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Elite-Visa, Overstay on holiday and other questions


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Hey there!

I have some questions, maybe you can help me.

 

Ive applied for an 5-Year Elite-Visa and it got approved today. I’m happy, but there is something I’m not sure about.

 

In the approval Mail I got is written: The elite-visa stamp can be denied if I have more then one overstay in the past 3 years.

 

Now I looked through my passport and  saw one overstay in may 2016: “Overstay 3 days on public holidays” with no fine. Besides of this I had only one “real” overstay, it was in 2015 and it was only one day and I paid 500 Baht.

 

The public holiday overstay stamp isn’t red and there was no fee, somebody know if this stamp count?

 

I think the safe line would be to wait for 2019, then for sure it’s only the public holiday overstay in the last 3 years. I can’t look at what date the one day Overstay was, because I have a new passport.

 

Maybe somebody from you have some experience with the elite visa. For sure I asked the same questions to the elite-visa staff, but I like to have some real experience-reports. 

 

I will keep you updated.

 

Cheers

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1 minute ago, ubonjoe said:

The one for overstaying due to a holiday would not count as one. It is just note to justify no fine being paid. 

Even the one for one day would not be taken into consideration. The are more concerned with a history of longer overstays.

Thank you really much for your answer, I read many of your posts and I think you have a deep knowledge of immigration things.

 

Im only scared because they wrote it in red letters and for sure I pay the elite-visa before ?

 

  Despite the Approval Letter that has been received in the initial stage of the application procedure, Member who has record of any type of over staying more than once will be rejected at the immigration when affixing the Elite Visa stamp later. 

 

I will wait for the response from thai-elite and then pay the visa tommorow.

 

Thank you again, now I’m little bit more confident ?

 

Cheers

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3 hours ago, Silktouch said:

  Despite the Approval Letter that has been received in the initial stage of the application procedure, Member who has record of any type of over staying more than once will be rejected at the immigration when affixing the Elite Visa stamp later. 

I'm confused, where does it say "in the past three years" as you had mentioned in the OP?

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3 minutes ago, Silktouch said:

Yes, this was from the first Mail, but in my approval mail I got this:

 

Despite this approval letter, the immigration could reject your Elite Visa if you have overstayed more than once in the past three years or have a bad record that we have not yet found in the immigration system.”

 

Cheers

Interesting, this suggests to me that they haven't actually done any checks or they would have found problems.

 

I just checked back through my original emails and the attached PDFs and there is no mention of this back in May/June 2014 so it is a new requirement.

 

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7 minutes ago, ukrules said:

Interesting, this suggests to me that they haven't actually done any checks or they would have found problems.

 

I just checked back through my original emails and the attached PDFs and there is no mention of this back in May/June 2014 so it is a new requirement.

It will be immigration that are imposing this condition.

 

It seems members could - with "bad record" etc. - show up at Swampy, and be denied the visa by immigration!

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I thought that the first approval is from the Immigration (5 days)  and I think they would have saw if there were any “bad Overstay” or something like that.

 

As they write “not yet found”, I hope all is ok and they checked all.

 

Because what is the reason for them sending my passport scan and application to the immigration when they check all again when I claim it? 

 

I think tommorow I will get my answer, but I asked soft before and they only sent me “Only one overstay is acceptable”. Now I asked for more details.

 

Normally I want to extend my existing tourist visa tommorow for the last time and then fly to malaysia next month and come back to claim my elite visa. I think that I can’t ask the immigration officer if he can get me some details about my Overstay or record? ?

 

When I know more, Ill let you know.

 

cheers

 

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I am always wary paying for anything in advance.  This is sounding a bit suspicious and in some instances my scam bells would be going off.  Why don't they take a smaller payment up front to do the processing, clear it with immigration before one has to send the rest of the money. 

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My guess is that immigration reserves the right to reject the visa... but in fact as long as you have not been blacklisted or persona non grata for other reasons ... they will issue the visa.  Whenever you apply for any visa at a consulate or embassy -- those visas can be rejected by immigration at time of entry as well... but unless they are looking for a reason prior overstays have not been used by a reason by itself (i.e. usually the immigration officer decides that you should be rejected, then finds the most appropriate or convenient official reason for rejection).

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28 minutes ago, JayBird said:

if rejected do you get a refund or are you out 500k?

In this case I would say yes since the fee would not have to be paid until after the application was approved by immigration already.

A immigration officer deciding not to issue the visa after the approval would be out of the norm.

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Ok, I got an reply from Thailand-Elite. They discussed it with their team and it shouldn’t be a problem if nothing else is suspicious.

 

Today I paid the membership-fee and will inform you mid next month if I have my elite-visa in my passport.

