Eff1n2ret

To be really pedantic, I think you mean non-o retirement extensions issued within Thailand. But yes, we're literally a dying breed.

I wonder if there are any sections of the Home Office that are actually fit for purpose. However, the notion that the Passport Office could be privatised is ludicrous. There are aspects of national security inherent in issuing passports, and to hand that over to any outside body is asking for trouble. It's bad enough that they gave the contract for producing our passports to a French company, and they are, I believe, printed in Poland

Given the waiting lists for NHS treatment, he could be gone for years.

Not if you're hooked up to the grid - they don't want to risk their electricians working on power lines that might be live. It's very irritating to have no power in the house when your panels could be supplying it.

Your passport isn't in "the UK system", it is with the agent to whom you sent it. Only copies of your passport get sent with the application to the UK. If you surrender your passport to an agent who keeps it until the new one is issued, it shows what a nonsense the procedure for obtaining a UK passport is, which is presumably to slavishly observe the Thai requirement to have your passport with you at all times - which nobody bothers about.

Fair enough, as long as the OP does not harbour the illusion that he still has the status of a "Covid refugee" if/when he returns to Thailand.

Doesn't a Covid extension lapse if you leave the country? How could it be transferred, unless it qualifies for a re-entry permit, which you would have to get before leaving?

Online applications can be done in the UK, but not in Thailand. I could expand on how and why they ought to work here, but I don't want to hijack the OP's topic, which calls for recommendations for agents. The only one I ever see mentioned is the company you cite, but there must be others.

I don't dispute any of that, and have never needed to produce my passport anywhere except at Immigration (and getting Covid vax). But that being the case, the question remains why the UK authorities can't think of a less cumbersome arrangement for passport applications. I could.

Are you sure about that? I used isaanlawyers to make a will a few years back, signed it at home, witnessed by friends/neighbours.

Having to make two trips is not a user-friendly process, and using an agent might be more convenient for many. However, this convoluted system only exists to comply with Thailand's requirement that foreigners should carry their passports with them at all times - yet it's apparently ok to part with your passport to an agent, and then what happens to it? Do they post it back to you, or keep it for the several weeks that it takes for a new passport to be issued? I wouldn't be happy with that. I'm not decrying agents, but it makes a nonsense of the way things are done currently.

That is pretty much the reality. Perhaps no-one plans where they will die, but if someone is too ill to be moved, Immigration would prefer not to know. I had a pal who had a massive stroke, his wife forgot to renew his extension on time and went along several months late They took one look at a photo of the poor chap, bedridden with a gruesome hole in his skull, and told her not to come back. There he remained until he died 3 or 4 years later.

I also have a replacement UK debit card which requires the same ATM chip and pin transaction to activate it. I just hope I remember to do that if/ when I get back to England. But I'm still able to make transfer payments from the account. I never use the card number to make online purchases, I have a credit card for that (which I was able to activate online from Thailand).

Yes, I've never noticed that before, but that notation is there against all my extensions. Does that mean a DIY applicant or "Money in the Bank", or just Retirement, which is written there anyway?

I don't understand the "need" for 18 months. If your current passport has 12 months to run, you can get an extension until its expiry date, even if that is not the full 12 months. Then 3 months before it expires, apply for a new passport and then renew your extension when it arrives.

Yes, all done on the spot. Letter from Immigration or from the Embassy is required for driving licence in Rayong (as well as medical certificate). You need to take a photo for the Immigration letter. If you don't have one the girlies will snap you on a mobile phone and print off a strip of 6 for 100baht.

I paid 500Baht at Maptaphut (Rayong) last October.

I haven't signed it, I'm done with these petitions because they're a complete waste of time, a creation of the Blair government to give the illusion that "the people" have a voice. If they raise 10,000 signatures you get a "response" from the government telling you why the rules are what they are. If there are 100,000 signatures there has to be a debate in Parliament, where the government explains why the rules are...etc...etc. The only time I can ever recall one of these petitions making a difference was a long time ago against a proposed raising of fuel duty, when the signatures ran to millions, there was a big stink in the press and the government backed down. We are a tiny minority with no sympathy or support from our fellow citizens in the UK, and the government has no need to take any notice of us.

And the response will be a cut and paste of the last time they responded to one of these fatuous petitions, which only give the mandarins an excuse to advise ministers that there is no significant support for any change to the status quo.

I didn't get where I am today by comparing myself to Reggie Perrin.

On Highway 7 from Banchang up to Bangkok it's quite common to see fixed 120Kph and lighted 90Kph signs within a few hundred metres of each other. I've often wondered whether the 90Kph lights are just advisory, or whether anyone's been fined for exceeding that speed. I mostly ignore them.

It occurred to me the other day while watching Spurs banging in the goals that if they picked up a French winger with the right name they could have a forward line of Son et Lumiere.

I can't speak for Chiang Mai, but the office in Bangkok is pretty efficient once you're there. They don't keep you waiting long, and if your paperwork is correct you don't spend more than a few minutes at the counter. The gripe for those of us who don't live close to Bangkok is having to go there twice, once to submit the application and then to collect the new passport and submit the old one for defacement. As has already been stated, allow plenty of time to get your new passport, the HMPO website says 11 weeks (unless they changed it recently). That's not the fault of VFS, but of Passport Office staff pretending to work from home.

A break well earned. Thank you for continuing to publish these interesting statistics.

How much is "enough" for people who might live, say, another 40 years? The Elite visa exists for the well-heeled, how many others who haven't qualified for pensions have really got enough to support themselves?