NCFC

Just checked what travel insurance would cost me for a trip to Thailand in December. Quoted £400 compared to £45 in normal pre-covid times. That's my trip cancelled before it's even booked!

22 hours ago, meechai said:

 

Because basically all renewal has been suspended at US Consulates

They do have a emergency option but this is not an emergency

https://thaiconsulatela.org/en/services-for-thais/thai-passport/emergency-passport/

 

They also previously did a mobile unit that would go to other States that do not have Consulates & handle passport/Thai ID etc renewals

but again due to pandemic all have been suspended

 

Thanks though as I thought I did read somewhere you could always re-enter your country of origin on even an expired passport

(That is not to say you could leave another country with an expired passport) ????

The London Consulate is just opening up, they gave us a date in May when we could go to renew passport. maybe you could call and see if any change in the US?

I posted a couple of months ago that the Thai Consul in London was closed due to covid and it was impossible for Thai people to do things such as renewing a passport. The Consul just let us know that they are re-opening and gave us a date in May when we can come to make a new Thai passport. So if you need any consular services best give them a ring to book an appointment.

On 2/18/2021 at 1:04 PM, VBF said:

I would disagree with your comment  "....the last thing they want to do is go somewhere where there has been no vaccination of the population...."

 

If I have been vaccinated why would I care about mixing with people who haven't?  My vaccination keeps me safe, rather it's the non-vaccinated people who need to be wary of me, as I might still be a carrier. 

 

Just had my first AZ shot this morning ???????????? Once I've had my second shot in May, I shall be happy if I'm allowed in to other countries whether they have been vaccinated or not.

Out of interest, I asked a number of people that I know whether they would travel to an unvaccinated country or not, and not one said they would. I suppose it comes down to how strong your desire is to go somewhere in particular and Thailand does have a strong draw for a lot of people. But the vaccine does not provide one hundred percent protection so there is going to be an element of risk that people will weigh up against the reward of going some place. And given a choice of visiting a place where people have been vaccinated and a place where no one have been vaccinated there is greater risk in going to the place where no one is vaccinated.

I've had the Pfizer jab which currently gives me 74% protection and when I get the second dose in a couple of months it will be 95% protection.

On 2/16/2021 at 2:53 AM, VocalNeal said:

 

With this kind of thinking nobody would ever, or ever had, visited Africa. Most all have had jabs against yellow fever, cholera?, japanese encephalitis, polio et al. Didn't stop me going to Africa.

How many tourists visiting Thailand take malaria pills. 

Each to their own.

Have all the jabs in US then get shot?

We are in extraordinary times where usual patterns of behaviour don't really apply. In Europe we've been in lockdown for twelve months with severe restrictions of movement, so for most people the last thing they want to do is go somewhere where there has been no vaccination of the population when other tourist destinations will be available that have received the vaccine. No one wants to throw away all the hard slog of lockdown for the risk of mixing it with unvaccinated when alternatives exist. I may be wrong but I think people will vacation nearer to home for the next twelve months choosing safer destinations before venturing into what may be perceived as riskier destinations beyond the new year.

14 hours ago, donnacha said:

I keep hearing people repeating this idea. On some surface level, this may sound plausible but, actually, it is not at all logical and cannot be how things will play out.

You only need to vaccinate the entire population if you plan to expose them to the virus.

If, instead, the aim is to minimize any such exposure, the best approach is to only allow in people who are:
 

1. Inoculated (by having completed a full course of vaccine jabs at least two weeks before arriving in Thailand).
    
2. Flying on planes only with other inoculated passengers.
    
3. Resident in countries where, thanks to the mass vaccination of at least 75% of the population, the level of active cases is below 0.1% of the population.

At that point, you have tourists who:
 

1. Pose an infinitesimal risk to the Thai population, far less even than the current tourists undergoing the testing and quarantine process.
    
2. Are unlikely to require hospitalization and rack up medical costs if they themselves pick up the virus while in Thailand.

Two realities cannot be avoided:
 

1. Thailand is not going to be able to vaccinate its entire population. Ever.
    
2. The real risk comes not from highly controlled tourists who fly in from richer countries but from the uncontrolled entry of migrant workers from poorer neighboring countries.

Given all the above, there is no reason not to accept properly, verifiably inoculated tourists, regardless of how many of your own population are vaccinated.

