Pib

Update: I called BoI about the LTR online acct website be VERY slow. They are aware of the problem and hope to have the problem fixed this afternoon. I then asked about the status of my application which was submitted 25 Oct...around 23 business days ago. Took the rep approx 2 minutes to look up the status because the rep said their system is very slow right now. I've been told that in by earlier calls over the last few weeks. The rep said it's "processing." I told him my online status shows "Pending" and not Processing. I then asked what was meant by "processing" and the rep said it means my application has been initially looked at but not at detail level. I asked how much longer does he estimate before I get some kind of feedback via my online acct such as in a notification/email asking for more docs, approval, rejection, status change, etc. He said approx 10 to 15 "working" days. He said they have a lot of applications to review. So, at this point in time it appears a typical application may take approx 40 "BoI working days" vs 20 working days to reach a point where a person will know whether their application is acceptable, needs more docs, etc.

Third day in a row now that the LTR online acct website has been VERY slow during BoI business hours. At 10:50am Thailand time it takes approx 1 to 2 minutes before a logon will complete to the point of seeing the status of your application. And when clicking "View" to see your application you can not....it just times out....basically makes it unusable to view or upload docs. This has been my logon experience since 28 Nov/Monday when checking the status of my application during BoI business hours. But before 28 Nov and/or outside of BoI business hours the online acct website is fast. I have an AIS Fibre internet plan to gives me speeds of 700Mb speed to Thailand websites....surfing to other Thailand and foreign websites is fast....just the BoI online acct is slower than a sleeping turtle. Using my DTAC mobile connection to logon results in the same VERY slow experience. Just FYI in case others are experiencing this "during BoI business hours" issue.

Update: Known LTR Approvals as of 30 Nov 2022 based on posts in this thread I saw. Added "smic" who received his LTR Work from Thailand Professional approval on 28 Nov....he initially applied 20 Sep....which equates to around a total time for approval of approximately 2 months and 1 week. Congrats to smic!!! Glad to see another approved application with smic's approval on 28 Nov. The previous approval was JJJJJJJJ's approval on 8 Nov....he applied 1 Sep....which equates to a approval time of around 2 month and 1 week. I may have missed some approvals...please speak-up if you have been approved. Since early Oct the rate of known approvals based on posts in this thread (and other forums like reddit and Facebook I've looked at) has really slowed down....slowed down bigtime for whatever reasons. Maybe fewer applicants, maybe the BoI slowing down in how fast they process applications (personally I think this is a major reason), maybe applicants simply not meeting requirements but submitted an application just to see what happens, maybe people just not posting about their LTR application experience, maybe ________________(you fill-in the blank). And for those who may have been rejected, being asked for more documents which you find very hard to impossible to provide, etc., your crossfeed on why you think your application isn't meeting requirements would be greatly appreciated as that provides excellent insight on the BoI review process, how flexible (or inflexible) they are with requirements/docs, etc. Poster & Date Approval Notice Rec'd 1. BKKNono - 15 Sep 2. ashkale - 28 Sep 3. ThailandRyan - 28 Sep 4. pepper402 - 29 Sep 5. gajah - 30 Sep 6. Alotoftravel - 4 Oct 7. James7 - 4 Oct 8. & 9. Misty (and family member) - 4 Oct 10. mudcat - 4 Oct 11. & 12. stuarty (and wife) - 4 Oct 13. Boomer6969 - 5 Oct 14. aublumberg - 12 Oct 15. JJJJJJJJ - 8 Nov 16. smic - 28 Nov

Here's the detail on Bangkok's rating. Seems the Personal Finance Index rating (a.k.a., cost of living) carries a lot of weight in the overall ranking as Bangkok scores average to poorly in some other categories of this survey. https://cms-internationsgmbh.netdna-ssl.com/cdn/file/cms-media/public/2022-11/Expat-Insider_City-Ranking-Report-2022_0.pdf

And now (it's 5:250pm) "after" BoI business hours which ended at 4:30pm the LTR online acct website has went from VERY slow to again fast. Same thing happened yesterday.

