No more 60 day tourist visas at the Thai embassy in London

[Guderian]

A mate who's been living here for 13 years but who returns to see his family in England twice a year used to apply for Non-Imm O visas to come to Thailand. When they stopped issuing these easily after the Hull consulate stopped doing them he switched to 60-day tourist visas direct from the Thai embassy in London. He's currently in London and will return here in a few weeks. He sent me this in an e-mail yesterday:

 

I went to the Thai Embassy and filled in the form by requesting my usual 2 X 60 day returns, which with the addition of a 30 day extension at the Jomtien office, is usually plenty for me. After about an hour in the queue in their office, I got to the service desk to be told that they no longer issue 60 day tourist visas. It's 30 days or nothing, which may or may not be extended at the discretion of the Immigration Office and the frame of mind of the Officer you deal with.

 

That means he'll be coming back here for the winter for six months on a 30 day visa, so he's going to be doing a lot of visa runs. I've told him time and again that he needs to get a Non-Imm O sorted out and stay on retirement extensions (which is what I do), but it's too late for that now. The obvious solution once he arrives back here is to convert his tourist visa into a Non-Imm O and then apply for annual extensions, but the last I heard you can now only do that in Bangkok.

 

Is there already a thread on here that lists the possibilities in his situation? If not, then how easy is it to change from a 30-day tourist visa to a Non-Imm O? Can he easily do this himself or will he need to get an agency involved? He lives in Jomtien so applying in Bangkok isn't exactly convenient, but I'm sure it's better than doing monthly visa runs. Thanks for any help.

 

 

[Mattd]

3 minutes ago, Guderian said:

I went to the Thai Embassy and filled in the form by requesting my usual 2 X 60 day returns, which with the addition of a 30 day extension at the Jomtien office, is usually plenty for me.

A bit confused on understanding exactly what tourist visa your friend applied for?

A SETV would allow him one 60 day entry with one 30 day extension.

Where does the 2 x 60 day returns come from, was he applying for a METV?

[Guderian]

1 minute ago, Mattd said:

A bit confused on understanding exactly what tourist visa your friend applied for?

A SETV would allow him one 60 day entry with one 30 day extension.

Where does the 2 x 60 day returns come from, was he applying for a METV?

 

I'm not sure of the exact details. He usually stays 60 days and then has to do a visa run.  He does this twice while he's here which I guess is where the 2 X 60 bit comes from, but whether he actually applies for two separate 60--day visas I don't know (it's over 10 years since I last applied for a tourist visa so I'm not familiar with the paperwork or rules any more). His last few weeks are then covered by a 30-day extension from Jomtien Immigration. The 2 X 60 day returns does seem to imply two separate visas I guess.

[ubonjoe]

11 minutes ago, Guderian said:

I went to the Thai Embassy and filled in the form by requesting my usual 2 X 60 day returns, which with the addition of a 30 day extension at the Jomtien office, is usually plenty for me.

Not sure what that means. It appears he might of been trying to apply for a 2 entry tourist visa that has not been available for almost 2 years now. I think he misunderstood when they told him he could only get a single entry tourist visa.

His tourist visa will still allow a 60 day entry.

The only visa that allows a 30 day entry is a transit visa.

[KhunBENQ]

From the description it sounds like your friend wants to do a quasi "continuous" stay of 2*(60 + 30) = 180 days ?

That is indeed not possible with single entry tourist visa from London.

For the second 90 days he could do a visarun to a neighboring country (preferably Vientiane/Laos) to apply for another tourist visa.

A bit of an effort.

 

 

 

[Briggsy]

I tend to go with Ubonjoe.

 

I suspect your friend has requested for a double-entry tourist visa which ceased to exist in 2015. Then when told, they are no longer available, he got all confused and misconstrued what he was being told as "no more tourist visas". He would not have qualified for a multiple-entry tourist visa as he had not brought supporting documentation.

 

As this is a second-hand report, I am afraid I must put it in the 'unreliable report box' for now. I am very confident that if London had stopped issuing Tourist Visas, it would be all over the internet.

 

Would you describe your friend as well-informed, careful with details, intellectual and a good listener with good fact retention or perhaps more of a happy-go-lucky type?

