KamnanT

Seems Emirates is already rolling them into the ticket prices then.

Yes, Emirates is one of the few airlines that doesn't have a separate "fuel surcharge", so total taxes & fees on an Emirates ticket are much lower than, say, BA or Qantas. A "fare" of GBP 399 becomes a "total cost" of GBP 800 once the surcharge and government taxes are added.

Like Sam Drucker, I see the high "fuel surcharge" imposed by most airlines to be a deceptive marketing practice. For an airline, fuel is a cost of doing business - it's not like it's optional. Should we expect to see an "aircraft surcharge" or a "flight crew surcharge" in the near future?

Also, on a non-refundable fare, most airlines will refund government taxes if you cancel, but not the fuel surcharge - yet another indication that they view it as part of the fare, not a separate cost.

_{Again, from experience with TLSContact, you must have a confirmed hotel booking (or a residential address of friends/relations) for every single night on your proposed itinerary. If staying in a residence, you will need written invitation letters from the residents. And yes, you can make hotel reservations online and then cancel them once the visa has been issued.}

You have a choice of getting legally married in Thailand and applying for a Partner Visa (subclass 309/100) in Thailand or applying for a Fiance Visa (subclass 300) and then getting married in Australia. Note that the processing time for either visa is likely to be 10-13 months. Technically, you can apply for a Partner visa before you're legally married as long you marry before a decision on your application is made, however practically I would think it will make your application much stronger if you were already married. The village ceremony doesn't count as legal marriage, only the registration at the amphur fulfills this requirement. One alternative would be to get legally married now so that you can submit the application and then have the village ceremony as planned in December.

You will be required to include evidence that your relationship is genuine and continuing and that you "share a mutual commitment to each other to the exclusion of all others." This will include describing and providing evidence of the history of your relationship (how and when you met, the progression of the relationship), your domestic arrangements (cohabition, financial and emotional support for each other), when you decided to marry or enter into a de facto relationship and any periods of separation. This information is important, as the mere fact of being legally married is not, in and of itself, sufficient grounds for the issue of a Partner visa. The marriage must be de facto (true in practice) and not just de jure (true in law).

You could also submit a Fiance Visa application now, but be aware that this route to a permanent visa will be more expensive ($2,960 in government fees vs. $1,995) and that Fiance visas are potentially subject to capping (annual limits) whereas Partner visas are not. If granted, a fiance visa will allow your GF to travel to and reside in Australia for up to nine months, during which period you must get married and apply for a Partner visa.

Key to this choice will be the length of time since you and you GF met and how much of that time you have spent together (i.e. cohabiting). It's not clear from your initial post if the last four weeks in Thailand is the only time you've stayed together or if there were earlier periods of cohabition.

I can't comment on other Schengen countries but the French processing centre (TLSContact) advised a colleague's girlfriend in July last year that she should not submit her application there because her itinerary showed she would be spending more time in Italy than in France (2 more nights), even though her first entry in the Schengen zone would be France. She was advised that if she proceeded the French Embassy could reject her application on that basis and the application fee would be lost. They recommended she either apply at the Italian Embassy or modify her itinerary to spend more time in France. She opted for the latter option as the Italian Embassy in Bangkok has a reputation for being particularly rude to Thai applicants and very stingy with the period of stay granted. After getting another appointment with TLSContact 10 days later, she submitted an application with a revised itinerary and got the standard 3 month multi-entry Schengen visit visa.

Note that on her first visit to TLSContact, they returned the Schengen visa fee but kept the THB 1,200 TLSContact "surcharge" --- the cost of their advice, I suppose.

Thanks Guys. But they didn't apply for PR. Only me did. Before that, they've always been my dependent on the yearly visa.

I'm not 100% certain, but I suspect that if they haven't applied for PR then they are not "under consideration" and will not be given 6 monthly extensions. Best to ask at the Residency section at Chaengwattana.

There is, generally speaking, a shortage of qualified and experienced software development skills in Thailand, on both the development and testing side. I don't believe there is as much of a shortage of network engineering staff, although if you have some unique experience there may be employers who find you interesting. Whether the salary levels meet your expectations is another story, however. If you are coming from Europe or North America, you will find salaries in Thailand much lower. If you are prepared to live as a local would, then the lower compensation won't be a problem, however if you're looking to live an expat lifestyle then (not surprisingly), you'll need an expat job.

