Must I purchase a RT ticket if I am entering for one year on a retirement visa? If yes, can I purchase with open return?

I've attempted to lock in a fare for an October.2008 departure, but travel site search engines cannot provide return flight data that far out.

I'm thinking about this strategy: buy an inbound ticket USA--Hong Kong--BKK with open return BKK--HKG.

If I leave Thailand for good, I would nearer departure time, complete the HKG--USA leg. If I'm staying and just doing a re-entry trip, I would make a train trip to Panang and hold the BKK--HKG open return for future use.

Fares are fantastic now (US$480), but no doubt will be back up to the rate I paid in Oct.2007 (US$1050), or higher.

Pretty sure that if you have a visa, you can come in with a one way ticket.

I certainly did in January, there were no questions at check in or at Immigration in Bangkok.

technically its only possible to book flights 364 days before actual travel. NO airticket is valid for over 1 year. (technical does not mean in practice, this will vary per airline, its often in blocks of 10/15 days some 11 monthes before travel-date). a daft simple reason for that: the age-old general computersystems did not carry years..........thus the system was set up like that.

As above says: with a valid visa in passpt, airlines wont pester you about tickets out, they really only do that for people without visa, which would have been pretty obvious had you read the many posts about it