Edited October 17, 2017 by Briggsy

[Guderian]

He stays here for a bit over 6 months in the winter so he finds that 60+60 +30 days is sufficient. It's definitely not the visa mentioned that hasn't been available for two years as he did this exact same route last winter. He's been doing it this way since Hull stopped issuing Non-Imm O's, which I guess is a quite few years now, so he knows what it is that he wants. The only difference this time is that he usually applies by post but for some reason he actually went to the Thai embassy yesterday. Whether one side misunderstood the other or not I can't say, but he has to go back today to pick up his 30 day tourist visa which you say doesn't exist. I'll let you know what he comes back with if he tells me the details.

[Mattd]

There would be no point in a British person applying and paying for a 30 day tourist visa, as they could enter in to Thailand with a (free) visa exempt entry and get 30 days, that can be extended for 30 days.

I reckon the embassy will issue a 60 day single entry tourist visa.

On what basis was he applying for Non immigrant O visas for in the past, the Embassy in London can still issue several types of non immigrant visas, if he was going to there anyway, then he could have applied for a non immigrant O visa, so long as he has a valid reason to do so.

As far as I know, the consulates only stopped issuing multiple entry visas and they can still issue single entry visas, both tourist and non O, with the non O requiring approval from London.

[Guderian]

57 minutes ago, Mattd said:

There would be no point in a British person applying and paying for a 30 day tourist visa, as they could enter in to Thailand with a (free) visa exempt entry and get 30 days, that can be extended for 30 days.

I reckon the embassy will issue a 60 day single entry tourist visa.

On what basis was he applying for Non immigrant O visas for in the past, the Embassy in London can still issue several types of non immigrant visas, if he was going to there anyway, then he could have applied for a non immigrant O visa, so long as he has a valid reason to do so.

As far as I know, the consulates only stopped issuing multiple entry visas and they can still issue single entry visas, both tourist and non O, with the non O requiring approval from London.

 

I'm just saying here what I vaguely remember him telling me in the past, so I may have got it wrong or he may have not fully understood matters. As far as I can recall, when Hull stopped issuing Non-Imm O's to all and sundry he was advised that he could still get one from the Thai Embassy. I think he phoned them up and was told by somebody that to get a Non-Imm O he had to be 65 years old and in receipt of the state pension. (This sounded like nonsense to me as I got one in Cardiff when I was just 50 years old, but hey, the rules do change with time and I'm no expert.) At the time I think he was only 59 or 60 so quite a long way off state pension age. They also said he had to get a police criminal record check done and I've only seen that asked for when applying for an OA visa. I told him that I didn't think he was getting a clear or correct answer off the Embassy and he should go and speak with somebody there but he was adamant that it wasn't possible to get a Non-Imm O any more and that was when he started using the 60 day tourist visa route (or 2 X 60-day or whatever he actually does). He was here from November 2016 until April 2017 using that route and also from May 2017 until September 2017 so he seems to know what he's doing.

[Mattd]

2 minutes ago, Guderian said:

think he phoned them up and was told by somebody that to get a Non-Imm O he had to be 65 years old and in receipt of the state pension.

In that case, it seems that he has never really had an actual reason to be issued a non O visa and in the past was just lucky in getting them from Hull when they were lapse in the documentation needed to get one. Which is one of the reasons why things have tightened up worldwide.

5 minutes ago, Guderian said:

He was here from November 2016 until April 2017 using that route and also from May 2017 until September 2017 so he seems to know what he's doing.

Using a tourist visa there is really only two ways he could have been doing this, either starting off with a METV, first entry for 60 days and doing a 30 day extension, going out for a border hop and entering for a further 60 days and repeating the 30 day extension, or coming in on a SETV, for 60 days, extending this 30 days, then going to a neighbouring country and getting another SETV and repeating.

 

I do think he will be issued with a SETV valid for 3 months and a 60 day entry in to Thailand, as stated by other posters, it is extremely unlikely that the Thai Embassy in London has stopped issuing these type of tourist visas, would make no sense at all.

[darrendsd]

1 minute ago, Mattd said:

In that case, it seems that he has never really had an actual reason to be issued a non O visa and in the past was just lucky in getting them from Hull when they were lapse in the documentation needed to get one. Which is one of the reasons why things have tightened up worldwide.