 

Cheers

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can I ask about Elite, maybe someone knows:

1. When starts membership? I also plan to do it, but wanted to use tourist visa extension also. So when to apply best to be in time?

2. About 500k payment. Do they accept payment by Transferwise?

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5 minutes ago, Terek said:

can I ask about Elite, maybe someone knows:

1. When starts membership? I also plan to do it, but wanted to use tourist visa extension also. So when to apply best to be in time?

2. About 500k payment. Do they accept payment by Transferwise?

1. When your application is approved and the fee is paid.. The PE visas 5 years validity will start from the date the visa sticker is put in your passport and your first 1 year entry is stamped in your passport.

2. I am sure they will accept a Transferwise transfer. But you should ensure it goes into the correct account. As far as I know they have different accounts for domestic and international transfers. Normally a TransferWise transfer is done as a domestic transfer.

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4 minutes ago, ubonjoe said:

1. When your application is approved and the fee is paid.. The PE visas 5 years validity will start from the date the visa sticker is put in your passport and your first 1 year entry is stamped in your passport.

2. I am sure they will accept a Transferwise transfer. But you should ensure it goes into the correct account. As far as I know they have different accounts for domestic and international transfers. Normally a TransferWise transfer is done as a domestic transfer.

thanks, I will check about domestic and international accounts and ask them about Transferwise,

about membership start date, so it starts after payment is done, what is time limit to do payment after membership is approved?

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24 minutes ago, ubonjoe said:

I am sure they will accept a Transferwise transfer. But you should ensure it goes into the correct account. As far as I know they have different accounts for domestic and international transfers. Normally a TransferWise transfer is done as a domestic transfer.

I would be careful about TransferWise. It could make AML (anti money laundering) checks more complicated, and I could imagine special documentation being requested. Although more expensive, I might choose a regular bank transfer in this case.

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2 hours ago, BritTim said:

I would be careful about TransferWise. It could make AML (anti money laundering) checks more complicated, and I could imagine special documentation being requested. Although more expensive, I might choose a regular bank transfer in this case.

I doubt that there are any checks on the money at all, I paid for my visa by cash deposit directly into their account.

 

It was the quickest way, I withdrew 500k Baht from my account in one bank then walked next door to their bank and paid it in.

 

They didn't care, just opened each 'wad' of notes and fed it into the counting machines. Job done.

 

This was four years ago...

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5 minutes ago, ukrules said:

I doubt that there are any checks on the money at all, I paid for my visa by cash deposit directly into their account.

 

It was the quickest way, I withdrew 500k Baht from my account in one bank then walked next door to their bank and paid it in.

 

They didn't care, just opened each 'wad' of notes and fed it into the counting machines. Job done.

 

This was four years ago...

You could be right, but AML checks generally have become a lot stricter over the last couple of years.

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can I ask about Elite, maybe someone knows:
1. When starts membership? I also plan to do it, but wanted to use tourist visa extension also. So when to apply best to be in time?
2. About 500k payment. Do they accept payment by Transferwise?



I don‘t know about Transferwise, but the membership starts as soon as the money arrived and has been allocated to your membership number. Since this can take a day or two, you are not able to define or target the start date by yourself. But TE will tell you, and it will show on your visa in your passport as well.



Sent from my iPhone using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app
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15 hours ago, Terek said:

thanks, I will check about domestic and international accounts and ask them about Transferwise,

about membership start date, so it starts after payment is done, what is time limit to do payment after membership is approved?

It should be no trouble with Transferwise. I used Bahtsmart last year when I paid. 

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11 hours ago, hurni77 said:

I don‘t know about Transferwise, but the membership starts as soon as the money arrived and has been allocated to your membership number. Since this can take a day or two, you are not able to define or target the start date by yourself. But TE will tell you, and it will show on your visa in your passport as well.

 

My visa is dated from the day it was inserted and expires one day before that date 5 years later.

 

From memory I paid a good 10 days before this and made an appointment to go to Bangkok to get my visa - I was living in Hua Hin at the time.

 

The visa itself is filled out manually in pen by someone at immigration. I had my visa inserted at Chaeng Wattana in Bangkok.

 

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My visa is dated from the day it was inserted and expires one day before that date 5 years later.
 
From memory I paid a good 10 days before this and made an appointment to go to Bangkok to get my visa - I was living in Hua Hin at the time.
 
The visa itself is filled out manually in pen by someone at immigration. I had my visa inserted at Chaeng Wattana in Bangkok.
 


Well, membership and visa are not the same. After the start and during the membership, you can get a visa, and the visa may be still valid when your membership already has expired.



Sent from my iPhone using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app
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