New Long-Stay Visa

[Shannoblic]

Dear All,

 

Having read about the new 90x90x90 I have a question which is really asking for advice.

 

I have a very good friend stuck in the UK who is desperate to get back - he has a 'wife' here [but is not legally married] and several properties.  'A' was trapped in the UK on a visit when the bans were brought in.  With a maximum of 1200 per month entries indicated in the new announcement I am assuming [probably wrongly] that this is a world-wide limit.

 

My question is - would he be advised to immediately contact the Thai Embassy in London and do you think they would register or record him as an early enquirer in case the allocation of places is on a 'first come- first served basis'?

 

I know your responses will only be opinions at this stage but I would really like to know your views.

 

Thank you.

[steve187]

wait until the fine details are known

[Shannoblic]

Thank you Steve

[Tanoshi]

For all intents and purposes your friend is single and can only apply based on retirement or as a Tourist.

Wait until the terms and conditions of this Visa are posted on the Thai Embassy website.

[jackdd]

If you ask about it now the answer will probably be "such a visa doesn't exist", because the MFA didn't define the details yet.

Once it's official and all requirements are defined it will probably still be difficult to get it in the UK.

The Corona cases in the last two weeks are rising in the UK, so it could happen that the UK is considered as not having Covid under control and in this case they might not offer this visa in the UK at all.

Even if they offer it, afaik there are many people in the UK who still couldn't return (Thais, spouses of Thais...), and who will probably get priority over tourists thus it could happen that there are no available slots for people with this visa in the next months.

Edited September 16, 2020 by jackdd

[Peterw42]

Start a new thread and ask "how long is a piece of string".

 

More people will be able to provide answers to that question.

[ezzra]

2 minutes ago, Peterw42 said:

Start a new thread and ask "how long is a piece of string".

 

More people will be able to provide answers to that question.

Oh that is easy, the piece of string is as long as the government and immigration department decides it be...

[ubonjoe]

It was only approved in principle. After the details are worked out it will go to the cabinet again for final approval.

Reading the info I have seen it will only be for those from certain countries with low rates of covid 19 infections and they will be arriving on chartered flights.

[Phillip9]

26 minutes ago, jackdd said:

The Corona cases in the last two weeks are rising in the UK, so it could happen that the UK is considered as not having Covid under control and in this case they might not offer this visa in the UK at all.

I agree, I wouldn't get my hopes up that this will be offered to anyone in the UK.  Several articles have mentioned a possible list of countries with few covid cases that this will be offered to with examples such as china and Taiwan.  

[DrJack54]

This proposed "new visa" is a complete red herring. Especially with a cap of 1200/month. Also people from most countries have zero chance of being able to be approved. Utter nonsense.

 

[Keyser Soze666]

Just now, DrJack54 said:

This proposed "new visa" is a complete red herring. Especially with a cap of 1200/month. Also people from most countries have zero chance of being able to be approved. Utter nonsense.

 

Yes, looks a complete nonsense. And apart from possibly back packers who exactly would want this visa? IF it did happen, you would have the people that live here that struggle to get proper visas applying for it?

[Peterw42]

It does appear that this visa jjust opens up an opportunity for all the "living in thailand on back to back tourist visa's" crowd.

 

It appears to be a visa for the very people they have been trying to shut down. multiple tourist visa's with no means of support, most likely working illegally.

[onebir]

4 hours ago, Peterw42 said:

It does appear that this visa jjust opens up an opportunity for all the "living in thailand on back to back tourist visa's" crowd.

They could (more or less?) fix that by limiting this visa to 1x per year.

[Pib]

5 hours ago, DrJack54 said:

This proposed "new visa" is a complete red herring. Especially with a cap of 1200/month. Also people from most countries have zero chance of being able to be approved. Utter nonsense.

 

I would have to agree it's a red herring, head fake, stick-for-the-dog-to-chase, etc.   It's just to show the Thai tourism industry the govt is trying to open-up the country a little more.  But at least it's a baby step in opening up the country again. 

 

For the "typical tourist" during normal times who came to visit Thailand for a week or two, stay in hotels, visit tourist locations, etc. and then climb back on the plane to return to the home country, such a tourist is not going to apply for this new yet-to-be-fully-baked up to 270 day visa especially when it still requires a 14 day quarantine and surely a bunch of other paperwork/costs that would choke a horse. 

 

It will only be used by those who need to get back to Thailand (i.e., the non-tourist)....someone who needs to get back for some other reason like to see/visit Thai family, etc.....not to stay in hotels, visit tourist locations, etc.

[Bigz]

8 hours ago, jackdd said:

If you ask about it now the answer will probably be "such a visa doesn't exist", because the MFA didn't define the details yet.

Once it's official and all requirements are defined it will probably still be difficult to get it in the UK.

The Corona cases in the last two weeks are rising in the UK, so it could happen that the UK is considered as not having Covid under control and in this case they might not offer this visa in the UK at all.

Even if they offer it, afaik there are many people in the UK who still couldn't return (Thais, spouses of Thais...), and who will probably get priority over tourists thus it could happen that there are no available slots for people with this visa in the next months.

You are right. I don't think that they will offer this visa to UK residents given the current covid situation there.

[Guderian]

7 hours ago, ubonjoe said:

It was only approved in principle. After the details are worked out it will go to the cabinet again for final approval.