Using a tourist visa there is really only two ways he could have been doing this, either starting off with a METV, first entry for 60 days and doing a 30 day extension, going out for a border hop and entering for a further 60 days and repeating the 30 day extension, or coming in on a SETV, for 60 days, extending this 30 days, then going to a neighbouring country and getting another SETV and repeating.

 

I do think he will be issued with a SETV valid for 3 months and a 60 day entry in to Thailand, as stated by other posters, it is extremely unlikely that the Thai Embassy in London has stopped issuing these type of tourist visas, would make no sense at all.

There is no sense as they have not been stopped

 

The OP and his friend are confused, it's as simple as that

 

As the SETV have not been stopped in London this thread should be closed

[steve187]

SETV are available from Hull, as well as over consulates in person, and the London Embassy, in person and by post.

[BritTim]

The OP's friend has presented a very confusing picture. Obviously (i) the London Embassy and all the consulates still issue single entry tourist visas; and (ii) double entry tourist visas were not available at the time of his last two trips. Also, a Non O visa from Hull in recent years was only likely to be based on visiting a Thai family member.

One possible interpretation of 60+60+30 is a single entry tourist visa, regular 30-day extension, and a 60-day extension to visit a Thai family member. Other possibilities exist, but it is all guesswork.

[Mattd]

5 minutes ago, BritTim said:

a 60-day extension to visit a Thai family member

I think this is unlikely, otherwise he would have had a valid reason to apply for a SE non O.

[BritTim]

12 minutes ago, Mattd said:

19 minutes ago, BritTim said:

a 60-day extension to visit a Thai family member

I think this is unlikely, otherwise he would have had a valid reason to apply for a SE non O.

Perhaps he had such a reason, but did not do so. I suspect he was previously using multiple entry Non O, switched at some point to double entry tourist visas, and may for a time have been able to get multiple entry tourist visas from London with less than the normal documentation. All guesswork.

[4evermaat]

....... Whether one side misunderstood the other or not I can't say, but he has to go back today to pick up his 30 day tourist visa which you say doesn't exist. I'll let you know what he comes back with if he tells me the details.

 

....
I do think he will be issued with a SETV valid for 3 months and a 60 day entry in to Thailand, as stated by other posters, it is extremely unlikely that the Thai Embassy in London has stopped issuing these type of tourist visas, would make no sense at all.

Can you post a photo or scan of the final visa?

Sent from my ASUS_Z010D using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app

[LongTimeLurker]

6 hours ago, Guderian said:

The obvious solution once he arrives back here is to convert his tourist visa into a Non-Imm O and then apply for annual extensions, but the last I heard you can now only do that in Bangkok.

Last week the IO at the entrance counter to Jomtien immigration office told me it is possible to do it there.

 

You must apply at least 15 days before your visa expires, have Baht 800,000 in the bank for 3 months prior to the application with usual copies of bank book and letter from bank.

 

Yes I know the logistics don't work if it's your first visa, besides the banks not being willing to open an account without a work permit, but TIT.

[TommyTucker]

As others have already stated, I believe there is confusion with exactly what was requested and exactly what was refused.
A family member only last week received a 60 x tourist visa from the Thai Embassy in London without any problems.


Sent from my iPhone using Thaivisa Connect

[Mark1066]

7 hours ago, LongTimeLurker said:

Last week the IO at the entrance counter to Jomtien immigration office told me it is possible to do it there.

 

You must apply at least 15 days before your visa expires, have Baht 800,000 in the bank for 3 months prior to the application with usual copies of bank book and letter from bank.

 

Yes I know the logistics don't work if it's your first visa, besides the banks not being willing to open an account without a work permit, but TIT.

The banks are more than willing to open an account without a work permit in my experience, and you don't need to have had the money in the account for 90 days when applying to convert to a stay based on retirement or marriage, that's only for the extensions. Please stop posting completely inaccurate information.

Edited October 17, 2017 by Mark1066

[JackThompson]

7 hours ago, LongTimeLurker said:

Last week the IO at the entrance counter to Jomtien immigration office told me it is possible to do it there.

Yes, they seem not to to know that the person at the Conversion (Desk/office #7) has no intention of doing their job.  They handed me the "official" rules for doing one, at one point

 

25 minutes ago, Mark1066 said:

The banks are more than willing to open an account without a work permit in my experience, and you don't need to have had the money in the account for 90 days when applying to convert to a stay based on retirement or marriage, that's only for the extensions. Please stop posting completely inaccurate information.

