Selling my Permanent Visa from EliteCard

[JumpingJim]

34 minutes ago, wordchild said:

I have limited use for it anyway. I was offered 1.5 million a few years ago which seems like a more realistic price.

Keep in mind that a few years ago the DTV didn't exist.  I doubt you could get half that now.  The primary value now seems to be the golf and transportation perks.  Or perhaps more if you can find someone who is willing to pay up for the certainty of 30 years.

[wordchild]

52 minutes ago, JumpingJim said:

Keep in mind that a few years ago the DTV didn't exist.  I doubt you could get half that now.  The primary value now seems to be the golf and transportation perks.  Or perhaps more if you can find someone who is willing to pay up for the certainty of 30 years.

You are almost certainly correct re the value of TE.
 I don’t need the visa for my residency in Thailand, but some of the perks are nice and I hang on to  it for that reason.
In my own mind I had written the value of it down to zero anyway which is why I was surprised to see such large values mentioned at the start of this discussion.

i travel a lot in and out of Bangkok , probably 2/3x per month, and I do value having a car waiting just the other side of customs to whisk me straight home after I get off the plane. That is why I referenced the new limo policy from TE above. If , in the future, there is a significant wait involved , then the card loses a  chunk of it’s value for me.

[Presnock]

On 3/11/2025 at 5:34 PM, richard_smith237 said:

 

The 'O2' levels where the 'air' is clear enough to see the investment. 

 

Having owned LifeTime Elite Membership for over 15 years its already paid for itself... 

- AOT Transport (approx 16x per year) with fast Track through Airport: 16,000 baht per year

- Golf (20 to 50x per year at 2000-4000 Baht per round) - Av approx 120,000 baht per year 

- Massage: Weekly: *26,000 baht per year 

- Yearly Medical: 20,000 per year

 

- Rough workings: about 180,000 baht of perks per year...   

 

At a cost of 1MB - mine paid for itself quite quickly... 

 

*using the argument that you'll only pay 500 baht for a cheap massage, in reality these are high end massage places that usually cost anywhere from 1500 to 2000 baht. 

 

 

For someone who plays Golf 3x per week and likes decent / top courses

(4000 baht per round) - consider that to be around 642,400 baht per year...   OK, so its unrealistic to play 3x per week every week...  so half that: and you're still looking at 300,000 to 400,000 per year on golf alone... 

 

For those in that sort of target demographic - the cost of membership is not an extreme proposition at all. 

 

When the membership first came out we had all the same comments - the nay sayers etc... 

Years later - there are Thai Elite Members (Life timers  and 20 year members) whose membership has more than paid for itself. 

Actually if oneis a gofer, membership in some great courses here are cheaper.  I was a member earlier for many years, had lights so I could play evenings too which I did faithfully almost every day for years.  I walked mostly, lost a lot of weight and wondered if I could bore myself of playing - tried 3 times a day for over a month and still did not tire of playing - caddies had to be replaced though as they couldn't make it walking 3 rounds continuously every day.  Just saying, as I too feel the cost/benefits of elite are overpriced...I have an LTR and after dropoing 50% of cost is even better than it was in my opinion and for me the best visa going based on my finances too.  But to each his own use for his money!

 

 

 

 

 

[MrBanks]

On 3/7/2025 at 8:21 PM, richard_smith237 said:

 

Someone who uses the services... 

 

I now have a free life time Visa....    because I've already used so much Golf, Massage, AOT Transfers, airport fast tracks, and health checkups....   

 

 

 

Nope... its not like that at all.. Its like that to you. 

 

To those truly interested, its not just about the Visa, but the perks that come with membership to.

 

I don't have to ever prepare a load of Paperwork to submit for my Marriage or Retirement extension.... I simply go to Immigration, give them a card, sing something an its done.

 

The annoyance of course is the frequency which which I have do do this (theoretically 4x per year) though in over 15 years of TE membership I've only had to do this twice as I travel so much.

What do you sing?

I usually do “Catch a falling star”, or if I am particularly happy “What a wonderful world”

Thanks for the typo, I don’t know you, but a vision of a mature farang, standing in immigration and singing, gave me a good chuckle! 😂

[richard_smith237]

5 hours ago, MrBanks said:

What do you sing?

I usually do “Catch a falling star”, or if I am particularly happy “What a wonderful world”

Thanks for the typo, I don’t know you, but a vision of a mature farang, standing in immigration and singing, gave me a good chuckle! 😂

 

haha...  good spot on the typo - gave me a good chuckle too !!! 

 

 

[Jangunnim]

Not throwing shade at the OP but looking at those new prices for the elite cards, man those guys at the elite company are delusional. 5 million baht for the best one without never getting access to PR or pathway to citizenship? To me that seems like complete lunacy but it’s probably aimed at people with too much money anyway and since people are buying those it’s probably good for them, not sure though how DTV affected the sales..