I don't know if it's just me or it affects other also, but starting yesterday and continuing today "during BoI business hours" when logging onto my LTR online acct it was VERY, VERY slow although Speedtest.net confirmed I had a 700Mb local connection and my internet surfing to all other local/foreign websites was fast as normal. I have an AIS Fibre internet plan. Ditto for logon via my DTAC mobile connection. My log onto my LTR online acct would take a full minute or two to "fully" display my info....and a minute or two is like forever when staring at a display. For the first 30 seconds or so it would display the SMART Visa logo vs the LTR Visa logo before switching to the LTR Visa logo....and then another 30 to 60 seconds before my name would appear along with info on my applications. Yea....VERY, VERY slow. Now after business hours in the evening/night the LTR online acct is fast as it use to be up until a day or two ago.

With acceptance of your insurance does this mean you have now received approval from BoI for a LTR visa? Or does it mean they accepted your insurance which "should" satisfy all requirements in your view but you are still awaiting notice of BoI final approval?

Yea, I got the same but it was all in Thai (snapshot below) and there was no weblink to view it on a browser or link to a Bangkok Bank webpage....and from searching around on the Bangkok Bank website I couldn't find any info. However, from googling the bond numbers I did find some weblinks at Krungthai Bank and Bank of Thailand talking the 2 day bond sale in mid December. Select English on the Krungthai Bank website to see the buying requirements....it does say for those holding Thai nationality "or" have a residence in Thailand. Since it says "...or have a residence in Thailand..." I expect that would mean those folks registered with their Thai bank as having some type of "long term visa" like a Non O/OA visa good for a year. If so, for those folks outside of Thailand with no Thai bank acct then trying to buy the bonds to qualify for a LTR would be like peeing into the wind. https://krungthai.com/th/krungthai-update/promotion-detail/1294 https://www.bot.or.th/Thai/DebtSecurities/SalestoIndividuals/Documents/Factsheet-HAPPY_SAVER.pdf Snapshot of Bangkok Bank email.

Well, it got from Thailand to the U.S. in only 10 days. It was mailed on 1 Aug and it arrived the U.S. (the USPS international Service Center NY City) on 11 Aug. So now the U.S. Postal System has your registered mail...and then USPS takes over two months to get it from NY City to Wilkes Barre where JD of SSA picked it up to take it back to the Wilkes Barre SSA Data Processing Center. Below is USPS Tracking which displays the tracking a little differently than the Thai Postal System tracking. Unfortunately, foreign registered mail seems to all too often to go Missing in Action for months within USPS.

smic, Thanks for the crossfeed. Did BoI give a reason as to why the insurance was rejected?

My previous calls were to BoI's Expat Servics customer support number since I didn't know who specifically at BoI had my application in their inbox so to speak. Each time I spoke to a different customer service person....almost like that phone duty is rotated/extra duty among BoI personnel. I have yet to contact the BoI agent actually handling my application. My online application status never showed a 4 digit phone extension number representing the agent who had my application so all I could do was call customer service. But since my last call to customer service ended-up in customer service telling me my agent's name and phone number I will call that agent next week for the first time.....see what action/story I get.

Makes a person wonder why the BoI didn't request the info "before" your 11 Nov call. Maybe they had not looked at it yet or maybe they had looked at it but for some reason was hoping you would never followup.

From looking at your earlier post detailing what the BoI had asked you for and the additional docs you then provided I do think your follow-up call "regained their attention" to your application and basically gave them a nudge to finish processing it. Otherwise, it might still be setting in Pending status.

Yes, I stated such in my opening sentence....I even counted the 3 day special holiday in the Bangkok area for the APEC Summit. When accounting for the slew of holidays BoI has had 20 working days to process my application. And just to clarify it further by a full calendar month of days I mean like from 20 Oct to 20 Nov....15 Oct to 15 Nov, etc. I think the BoI was better staffed for the LTR kickoff in September....possibly expecting a zillion applications to come in....but when that didn't occur they may have cut back on BoI staff assigned to review LTR applications.

