GinBoy2

I dunno why this is even a story. This story gets played out time after time in every country regarding pitbulls. "He's just a pussy cat loves everyone" until they decide to rip someone's throat out. Never hear about a Maltese killing anyone. These dog breeds are bought as trophy animals to be paraded around. Not just in Thailand but everywhere. To be honest at least in this case it was the owner that was the victim, it most cases when they go rogue it's some innocent bystander

What are you talking about. Maybe in BKK, but for much a Thailand two claps of thunder and the power is off for hours. Don't even get me going on water, which can be cut off for days. Sewers, well if you don't live in a city, you have the poop tank that needs to be pumped out How about storm drains? Ever wondered why first sign of rain everything floods. It's cos the drains go nowhere, they just fill up, then flood. There are many things to love about Thailand, but don't try to defend the indefensible. Internet, not bad, depending on where you are, but international gateway screws it up

Back in the day we maybe called our parents once a month, at best. Nowadays if the kids don't call home within a day it's a full scale child abduction! Jeez he's an adult he's allowed to go AWOL for a while without getting Interpol involved

Thanks everyone for the info

So, we've been scouring the web without much definitive advice. My wife is traveling to Thailand Nov 25th. Her passport expires 15th Jan 2023 Does Thailand enforce/require Thai nationals to have the ubiquitous six months validity on their passport? Her plan was to first thing when she landed was go get it renewed, but now we're getting twitchy on whether we need to make a quick trip to DC to get it renewed ahead of time

Thats some cool pics. Where were you?

I'm sure it does, but a far cry from the glory days. I know the BBC does still maintain a SW presence as does VoA. But most of them are gone, I'm sure HCJB still exists from Quito and probably some newer evangelical stations I've never heard of, and of course the numbers stations. Rather sad in some ways since SW was a rather major part of making me the man I ended up becoming

I think you're probably right. Tell the same lie enough times and you'll probably believe it yourself. The reason i posted this was when my co-worker shared it with me I was surprised how few Brit vets there were in Thailand, compared to the number I seemed to have had encountered. I guess self delusion is probably more common than I thought!

Really? I used to be a DX'er back in the day. For a nerdy Hispanic boy holed up in his bedroom in the California central valley receiving those exotic QSL postcards from all over the world opened my eyes to the big wide world. I think those scratchy shortwave signals are long gone. A perfect internet stream is so easy, yet I'd venture not as exciting as tuning in to the BBC WS warbling in and out on 6175kHz

So living in Thailand I seemed to come across an amazing number of Brits who claimed to be ex military. Well, I work with a Brit who really was in the military, I forget which branch, and is in receipt of a military pension. He shared with me this graphic from some newsletter he gets. Seems to me I must have met every single one of the residents of Thailand, they all frequent TVF, and are all special forces!

I think thats all very true. Back in the 70/80's I would send my parents a letter telling them how I was doing, a phone call every week or so, but I could go weeks without talking. That was normal. In todays world if I don't hear from my kids within a week and they won't return my calls I'm worried. That is today's normal

Problem with the majority of Thai cities and towns. Blindfold and drop you into anyone of them and it's hard to tell the difference between any of them of similar size. Very few of them have any real defining features outside of the usual tourist spots

I have no personal experience of an agent for a tourist visa, but I'll say this. They peddle the notion that they have some special in at the embassy. Total nonsense, the US Embassy is not like Thai immigration where everything can be greased for the appropriate 'fee' Also there is nothing more they can do with the DS-160 than you can. The only time I would ever recommend using a 'reputable' agent is for immigrant visas, where there is a lot of supporting documentation, and given that they take a long time to process you don't want to slip up and have to start all over again So any one that tells they can guarantee or speed up a B1/B2 application.......... RUN!

Don't worry I think the whole thread has become a little 'confused' At the end of the day I think the OP is experiencing the usual high failure rate for Thai women applying for US tourist visas. The reasons for those failures, who can tell. Unlike the Brits and others, we don't get any written reason why, so you keep trying until it works I guess. Before we were married and my wife ended up with a green card here in the US, we tried to get her a tourist visa to visit my daughter who had just had a baby. Professional woman, she had her own money, letter giving her leave from work, of course she was denied. We never tried for a tourist visa again, just wasn't prepared to line the US Government pockets with more wasted money I'v speculated that since my wife grew up as a teenager and went to college in the US, they considered it would be too easy for her to disappear into US society. But at the end of the day, who knows, and water long under the bridge at this point

Well, I can answer some of those questions and the OP can chime in. For a non immigrant tourist visa (B1/B2) there is NO sponsorship by the US citizen. I can't say this enough, but the Thai citizen is applying in their own right and needs to provide enough evidence of work, family, financial of their own to prove to the CO they will return to Thailand. The CO will ignore any financial information from the US citizen, the money needs to the Thai citizens own funds. There is no criminal background check for tourist visas. The applicant simply states on the form they they are squeaky clean. For immigrant visas K1/K3/CR1/IR1, thats where the US citizen is the applicant petitioning for the Thai citizen. For those cases the applicant, the US citizen needs to provide financial records to prove they have income, or resources to support the Thai citizen at I think, it might have changed but with income at least 125% of the poverty level. Three years of tax transcripts as I recall plus bank accounts real estate assets etc As for criminal background, the Thai citizen has to obtain a certificate from Thai Special Branch, which is different from what Thai's need to travel for work. The US citizen does not need to provide any background check