Send your CV to a local recruiter or two and see if anyone bites.

Pay your 3 day overstay at the airport - give yourself an extra 30 minutes to get to the gate. Little point in going to Immigration in advance just don't have a run-in with the BiB before you get to Suvarnabhumi.

@chiangmaibruce you must be in Australia "before" the 5 year Visa expires then you can renew it again and again, I'm 100% sure about this.

Best thing to do it to apply for Citizenship so to avoid any surprise in the future.

Not true - a RRV can be obtained outside Australia. Whether inside or outside Australia, if the applicant has not spent 2 of the past 5 years in the country, then they must "provide evidence of substantial business, cultural, employment or personal ties of benefit to Australia." If they are outside Australia and been outside for a continuous period of more than 5 years, they must also "provide evidence of compelling reasons for their absence over 5 years."

How much did this all cost ??

What is the benefit of maintaining PR or getting it again over just applying in say 5 years or however to go back there to live ??

The current fee for a Class 155 RRV is $300 or THB 8,600 on the current Bangkok Embassy price list.

My wife has had Australian PR since 1995. When her initial 5 year RRV expired, we were no longer living in Australia. My wife is now on her third 5 year RRV issued outside of Australia (all issued by the Australian Embassy in Bangkok). As she hasn't met the "2 of the last 5 years in Australia" requirement on any of the three occasions, we have had to demonstrate that she (i) has ongoing ties to Australia (bank account, occasional visits, Australian husband and Australian kids), (ii) that there are reasonable grounds for her extended absence from Australia (my employment) and (iii) that we intend to return to reside in Australia at some point in the future (which we do).

Hi Guys. Does any body know that while we are under consideration for the PR and getting our 6 monthly stamps, Our non-Thai dependents (spouse and child) would be given 6 month stamps similary as was the case with our yearly extensions prior to applying for PR?

Yes. Assuming that your spouse and child also applied for PR, they will also receive consecutive 6 month extensions until a decision is made on the application.

Both Thai and home country police clearances are required as part of a PR application, although Thai immigration takes care of sourcing the local one. I would have thought that any home country conviction would require at minimum an explanation and anything more than the most minor of offences would result in rejection.

Why would anyone travel with A$12,000 in cash anyway, in Thailand or in any country? I guess they don't believe in credit or debit cards.

What is your current permit to stay date (not the visa expiry)?

That's the stamp you got last time you entered.

The stamp in my passport says admitted until 19 Dec 2011. It's the same as the visa expiry date.

That would explain it. A re-entry permit just maintains your current permission to stay ("Admitted Until" date) when you leave and re-enter the country. Your plan is to return after your current permission to stay has expired, so a re-entry permit won't help you. Can I suggest you change your plans and return on December 19th, getting yourself another 90 day permission to stay on your Non-Immigrant "O"? You can then get a re-entry permit if you want to leave again during that period.

Is your Non-Immigrant "O" a single or multiple entry? If it's multiple, what they may have been trying to tell you is that you don't need a re-entry permit. With a multiple entry Non-"O", you can leave and re-enter as many times as you like before the December 19th expiry date and get permission to stay for 90 days each time.

You say you were planning to leave on the 18th and return on the 21st, after the expiry date of your visa. If your current 90 day permission to stay expires on or after the 21st then yes, a re-entry permit would allow you to leave and return after your visa has expired but before your current permission to stay expires. If this is the case, I am surprised that they wouldn't give you a re-entry permit - as you say, it is pretty much a formality.

Also found this on the site of the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa. A pretty strong message in there - visitors to Canada should apply for their U.S. visas in their home country, not in Canada.

I wouldn't assume that it will necessarily be faster to obtain a US non-immigrant visa for a Thai national in Canada. It may be easier to get an appointment at a consulate in Canada, however unless the applicant provides a plausible explanation for why they did not apply for a visa in Thailand, their application may be referred to the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok for further background checks. That would add days or weeks to the processing time.

Get married.

Marriage is the easiest solution if that was something you'd consider.

Keep in mind that the processing time for an Australian provisional residence visa based on marriage is likely to be 9+ months, so you'll have to plan ahead.