Today makes a full calendar month containing 20 working days when excluding weekends and holidays since submitting my pensioner application. Called BOI customer service today to check on the status as my online status is still at Pending just like it was on day 1. Customer service apologized for the delay....said they have thousands of applications...and also said they are trying to clear bottlenecks like IT system issues. After looking up my application number the rep which also showed Pending she asked what was showing under the StaffBoI Column for my application as her system didn't show that kind of info. I told the rep it now showed a 1 digit Screen number but it use to show a 3 digit number and before that a 4 digit number....and the rep said yes, that's one of the changes in their IT system to help remove bottlenecks. But I figure it was just to hide phone extension numbers of BoI reps to reduce the number of calls interrupting reps which are processing applications which honestly I can understand....hard to get something done if you are always answering a phone. The rep crossed referenced my Screen number to a specific BoI rep who supposedly has my application...but that rep was in the meeting. I was given the rep's name and phone phone number. I will keep that info to myself to prevent a lot of people from calling that rep since that rep may not even be involved with your application. So, it appears the Screen number now appearing under the StaffBOI column really just means which BoI rep (e.g., Screener) has your application at any point in time although I guess a low screen number "might" indicate how far along the process your application is if a BoI rep with a low Screen number is delegated early review duties and a Screener with a higher number delegated duties on the tail end of a review process. Or who knows, maybe a Screener with a low number could be assigned duties to process an application in the later stages and then later on be reassigned to screen applications early in the process. Just guessing I am. So, I will try calling the POC I was given late next week if no status change by then. Yeap, a full calendar month has now come and gone....my application still in Pending status...has never changed from that status.

My read of those two articles (especially the last sentence of Article 5 quoted below), is the BoI will check that you still meet the LTR criteria at the 5 year point when you have to submit an application to get the 2nd 5 years. And I expect they would focus pretty much only on still meeting the income and insurance requirements versus all the other stuff required in the initial application like how some applicants are required to submit a criminal background check, etc. Quote of last sentence of Article 5.

That OA Retirement grandfathering of income was for folks who entered before 21 Oct 1998 and consecutively extended since. ' 1998 is like a "generation ago" IMO regarding how immigration now thinks although that income grandfathering clause for an OA Retirement Extension of Stay is still in effect. However, people who got grandfathered back in 1998 would now be at least 84 years of age....probably very few of such folks left in Thailand.

Don't count on any grandfathering with any requirement change. In Oct 2019 when the medical insurance requirement for those with a Non-OA retirement visa/extension of stay came into effect there was no grandfathering. When the requirement was announced several months before 1 Oct 2019 some folks on OA's strongly felt they would be grandfathered...even some visa agents thought that way also. But we see how that turned out--no grandfathering with the exception of the Phuket IO.

Instead of spending their time on making cosmetic updates to the application webpage I wish BoI spend more time on actually processing applications.

Another minor change over the last day or so is there use to be a "My Agency" column heading where I have circled below.

I expect your early July mailing was via "registered" airmail vs regular airmail?

A BNC is meant to replace social security numbers on SSA forms but it's still multi-year work in progress. Some SSA forms have BNC numbers to replace a person's SSN (example are COLA notices that reflect a BNC but no SSN) ....others still reflect SSN vs a BNC like the 7162. SSA currently estimates it will by FY22/23 when SSN will be replaced by a BIC on the 7162 form. Summary: The 7162 is one of the forms that still reflects your SSN vs a BNC number....currently there is no BNC on a 7162. https://www.ssa.gov/legislation/Removing Social Security Numbers from Mailed Documents FY 2022.pdf

Yes...Visa requirements can always change....usually slowly over the years or a fast change. Like how Thailand has slowly raised income requirements over the years and without any grandfathering even implemented medical insurance requirements for some visa types. Now I don't even qualify for the novice knowledge level on Visas offered by Indonesia but the jess I get from the news article is Indonesia appears to be telling folks under the old/current style retirement visa is they will soon need to meet the higher income/investment requirements of the new Second Home visa. Kinda like if Thailand would suddenly announce that a few months from now those on Non O/OA type retirement visas will need to meet the requirements of the new LTR visa which has higher income requirements.

It the Chinese engine don't work out I'm sure China will provide a coupon for a 5% discount on Thailand's next submarine procurement.....and maybe even free shipping.

Another SSA regulation stating Manila FBU responsibilities in the FEQ program like what they need to do if you forward your 7161/7162 to the Manila FBU. WBDOC below stands for Wilkes Barre Data Operations Center. The Manila FBU has certain FEQ responsibilities and per SSA regulation just can't blow you off. https://secure.ssa.gov/poms.nsf/lnx/0302655007