OJAS

I was told 11 weeks minimum last week. However, it would appear that our American cousins can receive their new passports within 3 weeks MAXIMUM and without the need for 2 trips in person as part of the renewal process to a run-down office building with an extremely silly name in Bangkok (or to fork out an extra 5,000 THB for an agent to make these trips on our behalf): Says it all about those masters of bungling incompetence and ineptitude called HMPO, I think. Now that the rush for new passports in the UK in time for summer holidays is presumably behind us, one would have thought that waiting times for new passports should now be decreasing rather than increasing as appears to be the case in practice!

Confusing statement. If, indeed, you are going to the Trendy building on Monday (as opposed to today as now is), please be warned that there are absolutely no toilet facilities on the 5th or 8th floors or even in the VFS office, as I discovered to my cost last week (although there may well be some lurking in some obscure corner somewhere else in that wretched building). And, if coming be car, please ensure that you take the parking ticket with you (rather than leaving it in the car) so that you can then get it stamped by VFS and obtain a reduction in the parking charge as a result (another lesson learnt the hard way on my part last week).

That's not always been the case though. At one time, if my memory serves me correctly, Surin/Kapchoeng were routinely issuing 30-day "under consideration" stamps for retirement extension applications in the same way as for marriage extensions! I think that we can safely take it from the OP's report, though, that this is no longer the case.

In which case you'll need to obtain a 12-month statement at the same time as your account confirmation letter. Not sure whether TTB issue 12-month statements on the spot, though (as well documented on here Bangkok Bank, for instance, certainly don't).

A heads-up to those who rent out properties in the UK and are required to file tax returns with HMRC as a result is that the current system of annual returns is being replaced by quarterly Making Tax Digital returns from April 2024. There appears to be nothing official yet about this impending change on the GOV.UK website, but the following unofficial link seems to set out what this will all mean in practice: https://www.moore.co.uk/news-views/march-2022/what-are-the-mtd-tax-return-changes-from-2023-24 These onerous new requirements sound like a right PITA to me - coming as they will do in our case on top of the additional burdens which HMG have inflicted on us over the past 10 years or so in renewing our passports and proving that those of us in receipt of the State Pension are still in the land of the living.

And as for vehicles whose exhaust systems have simply been neglected (as opposed to being adapted in some way) and make a bloody racket as a result????

Just as I personally wouldn't necessarily trust advice provided by a bank branch as being the 100% gospel truth since this could depend on (1) whom you speak to, and (2) more importantly, which side of the bed they had got out that morning.

Beggars can't be choosers, I'm afraid. You'll just have to make do with whatever options are available to you at the present time, as described by @BritTim and @DrJack54, no matter how awkward they might prove for you.

This strikes me as a totally pointless requirement which I can only assume that those clowns in HMPO have dreamt up with the sole and avowed aim of making the already cumbersome passport renewal process just as awkward and inconvenient as is humanly possible. The requirement for an applicant to produce their existing passport before their replacement one was released to them, should, I would have thought, more than suffice for identity confirmation purposes as far as HMPO were concerned.

Has it not occurred to you that, just as 80% of people on this forum might be lacking in the common sense department, so might 80% of immigration officers? You may well have got your extension without a TM6 as, indeed, did I a few months ago. But is it not possible that we were both extremely fortunate in dealing with immigration officers who might have formed part of the 20% of their number who are the proud possessors of that particular commodity called common sense? In these circumstances the OP's concerns strike me as being perfectly legitimate.

Completely agree with you here. IMHO it's always best to remember that they just do the bidding of those bungling clowns in HMPO back in the UK, who are the real villains of the piece when it comes to the responsibility for the nonsensical procedures we Brits here are subject to at passport renewal time. Anyway, after nearly 9 years of complaining on here about the dreaded With-It Tower Passport Renewal Experience, today provided me with my initial experience of being able to "savour" it first-hand. Thankfully a friend of my wife's, who knows Bangkok like the back of his hand, was prepared to chauffeur me for the 3-hour one-way trip directly to and from that ridiculously-named building in which the VFS office is housed, without the need for me to endure the rigours of the Bangkok public transport system. And I do have to hold my hands up to the VFS staff for the professional manner in which they handled my application - although I do still question the need for me to have to travel to Bangkok in person in order to watch them perform the task of stuffing various docs into an envelope and sending them on their merry way to the UK courtesy of DHL - when anyone with a modicum of intelligence should be more than capable of undertaking this "monumental" feat themselves without the need for a potentially time-consuming diversion via Bangkok. The impression which I have now got is that the current cumbersome passport renewal procedures which we have to endure have been designed purely with the administrative convenience of VFS and their HMPO masters in mind and with zero regard for the personal convenience of those whom they are meant to serve. I did, however, encounter a couple of particular irritations which may be of interest to those with weak bladders and/or coming by car:- (1) As far as I could tell, there were no loos on either the 5th floor where we had parked the car or the 8th floor where the VFS office was located - or even in the VFS office itself. IMHO this is an absolutely disgraceful and unacceptable state of affairs, particularly for those of us who are obliged to travel a considerable distance under our own steam. Thankfully I was able to hang on until the motorway service area on the return leg - but only just! (2) Upon leaving the VFS office at the conclusion of the process we observed someone who appeared to be stamping car parking tickets, presumably with the aim of obtaining parking charge discounts. However we had left our ticket in the car and could not face another lengthy return trip to the 8th floor (only 1 of the 2 lifts serving the 5th and 8th floors was in service, with consequential lengthy waits), so we were hit with a charge of 150 THB as a result. Now why on earth could not VFS have specifically mentioned in their appointment confirmation letter the need to keep parking tickets on us in person rather than leave them in the car????? Finally, the official waiting time for new passports is still 11 weeks minimum as of now.........

