did not have the 800K and I was able to get an extension using 12 65K deposits after my 1st year..

Hi AAArdvark,

Thanks for sharing your experience as it gives a glimmer of hope for my friend that he might not have to exit Thailand and start the whole process for a Non Imm O Visa from scratch again. 

A couple of questions though:

#1 - At which Imm Office did you apply for the 1-year extension of stay based on your Non Imm O Visa for reason of retirement? 

#2 - Did you - like my friend - NOT meet the required 'Funds-in-Bank' requirement during the 12 months preceding your application for the 1-year extension?

#3 - What additional requirements and documents did your Imm Office impose/require when you switched from the 'Funds-in-Bank' method to the 'Monthly-Income-Transfer' method? Obviously you would have to provide evidence of having transferred +65.000,- THB from abroad during each and every month in the 12 months preceding your application for the 1-year extension.  But did the Imm Office also require a 'pension statement' or any other documents regarding the source of these monthly transfers?  

Thanks in advance for response.  

MY SOUL HAS A HAT

I counted my years
& realized that I have
Less time to live by,
Than I have lived so far.

I feel like a child who won a pack of candies: at first he ate them with pleasure,
But when he realized that there was little left, he began to taste them intensely.

I have no time for endless meetings where the statutes, rules, procedures
& internal regulations are discussed, knowing that nothing will be done.

I no longer have the patience
To stand absurd people who,
Despite their chronological age,
Have not grown up.

My time is too short:
I want the essence,
My spirit is in a hurry.
I do not have much candy
In the package anymore.

I want to live next to humans,
Very realistic people who know
How to laugh at their mistakes,
Who are not inflated by their own triumphs,
& who take responsibility for their actions.
In this way, human dignity is defended
And we live in truth and honesty.

It is the essentials that make life useful.
I want to surround myself with people
Who know how to touch the hearts of those whom hard strokes of life
Have learned to grow, with sweet touches of the soul.

Yes, I’m in a hurry.
I’m in a hurry to live with the intensity that only maturity can give.
I do not intend to waste any of the remaining desserts.

I am sure they will be exquisite,
Much more than those eaten so far.
My goal is to reach the end satisfied
And at peace with my loved ones and my conscience.

We have two lives
& the second begins when you realize you only have one.

1 hour ago, DrJack54 said:

OP, I am actually changing from money in bank to income.

I have the 800k in the bank and I also started the 65k transfers when obtaining my current extension last October.  

I will be able to show compliance to money in bank along with 12 months of deposits. 

Then next extension use income method.  

Thinking your friend will need to start over.

Border bounce visa e empty entry and obtain the Non O at local immigration office showing his 12 month of transfers

Thanks!

From your response it is implied that in order to switch from the 'Funds-in-Bank' method to 'Monthly-income-transfer' method, that you need to show full compliance for BOTH methods in the 12 months preceding your application for the 1-year extension. 

If that is correct, then obviously he would not be able to make the switch, as due to that urgent withdrawal he made, he does not meet the 800K criterium of the Funds-in-Bank method during first 3 months after application anymore. 

32 minutes ago, bamnutsak said:

1-Another "friend".

2-When did your friend start transferring the 65,000?

3-I think your friend is hosed. Maybe get back to 800,000 then go visa exemption to 90-day Non-O to 1 year extension? 

1 - Yep, a friend who PM-ed me about the situation I described.  My Imm Office is in SiSaKet province, but his address is in Bangkok, hence the request for any additional requirements that CW might impose when wanting to do such a switch.

2 - He has been transferring every month +65K from abroad and this from before he got his current 1-year extension of stay, hence the question whether he would be able to switch from the 'Funds-in-Bank' method to the 'Monthly-Income-transfer' method, when applying for his 1-year extension of stay due 31 Oct 2024.

3 - If he - due to additional requirements from CW - is not eligible for making using of the 'Monthly-Income-transfer' method, then he has no choice but to leave Thailand and on return start the process to apply for a 90-day Non Imm O Visa from scratch.

25 minutes ago, sandyf said:

What do you mean "from scratch"?

There is very little difference between an extension renewal and a new extension, done it several times in the last few years. In fact last extension in Dec with new passport from UK and new visa probably easiest I have ever done.

