I already posted this on the 90-day reporting thread in the Visa forum, but I don't suppose many people are avid followers of that topic so I thought it worth posting here as it reflects the current practice in Jomtien Immigration.

 

I've been living in Pattaya on annual retirement extensions to a Non-Imm O visa for the last 16 years and, as you know, when you return from a trip overseas the first 90-day report has always had to be made in person. I came back from a trip to the UK in October so my first 90-day was due this week, and given how busy Immigration in Soi 5 sounds I decided to try my luck submitting the 90-day via the new app. I did that last Thursday afternoon, and last night I received the approval via e-mail. So apparently there's no need to do the first 90-day report in person any more, though as always YMMV. This currently applies in Jomtien Immigration, and I'm not the first person who's done it successfully lately so it seems to be the general rule now. Anyway, it's nice to see Immigration becoming a bit more flexible, and it saves the hassle of going to Soi 5 and queuing so well worth trying it.

That is good news, Soi 5 should be avoided where possible, waste of your life going there

31 minutes ago, scubascuba3 said:

That is good news, Soi 5 should be avoided where possible, waste of your life going there

Agreed.

To be fair to Immigration, unless there's some weird glitch in their e-mail, they must have people working late on the weekends to deal with the backlog, as the e-mail arrived just before I was going to sleep on Sunday night.

14 hours ago, Guderian said:

as you know, when you return from a trip overseas the first 90-day report has always had to be made in person.

Not had that experience... been doing mine online forever, and had a few intervening trips and that never seemed to have that impact. I did have an agent do one once as a freebie with extension renewal, but there had been no trip out of country. I really have never figured out what triggers this need to visit the office. 

I did mine successfully online after visiting the UK for 4 months at Jomtien, no issues.

5 hours ago, jacko45k said:

Not had that experience... been doing mine online forever, and had a few intervening trips and that never seemed to have that impact. I did have an agent do one once as a freebie with extension renewal, but there had been no trip out of country. I really have never figured out what triggers this need to visit the office. 

certainly it was something that UJ said, sounds like not needed anymore