OJAS

I don't have the Wise app installed on my smartphone yet can still log in on my laptop OK.

If you don't, you might, instead, wish to lodge a complaint with them online by following this link: https://www.passport.service.gov.uk/help/what-do-you-want-to-do

Were you (and they) given receipts?

So do you really think that it would be much better for you Americans to be forced to make physical trips to your embassy in Bangkok or consulate in Chiang Mai from wherever you live in Thailand in order to submit renewal applications in person, followed by further physical trips a few weeks later in order to collect your replacement passports? Because this is the sort of cumbersome bureaucratic nonsense we Brits renewing our passports from Thailand are faced with, believe it or not!

Indeed! And in colour to boot!! In addition, what is the rationale for requiring us to provide specific proof of our address, bearing in mind that HMPO won't send our replacement passports directly to us? IMHO the whole UK passport renewal process from Thailand is stuck in some medieval time warp, bearing in mind that even the snail mail service dating back a couple of hundred years is apparently considered by HMPO to be far too technologically advanced to permit its use for submitting renewal applications! Let alone the internet, the use of which HMPO seem to be encouraging for passport renewals from practically everywhere on this great planet of ours, with the notable exception of LOS for some absurd and mysterious reason!! Anyway, here endeth this rant about the UK passport renewal process from Thailand.

Based on my experience 10 years ago, you should be. I became eligible for the State Pension in August 2014 but delayed claiming it until April 2015, as a result of which I was able to obtain at least 1 annual triple-lock increase!

Not a word of apology from HMPO for their bungling incompetence and ineptitude, presumably?

@patrickl + double-check what the Thailand/Switzerland DTA might have to say on the matter: https://www.rd.go.th/fileadmin/download/nation/switzerland_e.pdf

Indeed, if tax filings were ever linked to the IMM extension of stay process, I can see this being achieved through tax clearance certificates.

The particular country (i.e. the UK) that requires paper applications to be physically submitted to an office located in Bangkok or Chiang Mai and for replacement passports to be physically collected from said office a few weeks later definitely needs a major wake-up call, I think!

Two-sided is how I printed it a couple of years ago, with no adverse reaction from VFS or their HMPO masters back in the UK.

This form is only needed for a lost or stolen passport, not a damaged one.

Only 1 copy of each and every passport page needed, whether it includes IMM visas and stamps or not. You also need to copy the first 2 and last 2 pages containing pure verbiage - plus, for good measure, the front and back covers. In particular, please note that colour copies of everything are insisted on by HMPO for some ridiculous reason. People are constantly complaining on here about the amount of paperwork generated by IMM at extension of stay time, but the UK passport renewal process from Thailand really takes the biscuit in that regard IMHO!

"Is it possible for a 72 year old man to have a relationship with a Thai lady, even though his income is only from American social security?" Maybe possible with American social security for all I know, but definitely not possible with a British frozen state pension, though.

@248900_1469958220 - in this connection I understand that, as a British national, you will require 1 or other of the following visa types in order to be able to enter Australia: https://immi.homeaffairs.gov.au/visas/getting-a-visa/visa-listing/evisitor-651#Overview https://immi.homeaffairs.gov.au/visas/getting-a-visa/visa-listing/electronic-travel-authority-601 Whether you will be able to get a visa linked to an emergency travel document strikes me as being highly complex at best and completely impossible at worst,

IMHO you need to be equally concerned about what the Aussies might expect upon your arrival in their country. Or even what the airport check-in assistant for your flight to Australia might expect. As already said, I think that your only practical option is to postpone your trip until you have obtained a new passport. That said, official guidance on obtaining an emergency travel document is contained in the following link: https://www.gov.uk/travel-urgently-from-abroad-without-uk-passport EDIT: It might be helpful if you could post a scanned image of your passport photopage on here - with all personal/security info redacted, of course - so as to enable us to assess the potential seriousness of the damage in this instance.

Indeed, a fundamental message which I thought had been drilled into all of us when the pandemic was in full swing 5 years ago. I seriously wonder whether the OP's memory may now have now slipped in that regard, which would clearly be a matter of concern, I think.

I can, however, distinctly recall reports on here of 1 or 2 offices insisting on "recalcitrant" foreigners submitting late reports themselves in person rather than getting someone else to do this for them. Don't know whether Chiang Mai are 1 of them, though.

At the end of the day it boils down to individual circumstances as to whether or not Thailand's tax exemptions and allowances are more (or less) favourable than their British counterpart. Generalised comparisons are IMHO pretty meaningless.

Don't forget that, once your £12,570 UK personal tax allowance has been used up, HMRC will then charge you tax tax at a rate of 20% from the get-go. But you'll only be charged tax at a rate of 20% in Thailand if your assessable income exceeds 750,000 THB - which at a rate of 44 THB to the GBP equals £17,045.

A rule change which isn't confined to tourists, I think. According to the video you'll now need a Thai ID card (ie be a Thai citizen) in order to purchase the 199 THB SIM card from 7-11.

Particularly if said Thai witness was a pure figment of the imagination!

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvg5dg4p2l0o Not good news for anyone planning to fly to (or from) LHR over the next day or 2.

Only until September, I think.

I would have thought that having to follow a cumbersome legalisation process for their UK marriage certificate would in itself act as a sufficient deterrent to one of them to piggy-back on to the other for immigration purposes in any event. While they are both obtaining separate 1-year retirement extensions, this would not, of course, have been a situation with which they had previously been faced. In this instance they have IMHO the UK government - rather than its Thai counterpart - to thank pure and simple for acting as the major roadblock to what they might want to achieve on the immigration front locally. In the case of most other nationalities, it would, I think, be simply a case of rocking up to your home country embassy in Bangkok with a copy of your marriage certificate which would then have a suitably-worded stamp plonked on it for immigration purposes!