Agree on banks - if you go to enough branches to find one who will do it (most won't, some will).

 

On Jomtien-conversions - good luck getting one there At All.  And, yes, the "conversion" boss told me the same thing about seasoning-funds for a conversion, and then presented me with a "home-made" list of requirements which contradicts the official list (which I had received at the front-counter, weeks prior).  They won't even accept income-proof, MFA-stamped, with bank-book proof the income is genuine.  Other services tend to follow actual laws/rules at Jomtien - but not conversions.

Edited October 17, 2017 by JackThompson

[Maestro]

Guderian, I believe it has not yet been mentioned that SETV as used in this topic means single-entry tourist visa.

 

Your friend used to apply for a double-entry tourist visa and wanted to apply again for the same, but this is no longer available. Currently, there are only two types of tourist visas available:

• Single-entry tourist visa
• Multiple-entry tourist visa

Please see the list of available visas in the box at the top right of the application form currently available on the website of the Thai embassy in London:

http://old.thaiembassyuk.org.uk/Consular/Form/visaapplication15.pdf

 

 

 

 

[Mark1066]

23 hours ago, JackThompson said:

Yes, they seem not to to know that the person at the Conversion (Desk/office #7) has no intention of doing their job.  They handed me the "official" rules for doing one, at one point

 

Agree on banks - if you go to enough branches to find one who will do it (most won't, some will).

 

On Jomtien-conversions - good luck getting one there At All.  And, yes, the "conversion" boss told me the same thing about seasoning-funds for a conversion, and then presented me with a "home-made" list of requirements which contradicts the official list (which I had received at the front-counter, weeks prior).  They won't even accept income-proof, MFA-stamped, with bank-book proof the income is genuine.  Other services tend to follow actual laws/rules at Jomtien - but not conversions.

If you have 800,000+ baht that you want to leave on deposit, I don't think you will have to visit too many branches although the easiest way is just to take someone along who is already known to the staff. Re. seasoning money, I was speaking generally not about Jomtien in particular as I've never been to the immigration office there; sorry if that was not clear. I just wanted to point out that there are no rules stating you need to have the money on deposit for a certain length of time when converting. It should be the same as applying for a non-imm 'o' visa at a consulate in another country.

 

EDIT: Looking at the post I quoted it certainly wasn't clear what I was trying to say (!) - I don't think I read it properly - so my apologies to LongTimeLurker too.

Edited October 18, 2017 by Mark1066

[Guderian]

Apologies for taking so long to post an update. My mate in London didn’t make it into the embassy on Tuesday (a bit odd given the importance of the matter, but I get the impression that he’s a bit traumatized by this change as he’s owned a condo over here for 12 years and is happily retired in Jomtien and seems to feel that he’s been badly wronged by the embassy staff).

 

He managed to get into the consular office yesterday and this is what he sent me as an update (after moaning about the queues and the waiting time):

 

My latest visa is a single entry tourist visa whereas previously, there was no problem getting hold of a multi-entry versions. They cost more at £125 but it simply wasn't available as an option, according to the young woman who dealt with me at the Embassy. I had no problem getting hold of a multiple entry tourist visa in April of this year. The latest single entry visa was just £25.

 

So I suppose he’s got a single-entry tourist visa valid for 60 days and he can extend that by an extra 30 days for 1900 Baht in Jomtien Immigration. Does that sound right?

 

He’ll have to do something about upgrading the visa when he gets here as he doesn’t intend returning to the UK until just before Songkran next year once he gets back at the start of November. I sent him a link to a ThaiVisa thread on making the conversion to Non-Imm O so he can sort that out himself, he has a good pension and tells me he has more than 800K in the bank here so he should be able to do something.

 

According to what he’s now saying (which is different from his original message) it’s an METV that they refused to issue him with, nothing to do with 30 days or 60 days as he originally suggested. I’ve no idea if this is something specific to his case, because for several years now he’s been living here on METVs so they’re stopping him from doing that, or if it’s a more general change. I suspect it’s the former, as somebody said earlier if they had stopped issuing METV’s in London it would be all over visa news by now. So apologies if this was a false alarm but it does send a clear message I guess to those living in Thailand in dodgy ways.

