Bluetongue

I'm checking out of mine next Thursday at 6am, but I'm being picked up. The Hotel advised 6am to 12 in writing on arrival. In Australia both times I checked out at 12.01am

Just for info, the Government quietly removed the automatic exemption by regulation on 1 August. Web site info had not changed as of yesterday. I will have to contact them again to ensure my prior approval stands. What a hassle.

I'm leaving Australia on 24 August (I know, please no unnecessary negative comment). I have written  advice from Border Force advising I meet the requirements as above. From the sound of it you do not, ie you have been in Australia for the last 24 months unless I misunderstand your post.

OK so the Thai Consulate Sydney answers the phone late in the day, told me the mistake I made (omitted the reentry permit), and now I have the provisional COE. The 400k/40k insurance was not mentioned.

For those interested I have tried to contact Border Force to confirm my automatic extension (as per discussion above). I feel like I am in a triangle of Monty Python, Catch 22 and Yes Minister. So impossible as it seems to contact them, I have written to the Minister and am waiting for her answer. I have looked at flights and ASQ. The cost of Singapore Air from Brisbane with a flexible return date is 1800A$ plus, a rise from when I last looked, I'll have to wear that. I think I'll do ASQ in Pattaya as it'll be easier for the family to come and get me

OK I tried to contact Thai Consulate Sydney. The SMS channel which they promoted, receives an automated response and nothing else, the phone has two selections, one rings out, the other hangs up. So it may be you cant contact them.

Anyway I bit the bullet and bought 12 months Covid 19 insurance only, and submitted the COE application on the 3rd. Today at work I received an e-mail rejection stating that I must include "the valid Thai visa".  I had attached the re-entry permit which was the only document referred to.

Luckily I had the old passport with me, so I have now amended the COE application to include the original visa from 10 years ago, also the current extension. Report back soon.

Under the criteria Mcgowan previously used WA would have been locked down again by now. The fact that he has not is interesting. Could it be that community support for such measures is waning, I think that is at least in part true. It could also be that very conservative health advisers are gaining more confidence in their prevention and tracing methods. But as far as Australia is concerned the end game is still going to be a slow process, there is still no discussion about quarantine requirements, post vaccination or relaxing of any border measures which is clearly not going to happen this year in any substantial way.

1 hour ago, DrJack54 said:

Wasn't aware of that. 

I would be inclined to use the advice in last sentence re lodge a request for assessment.....

Good luck.

 

Yes I should have mentioned I will be doing that. At day of departure I'll be about 15/24 outside Australia.

No exemption required, I’ll be relying on this 

Ordinarily resident overseas

You are considered ordinarily resident in a country other than Australia if international movement records show that you’ve spent more time outside Australia than inside for the last 12 to 24 months. You do not need to carry a paper record of your movements with you. If required, Australian Border Force officers at airports can check your movement records in their systems.

If you do not think you need a travel exemption, you can present this evidence when you check-in at the airport. However, if you have any doubt about whether your circumstances fall within the definition of ordinarily resident, we recommend you lodge a request for assessment at least two weeks prior to your intended departure.

I wanted to kick off the process today to arrive end of June. Despite current outbreak. Now realise that my understanding of the process might not be completely current. I am married to a Thai and originally had a NON-O based on marriage which has been extended two or three times based on that and then extended the last few years based on retirement. I have a re-entry permit and my stamp will be until 18 January 2022.

I thought the requirement to purchase the Covid insurance prior to applying for COE had been relaxed, it appears not. If I have a ticket departing Thailand say end of October, would I need to purchase the insurance til 18 Jan. I see that it is 14,400 for 12 months, is there no option for a period between 6 and 12 months? Age was not mentioned. Is that the cheapest Thai cover I could get? Also of concern on that TGIA website is a popup which mentions the 400k/40k as a requirement for retirement extensions, the COE application does not seem to mention it. Is that aimed at me or not?

Thanks for your time.

Even if Australians want to take advantage of this, there is no sign yet of the outbound restrictions being lifted or the inbound caps being varied, I suggest that will take much longer than 3 months to happen

As I understand it if your passport shows that you have been outside Australia for more than 50% of the time over the previous 24 months then you are exempt from applying for permission. This is the route I intend to take in July. Ie in Thailand all of 2020 and out of Australia 3 months in the second half of 2019

An indication of the relationship, a Deputy PM and Health Minister does not rate the Ambassador only the Charge'dAffairs or 2IC, the diplomatic insult was accepted before the meeting, therefore the result of the meeting was never in doubt.

