Visa exempt 30 days uk national rejected

[DrJack54]

18 minutes ago, Senior Player said:

For instance, I came in on a 1-year visa once, but then the next time I visited I just went for a normal 30-day exempt which I was perfectly entitled to do

You wouldn't have an issue. First visit was a one year visa.

 

Perhaps if you were doing back to back visa exempt entries via air you may have had issues. 

 

[Senior Player]

Just now, DrJack54 said:

You wouldn't have an issue. First visit was a one year visa.

 

Perhaps if you were doing back to back visa exempt entries via air you may have had issues. 

 

True. I'd also flown back to England before my first year was fully up and re-entered to get an additional 11 or 12 months on the first visa, something you were allowed to do. It was on my next visit after this that I just went for a bog standard visa exempt. But you're right, I've never done back-to-back visa exempts. Well, not since 2011, and I didn't have a problem even then.

 

One thing I've noticed, and there's no exact science to it, but I think certain people are just pulled up and made an example of, especially in front of long queues.

[MajorTom]

4 minutes ago, Senior Player said:

One thing I've noticed, and there's no exact science to it, but I think certain people are just pulled up and made an example of, especially in front of long queues.

I wondered about this science myself many times. Hard to tell.

I have done around 100 visa exempt entries over the past 16 years. Never been denied. Questioned and warned once or twice. I have friends of same nationality who claim to have problems all the time..

I dress well and keep reasonably sober when I travel. I think that's important.

[Mac Mickmanus]

2 minutes ago, MajorTom said:

I wondered about this science myself many times. Hard to tell.

I have done around 100 visa exempt entries over the past 16 years. Never been denied. Questioned and warned once or twice. I have friends of same nationality who claim to have problems all the time..

I dress well and keep reasonably sober when I travel. I think that's important.

I do think that that depends on your entry point and which I.O you see .

There ius a Female I.O at DMK who seems to give out Visa exempt stamps like they are winning lottery ticket s 

[DrJack54]

4 minutes ago, MajorTom said:

I have done around 100 visa exempt entries over the past 16 years.

Fact check?.

How long was each stay and how long between each visa exempt entry. 

[DrJack54]

7 minutes ago, Mac Mickmanus said:

DMK who seems to give out Visa exempt stamps like they are winning lottery ticket s

Prior to covid there were several reports of being refused entry, DMK being chief culprit.

Too soon to tell what will happen at airports for current visa/v exempt runs now that it's possible to exit Thailand and return via air.

Anyone that has been here on covid extensions for some time, would be well advised to obtain a visa. 

Edited April 17, 2022 by DrJack54

[MajorTom]

15 minutes ago, DrJack54 said:

Fact check?.

How long was each stay and how long between each visa exempt entry. 

Fact.

Worked rotations abroad. In general 1 month on/off. I also did trips to neighboring countries in between, so could be up to 10 stamps a year at most.

 

Edit: I should add that my experience is not recent. I have not entered visa exempt since just before Covid.

Edited April 17, 2022 by MajorTom
Info

[Mac Mickmanus]

19 minutes ago, MajorTom said:

I wondered about this science myself many times. Hard to tell.

I have done around 100 visa exempt entries over the past 16 years. Never been denied. t.

Prior to 2014 . you could get unlimited Visa Exempt entries . I got about 100 Visa exempts over three years and always stayed for the maximum 15 days and it was neve questioned , that all changed though when they began to limit the V.E's  

[MajorTom]

9 minutes ago, Mac Mickmanus said:

Prior to 2014 . you could get unlimited Visa Exempt entries . I got about 100 Visa exempts over three years and always stayed for the maximum 15 days and it was neve questioned , that all changed though when they began to limit the V.E's  

Yeah i remember immigration ruffled their feathers in 2014. That's when I got the warning. I ignored it and kept doing the same until 2020 without issues.

[Mac Mickmanus]

2 minutes ago, MajorTom said:

Yeah i remember immigration ruffled their feathers in 2014. That's when I got the warning. I ignored it and kept doing the same until 2020 without issues.

That must have when entering from air , because land entrances wouldn't have allowed it 

[DrJack54]

13 minutes ago, MajorTom said:

Yeah i remember immigration ruffled their feathers in 2014. That's when I got the warning. I ignored it and kept doing the same until 2020 without issues.

Sorta strange that my experience is completely opposite to yours.

I also did trip to Saigon every month from BKK pre covid. For several years.

With my amount of travel I could easily live in Thailand on visa exempt entries. 

However that very quickly became impossible.

First step was that I was warned/advised to obtain tourist visa.

In those days you could obtain a triple entry and I did that at Saigon.

At some point the immigration officer there told me that..."your living in Thailand and you over 50. You need obtain non O retirement".