[ubonjoe]

Not sure why he was denied another METV. It makes no sense unless he was missing one of the requirements to get it.

It seems he should of gotten a OA visa or extension of stay at immigration long ago.

[Guderian]

10 minutes ago, ubonjoe said:

Not sure why he was denied another METV. It makes no sense unless he was missing one of the requirements to get it.

It seems he should of gotten a OA visa or extension of stay at immigration long ago.

 

He's been using the METV route to stay here for several years so I think he knows the requirements.

 

Yes, I've told him time and again that he should get a proper visa but I thought he didn't have the money needed. He now tells me he's had 1.2 million Baht here for several years so his insistence on going the METV route with the attendant visa runs  sounds like either laziness or masochism.

[Briggsy]

2 hours ago, Guderian said:

 

He's been using the METV route to stay here for several years so I think he knows the requirements.

 

Yes, I've told him time and again that he should get a proper visa but I thought he didn't have the money needed. He now tells me he's had 1.2 million Baht here for several years so his insistence on going the METV route with the attendant visa runs  sounds like either laziness or masochism.

I am not sure he does. The METV has several requirements in terms of documentation. These include financial proof, air ticket and hotel booking. These only came in at the back end of 2015 when the METV replaced the old DETV and TETV (double and triple-entry). The DETV and TETV had no documentation requirements.

 

Did your friend take all the necessary documentation, as detailed above, to the embassy to obtain an METV? I strongly suspect he didn't and that, as a result, he could only get an SETV for £25.

Edited October 19, 2017 by Briggsy

[Guderian]

7 minutes ago, Briggsy said:

I am not sure he does. The METV has several requirements in terms of documentation. These include financial proof, air ticket and hotel booking. These only came in at the back end of 2015 when the METV replaced the old DETV and TETV (double and triple-entry). The DETV and TETV had no documentation requirements.

 

Did your friend take all the necessary documentation, as detailed above, to the embassy to obtain an METV? I strongly suspect he didn't and that, as a result, he could only get an SETV for £25.

 

I've no idea what he took with him but as I said he's been doing this for some years now without ever having a problem so he evidently knows what's needed. I suspect it's simply that they don't want him living here year after year on tourist visas so they're making it as difficult as possible for him. That's pretty much the consensus of his drinking buddies  down the bar anyway.

Edited October 19, 2017 by Guderian

[Briggsy]

8 minutes ago, Guderian said:

 

I've no idea what he took but as I said he's being doing this for some years now without ever having a problem. I suspect it's simply that they don't want him living here year after year on tourist visas so they're making it as difficult as possible. .

You are missing the key point.

 

In Nov 2015, the system completely changed so whatever visa he got from the London Embassy before Nov 2015 is irrelevant to what he must do now.

 

Is it possible (you know his personality) that he liked the simplicity and convenience of the pre-Nov 2015 rules and tried to continue with this but discovered he can't. The post-Nov 2015 rules are far more onerous and require the applicant to prepare a considerable amount of documentation.

 

As I asked earlier, is he a happy-go-lucky type preferring convenience or is he a meticulous type who will spend time preparing a lot of documentation?

Edited October 19, 2017 by Briggsy

[Mattd]

2 minutes ago, Briggsy said:

In Nov 2015, the system completely changed so whatever visa he got from the London Embassy before Nov 2015 is irrelevant to what he must do now.

On 17/10/2017 at 1:30 PM, Guderian said:

He was here from November 2016 until April 2017 using that route and also from May 2017 until September 2017

From the above dates, then it appears that in the recent past he has applied for at least one METV under the new rules, so should have been well aware on what was required to apply for it.

[Briggsy]

5 minutes ago, Mattd said:

From the above dates, then it appears that in the recent past he has applied for at least one METV under the new rules, so should have been well aware on what was required to apply for it.

Yes, you are correct. Unless Guderian, the OP, can confirm what visa(s) he used for Nov 16 to Apr 17 by sighting his passport, then we will never know if he ever has received an METV before.

 

@Guderian

 

Can you get your friend to photo his visas from Nov 16 to Oct 17 so we can see more accurately what he has and hasn't had. At the moment, we are just guessing.

 

Your thread is suggesting an unannounced policy change by the London Embassy so it would help all to get as much info as possible.