Can't understand why many go to great lengths to avoid what can often be the easiest option.

Applying for the 1-year 'retirement' extension only requires 1 visit to CW.

That's obviously far more attractive to him than having to leave Thailand, and on return apply for the 90-day Non Imm O Visa for reason of retirement, with the 'under consideration' period.  And then at the end of the 90 days apply for the 1-year extension based on that new 90-day Non Imm O Visa. 

Due to urgent necessity a friend of mine had to use part of the funds that he kept on his personal Thai bank-account and dipped 150.000,- THB under the required tresshold minimum of 800K to meet the financial requirements for his next 1-year extension.  He did this during the first 3 months after he applied for his current 1-year extension based on his Non Imm O Visa for reason of retirement. 

He did not have sufficient funds on his other Thai bank-accounts, reason that he had to use part of the required 800K during that initial 3-month period. 

However, he has been transferring more than 65.000,- THB every month from abroad.  

His Imm Office is CW, and his current Permission to stay is due to expire 31 October 2024.

QUESTION

> Are there any AN-members that have switched when applying for their 1-year extension  from the 'Funds-in-Bank' method to 'Monthly-income-transfer' method?

And if so are there any additional requirements to be met at CW for such a switch besides proof of having transferred +65K funds from abroad each and every month for the 12 months preceding the application for his 1-year extension in October 2024?

Thanks for any responses.

Note: He is well aware that if he would not meet any additional requirements that CW might impose for such a switch at his next 1-year extension application, that he would have no option but to leave Thailand, and on return start the application process from scratch again for a 90-day Non Imm O Visa.

When the Re-entry Permit in your old - now invalidated - passport was not stamped 'Used' (and thus still valid), I would presume that the border Immigration Officer on entry would honor it by stamping you in - in your new passport - till the Permission to stay date, which the Re-Entry Permit protected.  Because that's the 'normal process'. 

The fact that you already had the relevant Visa-information transferred from your old to your new passport at CW (except for that Re-Entry permit) should not deter them from honoring that still valid Re-Entry Permit in your old passport. 

When you would not have already done the stamp-transfer process at your Imm Office, and would enter Thailand with a 'blanc' new passport, the border Imm Officer without any doubt would simply stamp the protected Permission to stay in your new Passport.

But of course this is Thailand, so if you are dealing with a dim border-immigration officer you might have to ask for the officer in charge in case the border-immigration officer would just want to provide you with a 30-day Permission to stay stamp. 

A new trial out of Thailand recently published in the medical peer-reviewed literature with 995 participants showed that treatment with fluvoxamine and at least one other drug was 100% successful in preventing hospitalization from COVID.

For those receiving standard of care, 37.5% required hospitalization.

Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2589537024000968

Summary

(more)

But, but, but what about the covid-jabs that were supposed to also significantly reduce the risk of getting this 'long covid'...

On 3/10/2024 at 12:09 AM, Danderman123 said:

Most people play the odds. If you hear of a slot machine in a casino that pays a few percent more than the other machines, that's where you play.

 

If a vaccine gives you 50% better protection against a common disease, you take it.

 

Unless you are anti-vax, then no amount of protection is sufficient. 

> "If a vaccine gives you 50% better protection against a common disease, you take it."

Ever heard of the Risk-Reward assessment that you (or your doctor) should do before taking the shot?

The jabs are anything but 'all Reward, no Risks' like the MSM want you to believe...

To experience 'the erosion of trust between patients and healthcare professionals' one only needs to be so unfortunate as to be admitted to a hospital where imposed Protocol is strictly adhered to and patients treated as numbers or underage children.

21 hours ago, DrJack54 said:

22 hours ago, steph83 said:

Thanks Mate, what's the problem of changing to extension based on Thai children ?

When you are still married most offices will make you remain on extension based on marriage even when you have children.

> It's worth enquiring at your Korat Imm Office, whether they would allow you to switch from your current extension based on Marriage, to a 1-year extension for reason of dependant Thai children. 

Obviously you should not 'wake sleeping dogs' and inform them that your wife would be taking up a job in Phuket.  But it would be a perfectly legitimate question to ask as it has the advantage for you that when you use the Funds-in-Bank method that a 1-year extension based on 'thai dependant children', only requires the +400K funds to be on your personal Thai bank at the moment of application. 