 

hope OP finds a buyer through, at least that one is forever and not time limited..

[richard_smith237]

13 hours ago, Jangunnim said:

Not throwing shade at the OP but looking at those new prices for the elite cards, man those guys at the elite company are delusional. 5 million baht for the best one without never getting access to PR or pathway to citizenship? To me that seems like complete lunacy but it’s probably aimed at people with too much money anyway and since people are buying those it’s probably good for them, not sure though how DTV affected the sales..

 

hope OP finds a buyer through, at least that one is forever and not time limited..

 

Thats an excellent point: If there were access to PR and Citizenship this would certainly add a huge degree of value to membership.

[wasabi]

On 3/8/2025 at 3:51 PM, richard_smith237 said:

 

 

There are two types of Visa that come with the Thai Elite Membership:

 

a) Longer term and earlier memberships: Give an SE Visa - which is a 5 Year Visa sticker...  90 days is given with each entry which requires another 90 day extension of stay every 90 days (if you have not travelled out of the country).

 

b) Shorter term and (some) later members: Give a PE Visa - which is a 1 Year Visa sticker and is renewable each year until the term of the membership has been completed (in this case 90 day extensions are required, 90 day reports are required).

 

 

As the agreements with Immigration are an evolving process, a lot of what is provided with each new 'iteration' or promotions / marketing etc varies...    Thus, to know exactly what type of Visa Sticker you get and whether or not you would need to extend every 90 days or every year depends on membership at that time of purchase. 

 

 

 

I've scanned through this thread so I may have missed a few things but I have gone through the process of buying Thailand Elite Visas second hand. The description of the versions above is accurate. There were multiple versions of the visa so transfer agreements may vary but I was told that the original lifetime versions of the visas cannot be transferred to another person for life. I saw the OP states otherwise and I'm not saying he's wrong, only it's different than what I was told. Thailand Elite is eager to get rid of the lifetime visas because they are money losing for them but perhaps there is a tranche of the oldest ones where it is possible to still get lifetime, but that would be the SE version. 

 

This was my experience in 2019.

 

A Russian couple was selling a pair of lifetime Thailand Elite visas. They did not speak English and were having trouble selling the visas so the price had dropped a few times by the time I contacted them. My wife and I agreed to buy the pair of visas for 1.5 million THB total as shown in the original ad below. That includes the sellers fee and Thailand Elites fee. At the time there were other single versions of the TE visa being sold for double and triple what we paid for 2 TE visas. I was very skeptical this was real but a trip to the Thailand Elite office in Bangkok confirmed that it was, so I hired a Russian translator to assist and we got it done. At only 6 years in the visas have already paid for themselves and made our time in Thailand much more pleasant making this the single best purchase of my life.

 

Unlike the LTV we still have to do 90 day reporting which I typically manage to do online, and unlike the LTV we may be subject to additional taxation if and when Thailand ever figures out what they are doing in regard to that. But these are minor concerns for me and my wife and we have no regrets.

 

 

Initially we were offered a pair of 30-year SE Visas but were given a one-time opportunity to switch to the newer 20-year PE visas which we agreed to do. Why?

 

In spite of the 30-year visas having more generous perks and an extra ten years it has to be extended every 90 days. I don't mean the 90-day report. I mean you have to go to immigration and pay 1500 THB each to extend it every 90 days. Thailand Elite will not help with this process if you are a holder of a transferred SE visa. This 90-day extension can be circumvented by leaving the country every 90 days, but we didn't plan to leave the country that often. Secondly the pair of SE visas required a primary member. If the primary member died the secondary member would lose the visa.

 

We thus accepted the offer to switch to the 20-year PE visa which came with Thailand Elite support and yearly extensions. It was equivalent to the EUP version of the Thailand Elite visa that no longer exists and comes with massages, golf, hospital checkups and unlimited airport transfers in BKK, Phuket, Chiang Mai, and Koh Samui for both domestic and international flights. I've noticed a subtle erosion in the quality of some of the benefits, but they are still nice to have, and the primary reason we got the visas is long term living in Thailand, not the perks.

 

We are both "primary members" So if one of us passed away the other won't lose their PE version of the visa. We have the right to transfer them once more, but have no plans to do that and I'm not sure if the next person would be entitled to 20 years or the remaining years. Probably just the remaining years.

 

Covid hit within days of receiving our visa and the country locked down, so it was a miracle we opted for the PE visa and did not need to go to immigration every 90 days. Also all TE members were given an additional 6 months added to the vis aduring Covid (because many people were stuck outside the country and couldn't use it) so it ended up being 20.5 years.

 

I have wondered if I came across another pair of Thailand Elite visas for sale if we could "stack" them. Meaning I'd buy it now and it would become active when our current ones expired (15 years from now) If that were possible, I'd be interested in buying another pair for the right price. I realize one or both of us might die before then but it'd be awesome to keep this up an additional 20 years.