 

Sorry, despite the fact that I will have had two jabs within the next three months and have 90% immunity, there is no way I will be visiting a country where none of the citizens have been vaccinated. I suspect a lot of people will think like me.

Are they totally nuts? Anyone with that sort of money is going to move it into something other than a current account and make a little bit of interest. No one leaves 500K in a bank account for six months. And when in comes to a family of four, they have to show 2 million? 

Trink was a must-read for old Thai hands and all part of the setup for the weekend. A lot of the column was idiosyncratic and what I would today call 'Dad jokes' but there was few other sources of information in those pre-internet days. It wasn't just that his column suddenly disappeared (it went without any prior notice, if I recall correctly) but the internet truly killed off "Nite Owl" and commentary moved online with people such as Stickman.

I would imagine life must have been tough for Trink once his column was gone and I remember reading that he hadn't had a pay increase from the Bangkok Post for many years, and that was a lesson to me not to hang around in Thailand for too long without the funds to support the necessary lifestyle of an expat.

SO farewell Bernard Trink and farewell to the old Bangkok in which you lived. They were the best of times

In my day they had machine gun posts at the border. What is the world coming to?

There seems to be a remarkable difference in experiences to this question. I have a 10 year old Thai daughter who has recently joined me to attend school in England. She also has 2 passports. We use the 2 passport checking through system to avoid visas and have never encountered any problems. As a precaution both my ex and myself have authorising letters from each other, however we have not had to use them yet. Don't forget to book your outward flight for your daughter using the passport details of the arrival country for your daughter. Also prepare for sudden changes....LOL....it was my daughter who decided that she suddenly wanted to go to school in England and terminate her education in Thailand (a sigh of relief at both ends) and the ensuing mayhem that this caused due to us already having return flights booked, so to start with a one way is a good option. Show her around the schools, the relaxed primary teaching system (compared to Thailand) and you probably won't need that return ticket. My daughter is thoroughly enjoying herself and can't believe that in school she is baking cakes, doing clay work, making slime and uncovering a world of learning she never thought existed ....good luck !

17 hours ago, darren1971 said:

She had a boyfriend before who she lived with for 18 months in Thailand and I speak fairly good Thai having spent 3 months a year in Thailand since 2011. I also had a Thai gf from Bangkok who had lived with me for 11 months in the UK on 2 tourist visas, this was noted by the ECO in the phone interview with my current gf but not in the refusal letter.

I ask this question about meeting online because whether she will return is not the only criterium the ECO is considering. They are also looking at the genuineness of the relationship and for the ECO it might just seem a bit stretched from the ECO's pov that a Thai woman living in baan nok has a great command of the English language and sufficient computing skills to be able to meet and date a farang and might possibily jump to the conclusion that she has spent time working in some of the farang-centric entertainment areas of Thailand. I'm saying this with great respect to you because I met my wife online, too, and she is now in the UK on a settlement visa, but I didn't declare in my application that we met on a dating site because I was concerned it might trigger a negative response in the Eco's mind. I stated on my application form that we met in a department store, which truthfully was the place where we first met in person. 

Anyway, I hope it works out for you both.

You said that you met online in badoo.com  How did you manage to communicate with your gf?

Leave your wife. There are plenty more out there.

Are you intending to take the children to the UK? What nationality are they?

I think the climate has a lot to do with it.

If you do not take care to ensure against humidity and mould almost everything will succumb, the soles of shoes falling off/crumbling, electrical insulation breaking down/falling apart, the paper in books decaying.

The climate in Thailand might be friendly to your bones but it takes no prisoners from the stuff we buy.

The sun here us an absolute killer of plastics also, they go brittle and snap very easily in a very short time frame.

Uk training shoes peel like a banana with the heat ,the glue simply doesnt hold them together. I oil all tools after use.

People who've got nothing better to do with their lives than moan about fatuous people taking selfies. Oh look at me, I don't take selfies. I'm better than that. My life is so deep and meaningful I will go to the internet and write a post about it. And others with nothing better to do with their lives will read my post and agree with me. We re better than the selfie takers. And I might, I just might get a 'like' from one of them. And I will store his username in the back of my over-busy brain so that when I see a post from him in the future, I will return his 'like' in kind, and we will become cyber-chums and I will go to bed with a smile on my face safe in the knowledge that I am living a far more productive and fulfilling life than than those silly selfie girls.