Also note that a house-visit by Immigration (to check whether you are indeed living together) is as good as always announced a couple of hours before Immigration actually shows up.  This to avoid a wasted trip for them in case you would not be home.  When receiving such a call during the 'under consideration' period, you can always say that your wife is not home as she is on a trip visiting relatives in Phuket.  And you could then agree on another date for the home-visit allowing your wife to return to your home just for that visit.     

4 hours ago, Somrak said:

David_je

Why you did not let make the 90 days after you became the new Extension?

He wrote that his 90-day report due date was 21 March, but that he applied for his 1-year extension on 6 March.  That's one day too early as in his case the earliest date to do the 90-day report was 7 March.

26 minutes ago, IvorBiggun2 said:

No such thing these day.

The TM6-arrival/departure card has been suspended when entering Thailand by air.  However, when using a land-border to enter Thailand, it is still in use.

44 minutes ago, timendres said:

 

Not sure about "long term funds" overriding the requirement. That may be possible.

But in my case, I kept the cash in a safe to avoid having to file a FACTA.

The transfer out and back cost me about $230 (spreads and fees). Not terrible.

That explains the Imm Officers denial of your initial application, as you would have no evidence of funds being 'long time' seasoned on a personal Thai bank-account.

5 hours ago, timendres said:

 

The funds must be shown to have come from abroad. I explained to the officer at CW that I had worked here for 9 years and saved up that money. The officer explained "That is good. Send it to the US, then send it back to Thailand." No alternative was even suggested (other than the envelope option, which I declined).

When your Bank Pass-book shows that you continually kept the required funds (800K for retirement / 400K for marriage application) for a 'long time' (couple of months) on your personal Thai Bank-account, there would be no need to prove 'foreign origins' of those long-time seasoned funds.  

However, if the funds on your bank-account were below those 800K or 400K tressholds in the months preceding your application, it is indeed possible that a zealous Imm Officer would not accept this and require a 'transfer from abroad'. 

Be aware that when applying for the 90-day Non Imm O Visa at CM Immigration from your VisaExempt entry, that you would need to do the application when you have at least 21 days left on the Permission to stay you will receive from Border-Immigration on entry.  If that does not give you sufficent time to get hold of the required documents for such application, you can apply for a 30-day extension of stay at CM, which costs 1.900,- THB, is provided on the spot (you do need a TM-30 notiication with your address in CM province) and the 30 days will be added to your Permission to stay expiry date of 16 April. 

29 minutes ago, DrJack54 said:

You are referring to different thing. 

The OP is about transfer of stamps from old pp to new.

Your posts refer to "certificate of residence"

For most immigration offices the transfer is free.

Not so with COR

I am lucky at my SiSaKet Imm Office, they are always correct and helpful, and NO charges for transfer of stamps from old to new passport, nor for a Certificate of Residence.

In the highly recommended substack of L.T. Koch I came across this text that struck a cord with Koch and which he translated in english.  It was written by the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788 - 1860). 

Contrary to what I presumed from a philosophical text, Schopenhauer writes amazingly clear and accessible and his insights "on Thinking for Yourself" are as relevant now - or even more in this information-overload times - than when he wrote them.

For those that wonder how this text relates to the subjects addressed in the God-thread, I refer to the earlier discussions some weeks ago between @Sunmaster, @Tippaporn and myself on levels of knowledge/understanding.

The full text consists of 15 paragraphs (257 to 271), and here 3 quotes from it, to give you a jist of its flavor, which will hopefully spark your inclination to read the full text and check out more of the great original thinker that Schopenhauer was.

§. 260.

Reading is a mere surrogate for thinking for yourself. It means allowing someone else to lead your thoughts on a leash. What’s more, the only thing many books are good for is to demonstrate how many erroneous ways there are, and how hard we could get lost if we allowed them to guide us. He who is guided by genius, on the other hand, who thinks for himself, voluntarily, correctly, possesses the compass to find the right path.

You should therefore only read when the source of your own thoughts dries up—which will happen often enough even to the best of minds. But to frighten off your own, ur-potent thoughts to take up a book is a crime against the Holy Spirit. It would be like fleeing from real nature to go visit a herbarium or to look at nice landscapes in engravings.