We are talking about a single entry non immigrant O visa - not a multi entry visa or a multi re-entry permit. For OP to return on the same non immigrant visa entry he must have a re-entry permit prior to leaving.

Ok thank you it's clear now about Single Entry Non-immigrant visa, but can I have confirmation about Multiple Non-immigrant visa ? Do you still need to apply a re-entry permit before leaving Thailand if you want to come back on your multiple Non-immigrant ?

Thank you so much again.

No, as long as you return to Thailand before the "Valid Until" date on your multi-entry Non-Immigrant "O' visa, you will be permitted to enter and remain for 90 days.

Without commenting on the wisdom of exiting Thailand on a passport that the UK IPS has electronically cancelled, I will comment on whether or not Thai immigration computers somehow communicate with those in the UK in real-time as UK nationals enter and leave Thailand. The short answer is no. Surprisingly, there are very few real-time data exchanges going on between national immigration authorities anywhere in the world. There are, of course, flag lists that are passed around on a periodic basis (e.g. Interpol) but for the most part each nation maintains its own list of undesirables and its own database of issued, valid and cancelled passports for nationals of that country.

All rather surprising in this post-9/11 age --- one would think that some international agency would have coordinated a real-time network to link all of these disparate computer systems together. If such a system were in place, counterfeit passports would be a thing of the past, as every immigration officer in every country could check your passport details against your home country's national passport database and see immediately if any details had been altered or if the photo or biometrics were of a different person. The fact that immigration officers still need to examine your passport carefully for signs of alteration or counterfeiting must mean they have no real-time access to your country's database.

I believe there are some exceptions, however - Canada and the US do share information in real-time and the Schengen zone countries have a single, shared database of entry and exit details, although I don't know if this extends to real-time information sharing of details on all passports issued by Schengen zone member states.

The address of both the employee and the employer are shown in the work permit, the former on Page 4 and the latter on Page 6. When I needed to update my residential address, I did it through my employer who filed the appropriate paperwork with the Labour Department. The change was entered as an amendment on Page 21 on the permit using a rubber stamp impression titled "Change of Residence", which to my mind indicates that the Labour Department expects to be notified when work permit holders move house.

In the first instance, ask your employer to do it. If they won't, try visiting the Labour Department yourself and explaining the situation.

If she holds a valid Green Card ( I - 551) then she does not need a visa to travel to Canada.

But, interestingly, the reverse is not true - permanent residents (landed immigrants) of Canada still require a visa to travel to the United States unless they are citizens of a visa waiver country or are otherwise exempted.

The only change I had heard of recently (June) with the French Schengen process was that the application center was being stricter about enforcing the rules around which Schengen member state an applicant submits his/her application to. If your travel plans include visits to multiple Schengen states, the guideline has always been that you must apply for a visa from (1) the state where you are planning to spend the most time or (2) if you are spending equal time in two or more states, the state of your first entry into the Schengen zone.

In the past, the TLScontact application centre has been flexible on the interpretation of these guidelines, e.g. they have accepted applications where France was the first state of entry but the majority of the visit was being spent in another Schengen state. In June, I was told of one applicant who had been advised by the center not to submit her application as her itinerary indicated that she would be spending more time in Italy than in France (17 nights vs. 15 nights). The TLS advisor said that the French Embassy had begun rejecting applications where the proposed itinerary didn't strictly meet the guidelines.

However, if you are an EU citizen, your wife is not required to answer a number of questions on the visa application form, including the one that asks for details of hotels/temporary accomodation for every night of the proposed stay (i.e. the itinerary). She simply needs to state her proposed entry and exit dates from the Schengen zone. She should also be exempt from Schengen visa fees.

I forgot to mention that if your friend doesn't wish to travel to Bangkok, Tourist Visa applications can be submitted through an agent in Phuket for an additional charge. Details on the VFS website under "courier applications".

It's difficult to answer your questions without knowing your current immigration status in Thailand. I'm guessing that you are in Thailand on a Tourist Visa with a 60-day permission to stay? And that you are looking to extend for a further 30 days? If so, then yes, the "old" Soi Suanphlu immigration office is temporarily processing visa extensions for tourists and for foreign residents of Bangkok, Ayuthaya, Pathum Thani and Nonthaburi provinces.