The people who suffer the most under the current rules are the retirees and pensioners who have gone off to Thailand perhaps for a number of years, got themselves married and then need to return to the UK at a later date because of ill health or other personal reasons.

Anyone who has been on a non-index linked pension for a length of time may not meet the current income levels in order to bring their Thai spouse back to the UK. It seems very unfair that a person who has paid tax and national insurance all their life can no longer get the benefits of the NHS simply because they married Thai - unless they accept to end their marriage by coming back to the UK alone.

Such a person is in most need of care at this time in their life and there is proably no better care giver than the spouse in these cases. What is the alternative? Break up a marriage and then provide a care giver on state resources to the returnee? That seems a ridiculous and unfair d scenario, and one that probably costs the government more in welfare payments than if they allowed the spouse in as a care giver.

It's all so easy to say tuff luck when one is in one's earnings prime and money is fairly easy to make. But that situation does not last for ever and everyone at some time will find their income tapering off as they get older.

So should people make provision for future, unplanned events? Yes of course they should. But the current rules mean that many folks who have endured a life time of work and reward themselves with a well-deserved retirement in a warm climate are being punished for their life choices by arbitrary rules that cause some very vulnerable people to be trapped in a foreign country in their later years. It is not a humane system and we can do better than this

Those who choose to live and marry in Thailand should have also had the sense to insure themselves against inevitable health care costs.

The old "he paid in all his life" and is therefor "entitled" argument just demonstrates ignorance of how the system is funded/managed.

If anyone is "trapped" it is by their own failure to plan for the unexpected !

The following assume that you are British.

The UK is not a member of the Schengen area, so non EEA nationals holding a UK visa or residence permit need a visa to enter the area; unless the words you quote appear on their visa or residence card.

Unfortunately, UK visas and residence cards issued under the UK's immigration rules do not contain this wording (those issued under the EEA regulations; e.g. the Thai wife of a Frenchman living with him in the UK, do contain this wording).

However, strictly speaking your wife does not need a visa to enter another EEA state; provided she is travelling with or to join you and can prove that she is your wife.

See 'Arriving at the border without an entry visa' at Travel documents for non-EU family members.

However, to avoid problems and potential delays at the border, or more likely your carrier refusing to board her because she doesn't have a visa, then, like that page, I'd recommend getting a visa.

As she is the spouse of an EEA national most of the questions on the application form and most of the requirements wont apply to her and the visa should be free and issued with the minimum of delay.

Want to take the wife for a short holiday to Paris this spring. Checking out the French consulate website it states that Family Members (Thai wife) of EU nationals don't need a visa if

"their UK residency states "Family Member of an EEA national" or “permanent residence card”

The wife's settlement visa says her visa type is SPOUSE/CP while her BRP says Resident Permit. So while she is a family member of an ee national the wording off her documents are different. Is this likely to cause a problem at the border-check, or should I get a visa to be safe, anyway? Anybody done this efore?

Thanks

Finally got there by using Mrs daughters e-mail addy, but blimey, its hard work, so im doing form for Mrs, then it wants my details,done, next section, Father, whoes?? hers or mine? so i start doing mine, thinking this cant be right,

My dad and her mum & dad died a many years ago, so i dont have any memory of her parents, went to wake her, came back and it had logged out, oh dear, what a very poor site indeed,

above poster was right, could have flown to the UK time ive filled this lot in !!!

Where it asks for her parents DOB, my wife had no idea. Even her mother, who is still alive, has no idea of her DOB. Her mother lost her ID long time ago and has never bothered to renew it. We left those fields blank, but in my application I added a note to say when had no way of knowing. It wasn't an issue.

Yes, my wife's settlement visa was also approved within eight days and I too thought we had failed because it was quick. But no.

My advice is a contents page at the front of your application, dividing the application into sections with a coloured divider denoting the start of each section. That makes it very easy for the ECO to find stuff and it also helps prevent VFS people pulling stuff out because your contents page shows what you've submitted. It also works as a guide to make sure you've got all the relevant paperwork assembled.

I got the wife to put all the paperwork in order. That meant she knew what everything was, when she submitted the documents by herself at Trendy building.

Which are the Schengen countries which do not require a letter confirming marriage? That might provide a route into Europe.

Can't you fly to Thailand for a couple of weeks, marry there and apply for a settlement visa in Thailand?