That is often what the CO thinks with a married Thai. The couple get to the US then apply for an adjustment of status in the US, which as you rightly say bypasses the regular immigrant process. Since the married spouse is in the US and an application is made cannot be deported. Thats what they worry about

DMK is actually a pretty long runway, 12000ft. A380's require about 10000ft. On the other topic, unloading must have been a nightmare. Only one set of airstairs could be used, so it must have resembled unloading a cruise ship

Mike, you're misleading these folks. There is no such thing as a spousal tourist visa. A Thai national, married or otherwise applies for a tourist, non immigrant B1/B2 visa on their own, and, is or isn't approved on their own merits. Doesn't matter if they are married to a US citizen, single, or married to a Mongolian. Some folks, and you are one of them are fortunate and the initial B1 is approved without a problem, and after that you are off to the races. But being married is no guarantee of a successful B1 application as many on here will attest to. You are confusing folks. Non immigrant tourist visa's it's the tourist who applies Immigrant visa's it's US citizen who applies for the foreign national

The reason they do this, to offer the lower fares they separate the subsidiary from SQ so they can do all the cost cutting exercise's I've described. If you started then adding in the benefits, what do you think those lower paid flight crews would say? Well if you treat the pax as if they are on SQ, what about us? Then you just turn Scoot into SQ

It's not Stockholm Syndrome, it's more a case that some of us understand the financial realities of the industry. Try to get your head around 'why' that LCC can offer tickets at that price. Jet A fuel costs the same globally, with local taxes varying, and fuel is a huge part of that cost per seat The price for the aircraft, either purchased or wet leased is roughly the same If the route is at major airports the landing fees are the same for all. So where do you cut the costs to make the cost per seat lower? Firstly you pay the crew less, and remember they aren't salaried, they only get paid hourly from D -40 (widebody) when boarding starts to arrival. Then start nickel and diming. Bags. Well you will pay for everything. I've told you this before, but airlines subscribe to worldtracer. Your bags are scanned at checkin, in the bag room then at loading. Then at arrival, bags off and for connections scanned on again. Thats how, when things go wrong we find them and get them back to you. There is huge infrastructure involved in that which isn't cheap. LCC's, none of that. They simply counts bags on and off, and if they go missing they are lost forever no way to trace them. Interline. Airlines negotiate agreements with other airlines in the event they have to move pax to other airlines there is a cost, but it's not cheap. If I move a United pax to an American Airlines flight it costs several times the original ticket price. So LCC's don't sign up to that either. On board amenities. Well, thats the easy stuff to see. You don't seem to get that no matter what you may think to be true, airlines operate on wafer thin margins, and the graveyard of failed airlines is testament to that So this is the pact with the devil you make with LCC's. Don't get me wrong if you are doing a simple point to point they can make sense, but their business model which you accept for those super cheap flights come with risk. Not much to do with ethics more a case of harsh business reality

And if you decided to sign a purchase agreement with the T&C's that stated if the company couldn't provide you with the car they would refund your money, with no alternative car? Thats what you do when you buy these tickets. READ the damn conditions before you hit the purchase button

He got exactly what he paid for. A flight with no guarantee of rebooking, since they just can't and at best a refund. They are cheap because they don't have interline agreements. You can't magic these things out of thin air, and you just have to accept the T&C's you signed up for when you booked the lowest possible fare you could find

But thats the terms and conditions you sign up for whenever you book a flight on an LCC. There is a risk involved for that basement price. For regular airlines there are basic rules. Anything that is within the airlines control, mechanical, crew issues etc you will get rebooked on the next available flight, and if necessary on another airline with an interline agreement, and hotel and meal vouchers. These are real costs which the airline has to shoulder. The reason the LCC are cheap, is they strip out these costs, among many others, and even though folks 'maybe' they read the T&C's they just ignore them, then bitch when things go south. The old saying 'you get what you pay for' is just as relevant to the airline industry as any other

I think this thread is getting bent around the axles regarding definitions. B1/B2 are non immigrant tourist visas. These are processed solely at the embassy K1/K3 visa's are temporary entry visa's with the intension of unmarried couples marrying within 90 days to achieve immigrant status. These are processed by USCIS and after marriage in the US an adjustment of status is applied for to grant permanent residency and a conditional 2 year green card IR1/CR1 are immigrant visa's. CR1 is for couples married overseas for <2years, IR1 for those married >2 years. These are also processed by USCIS. After approval the woman has a single entry visa stamped in the passport and a green card shows up in the mail approx 2 weeks after landing. For a CR1 the green card is a two year conditional, the IR1 a 10 year green card. Anything processed by USCIS today is going to take around 12 months, and the only embassy involvement is the final interview, which is a formality. The notion that being married to obtain a B1/B2 makes thing a slam dunk is misleading. For some it works great for others, for others not at all. There is no such thing as a 'spousal' tourist non immigrant visa, and the woman applies in her own right. As I've stated non-immigrant visa's are highly subjective and you are very much subject to the whims of the embassy staff reviewing the application. Immigrant visa's are highly objective and USCIS simply processes the documents, and if no glaring errors or red flags, for example criminal background, they are a slam duck

So did we come to any conclusions or just lots of navel gazing?