The following PDF should hopefully assist you in getting to grips with the initial non-O conversion process:- https://www.immigration.go.th/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/9.FOR-RETIREMENT-PURPOSES-50-YEARS-OLD-NON-O.pdf

If the OP has entered Thailand by air since 1 July he won't have been issued with a departure card. But he will also need to include a completed TM30 form unless he has already provided one to CW.

And not just this disclaimer but also the fact that the Embassy, in common with a fair few both on Asean Now and even in Immigration themselves, appear to be in some terminological difficulty in distinguishing between a visa and an extension of stay!

Well, it would be nice if the Savannakhet website could make it crystal clear that only Laotian nationals and residents can apply for METV's at that particular consulate, I think!

Instead of returning from Laos with another visa exemption why not instead return with a multi-entry tourist visa obtained from the consulate at Savannakhet - assuming, of course, that you can meet their requirements (see link below)? That should give you more than sufficient headroom to stay in Thailand (with border runs every 60 days) until your child is born. https://savannakhet.thaiembassy.org/th/publicservice/104412-tourist-visa?page=5d84a44c15e39c26b400453e&menu=5d84a44c15e39c26b4004540

Queen Elizabeth II's coronation took place on a Tuesday which was declared a bank holiday:- https://elhg.org.uk/discovery/village-events/coronation-1953/ https://alondoninheritance.com/eventsandceremonies/2nd-june-1953-coronation-day-in-london/ So does the fact that King Charles III's coronation will take place on a Saturday mean that no special bank holiday will be declared to commemorate this auspicious occasion? 6 May 2023 strikes me as an odd choice of date for this very reason!

I was able to reset my 90-day reporting clock when applying for my latest retirement extension at Rayong 3 months ago. However, this was the first year I had been invited to do this, so it might have had something to do with the particular immigration officer (and maybe which side of the bed she had got out of that morning?) I dealt with. Personally I shall only know for certain if this is now a consistent arrangement there when applying for my next retirement extension in July 2023. @flexomike and @Eff1n2ret - as fellow users of Rayong have either of you also experienced this in recent times?

Or preferably open a separate account dedicated exclusively to the 400k in question, with no cards nor internet access linked to it (to minimise the risk of similar "accidents" in future).

Is there not some charitable organisation in Australia which the OP's neighbour could turn to for assistance if he needed it, similar to Heathrow Travel Care which Brits returning to the UK in dire circumstances can turn to? http://heathrowtravelcare.co.uk/who-we-are/about-heathrowtravelcare/

Agreed. The OP's experience sounds similar to the treatment frequently meted out to Thais and other aliens wishing to enter our home countries by local immigration officers there. But in the eyes of some on here it would appear that it is only Thai immigration officers who are to be demonised for doing their job, whereas our home country immigration officers, on the other hand, are, in their view, worthy of fulsome praise in identical circumstances.

Looks like first cups of coffee have now been consumed at Wise!????

So does not having to make 2 enforced trips to Bangkok at passport renewal time for us Brits for "absolutely no bloody reason" except to please some archaic British system at least equally (if not considerably more as it should IMHO) get your back up?

Assuming that you are planning on making the transfer from a home country bank account, I would have thought that it will be for whoever is your home country bank's Thai partner bank (which may not necessarily be the same as the Thai bank with whom you hold the account to which the transfer is ultimately destined) to issue you with the necessary certificate after they have processed the transfer - although I do stand to be corrected on this. However, before processing the transfer, the Thai partner bank may require you to complete a Foreign Exchange Transaction Form (see link below), just as I had to a few years ago in the case of a particularly large transfer from my UK to Thai accounts:- https://pic.bankofchina.com/bocappd/thailand/201705/P020170525615529265916.pdf

And a rather more rapid decrease in the number of seats in banks and immigration offices within existing totals with X plonked on them, hopefully.