I will be following this with interest as I am just about to do it. For me though the exemption is clear, all of 2020 in Thailand except for 7 days and only in Australia less than 3 months in 2019 and 5 or so months this year.

Plus I have retirement extension (originally marriage visa) protected by re-entry permit. So I cant help you there but I am interested in the COE process from here, particularly if the Embassy here is still rogue on a 400k/40k ipd/opd insurance requirement on my non 0. I probably will buy the 12 months Thai Covid insurance even though I don't know how long I'll be there. The Safetywings/Tokio Marine policy was about twice as expensive for my age.

The ASQ i know from my two Australian experiences, a balcony is a must, so far I've contacted a few and each one had some rule or feature that I didn't like. Singapore Air are doing a return ticket ex BNE (return date changeable) for about 1300. You can only fly direct from Sydney on Thai. The 72 hour PCR test should be easy here, I've had four tests here, results all less than 24 hours, fit to fly I was just going to ask my GP for. Good luck.

Coming home near Ban Laem, Chantaburi (supposedly no cases), I noticed hundreds of Thais lined up at one of those village medical centre places, that was in the border tambon. but in our village nothing. There are of course rumours flying around about infections, here, there and everywhere. There is now complete enforcement of mask wearing. I reckon they are freaked out about all the illegal Cambodian fruit pickers here in droves, that is why they were testing there. If there are cases they will get doubly penalised, for allowing them in, and not getting the fruit picked and sold to China.

26 minutes ago, Fat is a type of crazy said:

The only point I would make, which may be irrelevant to your situation in Thailand, is that tax law often differentiates between share investor and share trader. A share investor is someone who tends to buys shares and leave them and maybe buy and sell some from time to time. It is passive income. This may be subject to capital gains tax. It is not a business.

If you actively manage a significant amount of shares, making regular buys and sales, you may be a share trader and this means you are in business. The shares are just like apples to a fruit seller - they are trading stock.

So if you are a share trader it may affect you if there are rules about whether you can be in business. I know nothing though about how the Thai law looks at this.

I think you're right thats pretty much the Australian tax office ruling on it. Regarding dividends they are well down this year to my chagrin, but I have snapped up a few extra shares so hopefully should even itself out in the longer run. I'm pretty cautious, mainly dividend stocks you can usually get about 5% return on fairly safe ones. Just short term trading a little bit as an interest, but patience is required, both to wait for the falls and the rises.

9 minutes ago, ubonjoe said:

If you had a valid re-entry permit to a extension of stay based upon retirement they would probably not accept you application for tourist visa.

 

I suppose I will just have to fork up for the insurance, trying to cancel a reentry permit even if possible would seem like a big call/futile gesture. I suppose that the following extension (early 22) would at this stage be possible without insurance, bizarre.

It makes me wonder why they dont just change the Police order around insurance for NonO and be done with it? But anyway, as it stands at the moment if one entered on a tourist visa could that be subsequently changed to a non 0 and then extended as per normal and does the reentry permit invalidate this. Then begs the question if the work around is available, why this other approach, perhaps I'll just shake my head at this point. I decided to delay my departure in September til now so I could leave with the extension and a reentry permit in hand, it now appears to be the wrong choice?

Old mate in NI just changed his tickets with them to October less than a week ago, poor sod, only wants to go to MotoGP and pay his respects to his wife who he burned here on March 1 this year and has been unable to come back and join the family in the later ceremony since. 

Nuts, although what we are about to receive may not technically be a vaccine. I always thought a vaccine provided immunity from an infection. I'm no expert but it seems to me that the major candidates are more in the line of preventive medicine and the extent of immunity provided is yet unknown.

It hasn't been all tea and roses, that's for sure

Good luck to you, did you have a reentry permit on an existing retirement extension of a non O Visa? Does this mean that the THai Embassy in Canberra is enforcing health insurance which is not actually required on existing exensions (not the stand alone Covid insurance) ?

4 minutes ago, lovethai123 said:

are u sure abt the shower and fresh pajamas? i seriously doubt it

Most of the women, I take no notice of the blokes. You do see the washed pajamas thrown over the bamboo or whatever makeshift clothes line to dry the next day.

2 minutes ago, CorpusChristie said:

 

  As long as they all stay in the camp and don't go wandering all over Thailand spreading any Covid , there would be no problem .

   

The vast majority start the day 30 to 40 in a pickup, two levels, off to an orchard to sit under the trees packing fruit in boxes. At the end of the day they go to Thai markets in droves, mingling with the locals, then they go back to the shanties, have a shower and put on fresh pajamas.