Reading the info I have seen it will only be for those from certain countries with low rates of covid 19 infections and they will be arriving on chartered flights.

I was wondering whether they'd stick the new visa people on repatriation flights or let them fly on a scheduled aircraft. If it's going to be a chartered flight, then a single Boeing  777 typically holds up to 400 passengers, so a single flight will take up a whole week's allocation of people with the new visas. To reach the 1,200 target they will need three or four flights a month, which in effect will imply that people from only three or four different countries will be allowed to come here each month, which sounds extremely limiting. I guess, though, if you knock out the countries where the virus is still out of control (US, India), or almost so again (the UK and much of the EU), then there's not many "safe" countries left: Japan, South Korea, China(!!!!), NZ, parts of Australia, maybe Sweden even, so perhaps the three or four countries per month idea isn't so limiting after all? Mass tourism this most certainly is not, though.

[zzzzz]

FYI:
this tourist via is aimed at those that have been unable to return to Thailand yet have wife's, family, Homes, condos here

Must be at least 1,000 of those living on phuket island alone.

 

its NOT for ur average fly in stay 3 weeks fly out tourists

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 16, 2020 by zzzzz

[Pattaya46]

15 minutes ago, Guderian said:

// If it's going to be a chartered flight, then a single Boeing  777 typically holds up to 400 passengers, so a single flight will take up a whole week's allocation of people with the new visas. To reach the 1,200 target they will need three or four flights a month, which in effect will imply that people from only three or four different countries will be allowed to come here each month, which sounds extremely limiting. //

These chartered flight could also be those already used to repatriate Thai citizen. If 400 = 320 Thai + 80 foreigners, you may have 15 flights a month for foreigners, so theoretically up to 15 countries.

 

Linked question is to know if someone from a "high infected" country will be able to go take a flight in a "low infected" country... 

Edited September 16, 2020 by Pattaya46

[Phillip9]

27 minutes ago, Pattaya46 said:

Linked question is to know if someone from a "high infected" country will be able to go take a flight in a "low infected" country..

Examples of "low infected" countries that they have mentioned are taiwan and china.  How would anyone from a "high infected" country  possibly get to a "low infected" country since there are travel bans in place?

[Max69xl]

9 hours ago, jackdd said:

If you ask about it now the answer will probably be "such a visa doesn't exist", because the MFA didn't define the details yet.

Once it's official and all requirements are defined it will probably still be difficult to get it in the UK.

The Corona cases in the last two weeks are rising in the UK, so it could happen that the UK is considered as not having Covid under control and in this case they might not offer this visa in the UK at all.

Even if they offer it, afaik there are many people in the UK who still couldn't return (Thais, spouses of Thais...), and who will probably get priority over tourists thus it could happen that there are no available slots for people with this visa in the next months.

"(Thais, spouses of Thais...), and who will probably get priority over tourists thus it could happen that there are no available slots for people with this visa in the next months."

"If" there will be a so called Long Stay Visa, it won't have anything to do with repatriation flights. At the moment no one knows if Thai Airways will be the chosen airline or if other airlines will be allowed in the Long Stay Visa scheme. 

[vandeventer]

1 hour ago, Phillip9 said:

Examples of "low infected" countries that they have mentioned are taiwan and china.  How would anyone from a "high infected" country  possibly get to a "low infected" country since there are travel bans in place?

They really mean people from the North or South Pole or maybe even  Greenland. Don't they know that countries with low infection rates do very little testing? 

Edited September 16, 2020 by vandeventer
miss spell

[Pib]

2 hours ago, zzzzz said:

FYI:
this tourist via is aimed at those that have been unable to return to Thailand yet have wife's, family, Homes, condos here

Must be at least 1,000 of those living on phuket island alone.

 

its NOT for ur average fly in stay 3 weeks fly out tourists

 

 

 

 

 

Notice one of the requirements is "Pass criminal record check with the Royal Thai Police."  If the Thai govt keeps adding on requirements to get back into Thailand even as a tourist, pretty soon no one will be able to get back in.  

[ubonjoe]

4 minutes ago, Pib said:

Notice one of the requirements is "Pass criminal record check with the Royal Thai Police."  If the Thai govt keeps adding on requirements to get back into Thailand even as a tourist, pretty soon no one will be able to get back in.  

That apparently is only for the special tourist visa that will only be issued when going through the whole process of entering the country.

I am sure the special tourist visa will go away when the certificates of entry and etc go away.

[ubonjoe]

1 hour ago, Max69xl said:

"If" there will be a so called Long Stay Visa, it won't have anything to do with repatriation flights. At the moment no one knows if Thai Airways will be the chosen airline or if other airlines will be allowed in the Long Stay Visa scheme. 

The info posted above states this.

[Jake72]

I suspect most of these tourist visas will be granted to Chinese tourists as they have announced beating Covid, compared to Europe and America where there are still many new cases.

[Letseng]

It will be official when it has been published in the government gazette. 

[Shannoblic]

Thank you all for your comments and opinions.  I have passed most of them on to 'A'.

 

It is very useful to have a cross-section of opinions and I thank you for taking the time to give them.

 

Special note to Peterw42 - if you had had a decent UK university education you would know that 'the length of a piece of string' is always "the linear distance between the ends".