OJAS

According to the Bangladesh Bangkok Embassy website, all you need as a non-Thai national applying for a visa there is a "work pemit / stay permit in Thailand". https://bdembassybangkok.org/application-process-for-visa/ Don't you already have a Thai work permit? If for some reason you don't, then you do at least have a current permission to stay stamped in your passport, don't you? I would therefore strongly advise you to check with the Bangkok Embassy whether either of these (as appropriate) would do the trick in your case before sending your passport off on a magical mystery tour of Washington DC. While your company might well pay for the shipping, would they necessarily pay for the cost of a replacement passport in the event of your existing one going astray en route to or from - or while in - DC?

The following thread includes useful info provided by ubonjoe as to how you go about obtaining a non-O conversion at your local immigration office initially:-

Fingers firmly crossed for Phuketian retirees that the Police Order referred to by ubonjoe doesn't spark a change of heart from 1st October, though!

Bumping this thread because today (1 September) was the date from which the increased 100,000 USD health insurance requirement for retirees with original non-OA visas who hadn't yet ditched these for replacement non-O ones was supposed to apply according to perceived wisdom on here. Yet no Police Order has, to the best of my knowledge yet been issued to confirm this implementation date. Had one already been issued I am sure that it would have resulted in a multi-page thread on here by now. According to @JimGant in the following inappropriately-titled (IMHO) thread, it would appear that the implementation date has been put back to 1 October. But, once again, this is, of course, subject to a suitable Police Order being issued between now and then. https://aseannow.com/topic/1268670-mickey-mouse In the meantime annual retirement extensions for original non-OA visa holders are presumably still being issued on the basis of the 400,000/40,000 THB insurance requirement.

You may well have been exceedingly fortunate in never having encountered a queue of any shape, size or description anywhere or at any time at BKK Departures. Many others haven't, though.

Yeah bullet-proof simple provided there aren't humungous queues for check-in, security, the re-entry permit itself and immigration departures, of course.

The reason I was asking was that, although Rayong is my local immigration office, Chanthaburi is more or less the same distance from where I live in the opposite direction on Highway 3. Unfortunately, unlike you, I don't also have a place in Chanthaburi, so it looks like it might be touch and go as to whether I could obtain a re-entry permit there instead of at Rayong. Out of curiosity, in view of your recent positive experience at Chanthaburi might you now be seriously tempted to switch your "allegiance" for annual extensions and 90-day reports to there from Jomtien by filing a TM30 for your Chanthaburi place? That is definitely something which I would consider doing if I were in your shoes!

I strongly suspect that the only discussions which the ambassador is having with the Immigration Bureau at the present time is in connection with the development and implementation of a joint UK/Thai intergovernmental strategy aimed at making life for British retirees in Thailand as difficult as is humanly possible in the short term and completely impossible eventually. As part of this exercise he is probably also having detailed discussions with other interested governmental parties - namely HMPO, DWP & his FCDO masters in the UK and the MOPH & MOFA here in Thailand. At least that's what it feels like to me sometimes! ????

@ubonjoe - is it standard practice for an immigration office other than the one where you obtained your latest annual extension of stay to issue you with a re-entry permit?

Or marry her. If he is a Thai national she would then become eligible for a non-O visa for marriage followed by annual extensions of stay when she would be given a much easier time by Immigration than is the case with foreign men married to Thai women. If he is not a Thai she would then become eligible for a non-O visa and subsequent annual extensions of stay on the grounds of being his dependant.

There is an outside chance that some picky immigration officer might spot the 2-day discrepancy when you submitted your first 90-day report after your return to Thailand. Not worth your while running even this small risk IMHO.

Even if there were some truth in all this, it doesn't, I think, say much for her parenting skills if she was more than happy to leave her young son completely unsupervised on his own while she cheerfully went swanning about on what was, in all probability, some completely pointless extravaganza or other. So why didn't she choose to hire a nanny for the duration of this particular South African jaunt? At the time it happened the UK taxpayer would still have been around to foot the bill!

It was also during the lifetime of the coalition government administered by those 2 reprobates that the cumbersome bureaucracy of the dreaded With-It Tower Passport Renewal Experience for those of us living in the sticks here in LOS in particular was abruptly inflicted on us with absolutely zero explanation or justification, thanks to what has subsquently turned out to be their cohorts of masterly brazen incompetence and ineptitude known as HMPO, whom this thread is supposed to be all about!

Link, please.

The current (July) annual CPI rate here in Thailand stands at 7.61%: https://tradingeconomics.com/thailand/inflation-cpi Compared to 10.1% in the UK: https://tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/inflation-cpi

That may well be the case, but according to the Thai-bashing brigade on here it is only Thai immigration officers who, in their view, should be criticised for posing such questions. On the other hand, absolutely zero criticism (but rather fulsome praise) should, in their eyes, be levelled at immigration officers in our home countries for posing similar questions.

If you are planning to use an agent who will retain your existing passport until such time as HMPO see fit to issue your replacement passport, though, I would strongly advise you to obtain copies of the relevant passport pages needed for a snail mail report (usually the photopage + page containing your latest permission to stay stamp) as backup in case the online system is down for any reason when your next 90-day report is due.

A clue to the answer to this question lies in the following statement:-

Same here! ????

And particularly pointless, I think, if said multiple accounts are with the same bank since they will all be covered by a single guarantee limit in aggregate.

Well all of this will probably mean prolonged blank screens on BBC World News (and other foreign news channels) here in LOS for the next month or so!

Well, if it is, indeed, the case that the OP has been obtaining previous retirement extensions in an irregular manner then he can, as far as I am concerned, stew in the soft stuff. Zero sympathy from me.

If, by chance, you are married to a Thai national, you may be able to obtain a one-off 60-day extension for the purposes of visiting her - which should, hopefully, give HMPO sufficient time to get your new passport to you via VFS before an extended permission to stay expires.

Eg https://www.airpaz.com/en

The fact that this thread is all about how the OP can most economically go about transferring 800,000 THB for future retirement extensions has led me to wonder whether he has, in fact, hitherto been using the 65,000 THB monthly transfer method for his retirement extensions (although his posts to date are, admittedly, far from crystal clear on this specific point). If that is, indeed, the case, it might be of interest to him that I, too, have recently switched from 65,000 THB monthly income to 800,000 THB bank balance method for my retirement extensions. In preparation for my latest application a month ago I had obtained both Bangkok Bank letter/statements confirming 65,000 THB monthly transfers over the previous 12 months, plus Krungsri letter/updated passbook copies confirming an 800,000 THB balance in a new account I had opened with them, duly seasoned for 2 months. In the event my local immigration office (Rayong) were not interested in the Bangkok Bank/65,000 THB monthly transfer docs, but only in the Krungsri/800,000 THB balance docs. Since there is, of course, no guarantee that the OP's immigration office will adopt a similar attitude in his case, my advice to him would be, nevetheless, to arm himself with appropriate bank documentation confirming both 65,000 THB monthly transfers over the previous 12 months and an 800,000 THB balance which had been seasoned for at least 2 months previously, just as I did.