Pulled over with only 2 30 day exempt this year

[ericthai]

On 7/5/2024 at 9:53 AM, Chivas said:

Its so random.

Whilst it was now 29 years ago but in 1995 I arrived using visa Exempt on 15 occasions never once being asked any questions

Maybe as OP has found out the times have changed

Things were different back then.  They didn't care and overstays were laughed about.  You could go to just about any neighbor consulate and get a B visa with just a letter from a company saying they were going to hire you. Early 2000's things started to change. 

[raz0r21]

Yeah, I remember pre-covid when I got pulled over and grilled for an hour, during early September 2019. The time was around 7pm and not a single person was walking through the booths... so they had all the time in the world to scroll through my travel history. The thing is that I was coming from a 1 month trip to Vietnam which was something they did not seem to like. I dont know what the problem is with Vietnam specifically.

 

Was just staying a short while before my flight back home, so I entered with a visa exempt. I tried showing my ticket out but no dice.

[patman30]

On 7/5/2024 at 12:44 PM, DrJack54 said:

I get the impression that if they see from passport that someone has option visa wise over using visa exempt entries they can make things difficult.

Exactly this.
one time i came back in on visa exempt instead of usual marriage based visa
i was planning to go to Laos a week later to get a new one
but when they seen i had previous visas, and also an ED visa from before i was married
the IO started questioning me and then called her superior to question me
it had been many years since i entered on visa exempt
one comment was "we see you have visa before"

[Caldera]

54 minutes ago, raz0r21 said:

The thing is that I was coming from a 1 month trip to Vietnam which was something they did not seem to like. I dont know what the problem is with Vietnam specifically.

 

I don't think there's anything wrong with Vietnam specifically.

 

What they seem to be suspicious of are "permanent tourists" who, instead of going home after their holidays in Thailand, have the audacity to spend a few days, weeks or months in a nearby country and then rock up in Thailand again. They clearly don't get that.