New level of nonsense at Jomtien- now 3 trips for Wuhan covid extension & they keep your passport overnight! wt...

[WuhanVagabond]

Went back to Jomtien today after my 14 day "under consideration" waiting period. Girl at the entry desk looks at my stamp, asks for the passport copies, hands me a number and tells me I'll get my passport back tomorrow. huh? I haven't read anything about this. She acted as if it's SOP for a long time. Even in BKK, they cap wasting your time at 2 trips- with my previous under consideration trip there literally lasting less than 3 minutes from walking thru the door to getting my stamped passport back. Yet Jomtien, which was close to empty today, needs a day with my passport to do something that takes under a minute?!?

 

Extra trip aside, I just HATE being separated from my passport- especially for no reason whatsoever.

 

[ubonjoe]

A off topic post meant to deflect the topic and a reply to it have been removed.

[ubonjoe]

Perhaps the officer to sign off on the extension was not in the office or available.

They have people return the next day for long stay extensions on a regular basis.

[wadman]

Same thing happened to me.  In late december, I got a "under consideration, come back on Jan 4" stamp.  Went back on Jan 4, dropped off passport, was told to pick it up the next day.  I am guessing this is done because they don't want you to wait the usual 15-20 minutes in the office, what with the new outbreak and restrictions.

[WuhanVagabond]

8 minutes ago, ubonjoe said:

Perhaps the officer to sign off on the extension was not in the office or available.

They have people return the next day for long stay extensions on a regular basis.

That's possible- but the girl acted as if this was the way it works. She saw that BKK immigration did the previous extension and commented that I had to do the same thing in BKK when I was puzzled by the need to return and asked if it was possible to wait and take care of it today.  Perhaps she was being disingenuous as a means of avoiding telling me they couldn't do it today.

 

As an addition to the OP for anyone wondering...

 

She never entered my information into the computer. In fact, she never even looked at the info page of my passport- she only looked at the under consideration stamp. The whole thing from start to finish was over in under a minute.

[Litlos]

Normal for Jomtien to say pick up tomorrow. Not official policy, but hey it is immigration so they march to their own tune.

 

Cheers

[spiekerjozef]

1 hour ago, WuhanVagabond said:

She never entered my information into the computer. In fact, she never even looked at the info page of my passport- she only looked at the under consideration stamp. The whole thing from start to finish was over in under a minute.

That's what she's been told to do. So?

[Wongkitlo]

It actually sounds good to me. I would prefer to make another trip even though it takes me an hour to get there than wait in the office. In December I was there for over an hour in the office waiting for an under consideration stamp.

[WuhanVagabond]

Figure people want to know the what to expect, so I'll wrap this up...

 

Trip back today was easy and, as someone who lives relatively close to Jomtien Immigration, it's not bad at all. Arrived at the entry desk, gave her my number, she had a box of passports next to her paperclipped to their respective numbers and... I was finished in 10 seconds.

 

So, yeah, if the alternative were waiting at immigration for an hour + once, vs 2 trips that take less than a minute each, I'll take the latter.