Elite Visa, application timescale

[Fairynuff]

The Elite office told me it can take 3 months because immigration are very slow. Has this been YOUR experience or was it faster? Please only reply if you have the visa, no guesswork!

[Cryingdick]

Mine was a lot faster. Once you pay it was if I remember a week or so. That being said I got mine three years ago. 

[Fairynuff]

1 minute ago, Cryingdick said:

Mine was a lot faster. Once you pay it was if I remember a week or so. That being said I got mine three years ago. 

I dare say it would be longer than that in the current climate but 3 months just seems insane

[zoltannyc]

In February, TE told the that the approval will take 2-3 month, the actual approval was a bit more then 3 weeks.

[ubonjoe]

They say 2 to 3 months but in most cases it much less time for approval. Some only take a couple of weeks.

For some nationalities it requires immigration to contact a person's home country to confirm they have no personal history is the reason for the long delay.

[Araiwa]

I got my PE visa 3 months ago. The whole procedure (online application, background check by immigration and payment) took altogether 10 days.

[justin case]

read the small lines as you can end up paying and they still can cancel you ... if you get in trouble with the law (crazy ex GF or wife filing complain) or you get bankrupt, etc... bye bye 500k

[Araiwa]

6 minutes ago, justin case said:

read the small lines as you can end up paying and they still can cancel you ... if you get in trouble with the law (crazy ex GF or wife filing complain) or you get bankrupt, etc... bye bye 500k

I wonder what one's ex girlfriend, wife or bankruptcy has to do with a Thai Elite Visa? This kind of visa falls under the category of 'tourist visa'. Only that it allows you to stay in Thailand for up to 5 years/20 years (depends on which membership you purchase). 

[nudger]

I applied at the end of July

Took about 30 Days to approve, then less a week to issue after payment made

I applied thru a Bangkok law firm

 

[CygnusX1]

Applied 7-8 months ago. Immigration took exactly a month to approve. I then made the payment, and was a member in only a couple more days.

[marke985]

I applied for the 20 year visa back in mid March.  At time of application they said it would take about a month, then their website switched to saying it could take 2-3 months.  Mine took about 2.5 months.  Also, if you use their website for updates on the process, I would not recommend that as it has nothing to do with the actual visa processing with immigration as I learned during my process when they signed me up for the wrong visa, but the website said I had the visa I always wanted.  Changing the Visa took another 15 days.

 

If they said 2-3 months, prepare for 2-3months and consider yourself lucky if it gets done sooner.

 

*Also, if you use email contact with them, the approval notice will come from a different email than the sales rep during document submitting process.  This went to my junk mail and was auto deleted after 3 days.

[Fairynuff]

3 hours ago, justin case said:

read the small lines as you can end up paying and they still can cancel you ... if you get in trouble with the law (crazy ex GF or wife filing complain) or you get bankrupt, etc... bye bye 500k

Just the kind of idiocy I wasn’t looking for. Now tell me about how long it took to get your Elite visa

[CartagenaWarlock]

Mine took almost 5-weeks on an Antigua passport. I applied in the USA and I did not have any history of entering Thailand prior to that. The passport had lots of European entry (Schengen and non-Schengen) From various posts, I would guess that it takes between 3-8 weeks.