Eff1n2ret

Today I renewed my car insurance via AA Insurance brokers, who are (or were) sponsors of ThaiVisa, and asked them about insurance to comply with the Travel Pass requirement, being the same age as you. They gave me this link:- https://quote.worldtrips.com/atlastravel/?referid=28083&language=en-US I put in the data based on a trip to the UK on 1st December (intending to return on a re-entry permit within about 2 weeks), policy to run till 21st Feb which is my extension date. The quote came back for over $700, although that reduces to less than $500 with deductibles. So you can get a policy at 77, albeit bl00dy expensive. BUT the Covid cover says it's not available in your home country, so I asked what that means, he said it's the country of your passport. So it would only be worth booking for the one-way return trip. I have previously bought Thai travel insurance for a trip to the UK, almost worthless because it excluded nearly everything. Insurance for the Travel Pass seems to be doable, even for us extreme wrinklies, but at a very high cost.

I got the "approval" email from Rayong office two days later. Since the system started it's only failed to work for me once, apart from when I reported whilst renewing my extension. As ubonjoe suggests, it seems to depend entirely on the attitude of the office where you report. Rayong are pretty enlightened in this respect, although I note that they have abandoned the "automatic" processing of the report, where an approval is pinged back from the central database as soon as you submit it. I suspect this is for the same reason as many offices don't use the system properly or at all, which is to justify somebody's job in the local office. I don't use the app to report, though it says my status is 'normal', which is news to my wife.

That seems to be on the small print of every travel insurance issued in UK. I was once told that there are travel policies available which did not exclude pre-existing conditions. I shopped around several websites, but they were all for UK residents.

'si leuang' worked for me at DLT test in Rayong last week

The Bank of England announced yesterday that there will be no immediate increase in interest rates, so some speculators have bailed out.

'Visa exempt' isn't insurance exempt.

To me that sentence would make more sense if it said "British expats"??? Visitors from the UK have a choice as to whether they want to fulfil whatever conditions Thailand imposes on their entry. Those of us advanced in years who live here and maintain funds in the bank don't want to face the choice of never going back to see friends and family or going there and being unable to come back because of the prohibitive cost of insurance we've never needed before. I suppose everybody's circumstances are different. At 77 I don't expect to be able to get any insurance worth the paper it's written on, but apart from the funds I hold here I have the equivalent of several million baht in UK accounts, and that's before I've sold the house I still own there. I've been in hospital 3 times here and paid cash down. I don't intend or want to be a charge on the Thai taxpayer. What I would ask the Embassy to lobby for is some 'grandfather' scheme which exempts long-term extension/re-entry permit holders above, say 75years from any insurance requirement if they've never been subject to such a requirement before.

I think that's just poor translation, and it should read "one dose of Janssen..or two doses of AstraZeneca etc"

That's a good point. I would say from my own experience that it's the date of application. When I applied for my extension in early February (extension runs from 21st.) I had a few moments of unease because the entry in my bankbook from the year before had been overprinted after I had got the previous year's extension. The IO queried it with his senior officer and they let it go, I think because it was clear I always keep well over 800k in the account.

As ubonjoe says, it's 3 months. That's what it says on the Police Order

Website worked for me yesterday. Currently awaiting approval

I've had a 3-litre turbo D-Max for 12 years from new. I would have bought the 2-litre but I wanted an automatic in my old age. The power is, as Rolls-Royce used to say, 'adequate', and when you need it there's plenty for overtaking, etc. It's amazingly comfortable on long trips, a good 'GT'. The only thing I don't like about it is the very poor turning circle, so it's not the best for parking and U-turns.

Brits in Thailand warned of up to 11 week wait for passport renewals - Page 3 - Thailand News - ASEAN NOW - News, Travel & Forum If I might make a suggestion, I was intrigued to notice on the attachments to the above topic that the British Embassy has a "HMPO Officer". May I suggest that you ring the British Embassy and ask to speak to this person. If they exist as a separate entity from the VFS operation they should be able to use their contacts at HMPO to expedite your application. Otherwise your options are to ask VFS or to try and get some sense out of HMPO in the UK. The Embassy might also be able to clarify whether an Emergency Travel Document and Emergency Passport are separate entities as ubonjoe suggests.

Use every means possible to hassle HMPO into getting your passport to you before 22nd Nov.

No. See above

"If the embassy issued a emergency passport you could use it apply for a new extension of stay." Really? My memory of Emergency Passports when I was an Immigration Officer was that they were single sheet documents issued for the purpose of travel only, and surrendered on arrival in the UK. I can't imagine Thai Immigration endorsing an extension on one. The info on the British Embassy website suggests that the system is just the same:- You can apply for an emergency travel document if all the following apply: you’re a British national you’re outside the UK your passport has been lost, stolen, damaged, is full, has recently expired or is with HM Passport Office or a foreign embassy you do not have time to renew or replace your passport before you travel you can provide proof of your travel plans, for example booking confirmations (or detailed written travel plans if you cannot book ahead)

No, it's from the date of issue. What they don't do any more is add on the unexpired time from your old passport, so you do lose some time. It's also annoying for those of us on annual extensions that if you haven't got a year left on your passport, you are faced with the alternatives of either getting an extension for less than one year or applying when your passport has more than a year to run, effectively reducing its useful validity to nine years.

Interesting to note from the OP that the British Embassy has an 'HMPO Officer'. I wonder what he/she does all day.

Did you want the 5 minute argument or the full half-hour? Monty Python's Argument Bot - Bing video

The way I read their bumf you have to have booked a flight:- "To use IATA Travel Pass a passenger must be traveling on an airline that is trialing or using the app. If this is the case the airline will send the passenger a code to download."

I suppose she felt you were challenging her in some way. But your point about taking more paperwork than you think you need is absolutely right. Having this morning submitted the photo page of my passport for a driving licence application I was required to sign copies of two of the other pages - at least the DLT didn't charge for them.

At Rayong Immigration earlier this month I paid 500 baht, no receipt given. I don't object, they're providing a service.

The process is much more civilised than 5 years ago because of the appointment system. There's nothing to be gained by turning up early, because you are marshalled in groups of a dozen or so according to your appointment time, and then sent across to the main building. If you have an immigration letter, you should stop off at the information booth on the ground floor to get it stamped (heaven knows why), otherwise they send you back downstairs to get it done. Hand in the papers upstairs, when they've been processed you go across to the test room for the red-yellow-green and reaction tests, hand papers back in where you were before, wait to be called for payment (505Baht), then in the next alcove wait for your turn in the booth for photo, and a minute or two later for your new licence. 9.30 appointment, all done by 10.20. That's how they're doing it in Rayong now. I was glad to see my licence now displays my correct month of birth, September, as for the last 10 years it's been October. Expiry date is September 2027, nearly 6 years. I wonder what my expiry date is.

Perhaps when you see on the news that civil servants have been made to go back to work.