Kamala Harris: Balancing Loyalty and Change in Her Bid for the Presidency

[Lee4Life]

    My wife and I have (or had) valid Non-O O/A Multiple Entry E-Visas acquired in the States. We went back to the States for three months and upon re-entry at Savarnabhumi yesterday we were asked for proof of insurance and also for the Visa approval confirmation sent to us when we applied for the visa. This was the first time we had re-entered through Swampy on the e-visas, we had always had the old visa stickers before, and additional paperwork had never been required, I didn't understand that even with a valid multiple entry visa in our passports they would require additional documents, so I didn't have them. I was only able to show them the visa approval letter that was still in my phone, but that was not sufficient and they stamped us in for thirty days, telling us to sort things out at our local Immigration office (NongKhai), or go to Savanahket to get a new visa. I thought I was up on all of the new requirements, but I totally missed this one. It is my hope that others may benefit from our experience and be sure to bring your e-visa approval letter and proof of insurance when re-entering Thailand on multiple re-entry O/A visas, even if you have not had any problems previously. (My wife had been across to Laos and back in at the bridge with no troubles). 

[Upnotover]

If you have a valid non-OA e-visa of course you need to carry it with you to enter.  What actually do you have in your passport? "even with a valid multiple entry visa in our passports"

[DrJack54]

OP, a non O-A has a validity of 12 months from date of issue.

Is your non O-A still valid.

If you enter anytime during the validity of the visa you will be stamped in for 12 months. 

After the validity of the non O-A your permission of stay requires a reentry permit along with insurance. 

With an eVisa that is just an approval email and requires you to show hardcopy print out. 

 

Side note: seems that the io stamped you in visa exempt. No idea why only a 30 day stamp when visa exempt entry is currently 60 days.

 

You mentioned that you returned to USA for 3 months.

Do you plan ongoing living in Thailand? If so there are better options than both having non O-A visas. 

[Liquorice]

What date was your O-A visa issued (it's on the visa).
It's valid to enter Thailand for 12 months from the date of issue, each entry permits a stay of 12 months, but the period of stay is limited to the expiry date of the mandatory Health Insurance. It's possible your visa was still valid, but your original Health insurance had expired.

To obtain a further 12-month period of stay, on re-entry, you would require a valid Health Insurance policy to cover that 12 month period.

 

The IO has allowed you to enter Visa exempt, but the entry permit should have been for 60 days, not 30 days.

Your local Immigration office may be able to amend that date.

 

Next question is how long do you intend to stay for?

[Liquorice]

6 hours ago, Lee4Life said:

previously. (My wife had been across to Laos and back in at the bridge with no troubles). 

It's quite common for folks to obtain the Health Insurance in order to apply for the 0-A visa, without post dating it to start from the date you intend to enter Thailand.

Therefore, by the time you obtain the visa and enter Thailand the Insurance cover is now 6 weeks old, and you only receive permission of stay for 46 weeks rather than 52 weeks.

When your wife crossed the border and re-entered, she would have been stamped in again to the original date when you first entered, which was subject to the expiry date of your Insurance. All the dates are on your stamps.

[Lee4Life]

That may be the case for some, but our insurance is still valid and did not start until the day we entered Thailand, it matches the period of our visas. The I/O in charge said the problem was that we could not prove we had valid insurance because we did not have the insurance documents with us. That was my fault, I assumed we didn't need the documents because the e-visa stamp was in our passport and I thought that was proof enough that we met all of the requirements, such as having had the notice of visa approval and insurance documents on our first entry into the country.  

[Lee4Life]

17 hours ago, Liquorice said:

What date was your O-A visa issued (it's on the visa).
It's valid to enter Thailand for 12 months from the date of issue, each entry permits a stay of 12 months, but the period of stay is limited to the expiry date of the mandatory Health Insurance. It's possible your visa was still valid, but your original Health insurance had expired.

To obtain a further 12-month period of stay, on re-entry, you would require a valid Health Insurance policy to cover that 12 month period.

 

The IO has allowed you to enter Visa exempt, but the entry permit should have been for 60 days, not 30 days.

Your local Immigration office may be able to amend that date.

 

Next question is how long do you intend to stay for?

   Our intent is to stay for nine months, our usual process is to obtain the Non O/A visa in the States and then on the last day it is valid to cross the border and re-enter, and by doing so be stamped in for an additional year, (O/A visas get stamped in for one year from the date of entry every time), then purchase re-entry permits for that year. In effect it stretches a one year O/A visa to two years. There is not a lot of savings in this method due to the price of the re-entry permits, but it does save the hassle of doing all of the paperwork required for a new visa every year. Looking at our paperwork I can see that the period they stamped us in for matches the expiration of our insurance policy and also the "good until" date of our visa. It could be that there was a miscommunication, the I/O clearly stated that we were given thirty days because we did not have proof of insurance, but it may very well be that the real issue may have been that they couldn't stamp us in for for a longer period of time than our medical insurance was valid for. In any case the local Immigration Office advised us that if we extended our health insurance for one year and went across the border and back on the last day our visa is valid they will stamp us in for one year. All is well that ends well.

Edited 2 hours ago by Lee4Life