Rest is history.

 

Then you obtain a visa exempt with short turn around 100 times.

Hope that works for you ongoing. 

 

 

Edited April 17, 2022 by DrJack54

[BritTim]

1 hour ago, Senior Player said:

Surely it doesn't matter what your previous visa history is when entering Thailand, as personal circumstances can often change.

If entering Thailand with a visa it definitely should not matter. While others want to disbelieve this, by law, Thai immigration officials are given less power than their Western counterparts, and they are only supposed to permit or deny entry according to clearly defined criteria specified in the Immigration Act. Unfortunately, immigration officials at some entry points have decided they should have a power to override the decisions of consular officials, and refuse to honour valid visas.

 

The situation with visa exempt entry is less clearcut. For more than a decade, there has been a directive to immigration officials that visa exempt entry should not be allowed if being used to stay longer in Thailand than is consistent with regular tourism. There are many ways that can be interpreted and, at some entry points, it may be interpreted strictly. Immigration officials are definitely empowered to deny visa exempt entry (in the same way that consular officials are empowered to deny visas) if in their sole judgment the purpose of entering Thailand is not tourism. That is in spite of the fact that there can be valid reasons for short visits to Thailand that are reasonable, but not strictly tourism related.

[TropicalGuy]

On 4/12/2022 at 3:03 PM, brewsterbudgen said:

Very true. I regret not studying the language and the written alphabet when I first arrived. Too late now, but I manage to order food and give taxi drivers directions. 

Have read on TVF that the Thai spoken out there is so very different to Thai taught in classrooms, with English everywhere in tourist areas, so that it’s pointless learning Thai except from daily business / family conversations over several years. 

[TropicalGuy]

Believe the problem was that your passport history here was still connected to the ED Extensions of Stay against your O Longstay Visa with those later Covid Extentions based on ED status. Visa Exempt arrival didn’t reconcile with underlying unchanged ED status. 
 

I broke that same ED / CE link myself with current One-time Family Visit Extension after they stopped Covid Extensions to Longstay Visas.
 

So I believe strongly that I would have no issue returning Visa Exempt. 

[TropicalGuy]

On 4/12/2022 at 2:58 PM, Lemsta69 said:

"get the correct visa", "don't abuse the system", "deport him" blah blah blah

 

such responses are old and tired and were done to death pre-Covid. time to get some new material boys.

Yeah, citing the “rules” except ignoring Imm rule 101 “ all rules can be waived”, ie. there are No Rules. 

[TropicalGuy]

19 hours ago, DrJack54 said:

You wouldn't have an issue. First visit was a one year visa.

 

Perhaps if you were doing back to back visa exempt entries via air you may have had issues. 

 

Nope.followed that pattern myself with OA 1 year Visa then two years of back to back visa exempt for years with no issues then METV Tourist Visa.

[TropicalGuy]

34 minutes ago, TropicalGuy said:

Believe the problem was that your passport history here was still connected to the ED Extensions of Stay against your O Longstay Visa with those later Covid Extentions based on ED status. Visa Exempt arrival didn’t reconcile with underlying unchanged ED status. 
 

I broke that same ED / CE link myself with current One-time Family Visit Extension after they stopped Covid Extensions to Longstay Visas.
 

So I believe strongly that I would have no issue returning Visa Exempt. 

Correction: with 24 months solid Covid stay here it’s possible I may no longer be admitted without visa.

so to clean it all up I’m getting O Retirement POS next month.

[MajorTom]

On 4/17/2022 at 11:46 PM, DrJack54 said:

Then you obtain a visa exempt with short turn around 100 times.

Hope that works for you ongoing.

Let me elaborate a bit further on that. I would not call them short turnarounds. In a normal year i would not spend more than 6 months in Thailand. I was working and traveling a lot. Usually away for a month at a time. With the exception of short holidays to nearby countries when I was on leave. And no sensible immigration officer would see that as visa runs. I didn't leave at the end of my 30 days to obtain another 30 to spend. I gained nothing from those trips in visa terms. Regardless, I had many exempt stamps and my passport did not look pretty at first glance..

 

Like you, I also got warnings. But I did not have any reasonable visa option so I ignored them, and they left me alone for some reason.

Elite? Yeah, i guess i would have got one if I ran out of options. But i never did.

 

I'm not one of those people that feel privileged to be able to stay in Thailand.

I see it the other way. I'm here to spend money. If they don't like that, fair enough. Not my country or rules. If i was denied visa exempt, I would simply take my bag and go somewhere else. Apply for a visa and come back later. But I'm not panicking if i meet one IO with an opinion.

 

Well, times change and I'm married now. I might pull up the ladder and join the "Get a proper visa" crowd ????