It is true that sometimes, you could have easily found a truth or an insight ready-made in a book, which you have instead laboured hard for, pondering and combining, slowly, by using your own mind. And yet, the same truth or insight is worth a hundred times more if you have acquired it by thinking for yourself. Because only then does it enter the full coherence of your thoughts and relates to them perfectly and firmly, understood with all its grounds and consequences; only then does it take on the colour, the hue, the structure of your entire way of thinking: because it came just at the right time when your unique thought structure stirred up the urge. And so what has been gained sits tight, never to leave you again. Accordingly, Goethe’s verse:3

      What from your fathers’ heritage is lent,
      Earn it anew, to really possess it!

finds here its most perfect application, indeed, its explanation.

The truth merely learned, on the other hand, is taped to us like an attached limb, a false tooth, a wax nose, or at best one made by rhinoplasty from alien flesh. Whereas the truth acquired by thinking for ourselves is like the natural limb: it alone is truly ours. Here we find the root of the difference between the thinker and the mere scholar. It is also why the intellectual achievements of the self-thinking man resemble a beautiful painting hitting you fully alive, with the right light and shades, sustained hue, perfectly rendered harmony of colours. The intellectual substrate of the mere scholarly academic, on the other hand, is like a large palette full of all kinds of colours, at best ordered systematically, but without harmony, cohesion or meaning.

&263

... even the greatest mind is not able to think for himself all the time. Thus he would be well-advised to use the remaining time to read, even though as I said it is a surrogate for thinking for oneself and feeds the mind material by allowing another to think for you—always in a manner that is not your own. Which is, again, why you shouldn’t read too much; so that your spirit doesn’t get used to the surrogate, lest it loses the real thing: in other words, so that it doesn’t get used to the beaten paths and therefore, by walking a stranger’s line of thought, alienates you from your own. Least of all should you give up looking at the real world in favour of reading: because it is there that the occasion and the atmosphere for thinking for yourself will knock at your door much more often than by reading. For it is the vivid, the exemplification, the real, in its primal power, which is the natural matter of the thinking mind, and can stir it deeply most reliably.

§. 266.

Those people who are so quick and eager to settle controversial issues by appeal to authority in reality are glad when they can, instead of using their own reason and insight, of which there is surely not enough, put forward that of strangers. Their number is legion.

On 2/29/2024 at 1:44 AM, Masterton said:

 

Yeah I don't think that is correct... The visa is valid for 6 months meaning you can only use it up until the expiry date. If you enter 1 day before the visa expires then you can get stamped in for 2 months (plus you can extend 1 month at immigration), so technically you can get +/- 9 months usage out of it, but there is no resetting the validity date upon re-entry that I am aware of.

Yes, that's fully correct. 

So when you want to squeeze the max possible stay out of the METV, you should not apply too early for that Visa as it only stays valid for 6 months from date of issue.  And indeed when re-entering Thailand on the last day of the Visa validity you will get once again a 2 months Permission to stay which can be extended for an additional 30 days, so when timed right you can get almost 9 months of stay out of that Visa (with no need for Re-Entry Permits during the Visa validity period).

39 minutes ago, sirineou said:

66 years old, going to the states this spring. I will seriously consider it. 

66 years old, and wild horses couldn't drag me to line-up for these shots...

When planning to stay +90-104 days as you wrote, you will always have to do a 'border hop' as a 60-day Tourist Visa only allows a one time extension of 30 days (added to the expiry date of the Permission to stay you will receive on entering Thailand).  Doing a same-day border-hop will provide you with a 30-day VisaExempt Permission to stay, which also can be extended again with an additional 30-days at any local Thai Imm Office.  So the above would provide you with 150 days in Thailand. 

Note that if you plan to stay max 120 days, that there is not even a need to apply for the 60-day Tourist Visa, as you can simply enter Thailand VisaExempt (without a Visa).  Thai border immigration will provide you on entry with a 30-days Permission to stay which can be extended on the spot at any Thai Imm Office for 30 days (costs 1.900,- THB).  Then do a border-hop, and repeat the above.

Although the official rules re TM-30 do not require you to re-register after returning to your 'official address for Imm purposes' after a domestic trip or an international trip (with your Permission to stay protected by a Re-Entry Permit), there are several rogue offices that make their own rules, and do want you to do this.