Help! Can I Change From 15-day Tourist Visa To Something Longer?

[jjman]

Hello,

Your website is very helpful. I am a US citizen on a US passport (age 46) here with my wife (age 35) and 2 children (5 and 3) who are on Japanese passports. We received a 30-day visa on arrival at Suvarnabhumi. After arriving, I discovered that not all tourist visas are the same (we cannot extend a tourist visa on arrival). So, we went to the Mae Sot border and obtained new 15-day visas which will expire on Jan 29.

I am a professor at the Univ of California, San Francisco. I am living in Japan and conducting research on a Fulbright Fellowship.

One of my main purposes for travelling now in Thailand is to visit nursing and public health professors working at Boromarjchanonani Nursing Colleges (which are under the Ministry of Public Health). I am also visiting several colleagues who are professors at Mahidol University (one is the Vice Dean of Research).

I would like to stay in Thailand with my family until Feb 17 (our return date on our ticket). I understand that to obtain another tourist visa, we would have to cross a border on Jan 29 (probably drive with my family to Aranyaprathet as we are in BKK now). That visa would be valid until Feb 12, meaning that we would either have to cross another border or overstay another 6 days. I believe that the daily charge for overstay B500 per adult and for children under 7 there is no charge.

My colleagues at the Boromarjchanonani Nursing College and my colleagues at Mahidol University have offered to issue an invitation letter to me to conduct training and meet with faculty and students. This would be pro bono -- without pay or honorarium.

I wonder if it would be possible for me to request a change of visa status before my visa expires on Jan 29, and if I could also request a change of visa status for my wife and children. I have seen that Thailand issues Non-Immigrant Visa and Courtesy Visa. There is also a research visa, but I believe I would need approval from the Thailand National Research Council which I am told takes many months. I am not sure about our options. Please advise as soon as possible since I will have to plan to make a border run soon if I do not have other options.

Thank you for your kind consideration.

Cheers,

Jeremiah

[Lite Beer]

You do not have a Visa. You have a Visa exempt entry.

Instead of mucking around with 15 day stays why not go to a Thai Consulate and get a Tourist Visa . 60 days and can be extended at Immigration for a further 30 days.

Tourist Visas are free of charge at the moment.

[PoorSucker]

You can extend each entry by seven days at immigrations inside Thailand.

Cost 1900 baht, bring two passport size photos and copy passport and entry stamp.

Children under 15 years do not have to pay any overstay fine.

[torrenova]

You do not have a Visa. You have a Visa exempt entry.

Instead of mucking around with 15 day stays why not go to a Thai Consulate and get a Tourist Visa . 60 days and can be extended at Immigration for a further 30 days.

Tourist Visas are free of charge at the moment.

Could not agree more. Get over to a foreign consulate, get a tourist visa and sort it out.

Beware that any work you do will require a work permit even if unpaid. You do not need to muddy the waters with that. Just going on vacation, need a tourist visa.

You are looking at having to stay somewhere overnight, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Penang, Vientienne etc.

[moe666]

Do you think this guy is for real a university professor and cannot sort out a visa.

[jjman]

Thank you for your advice. Sounds like a change of visa is not a viable option.

Since driving all the way to Nong Kai and crossing to Vientienne is not an option with 2 small children, I will have to look into the least expensive flight (with only 7 days advanced purchase) for all four of us to travel to a city that is easy to get to from the airport and safe to travel to the embassy, and is a acceptable place to stay overnight with kids. As you can see, I am on a university professor's budget.

Perhaps moe666 can give some thought to that.

I appreciate everyone's assistance.

Cheers,

j

[IMA_FARANG]

Understanding you may be on a tight budget, the cheapest thing to do is:

1. Leave your family in Thailand for 3 or 4 days. I assume they have a place to live for that time.

2. Fly to Vientianne, Laos. Apply for a 60 day tourist visa. (You said you're in Nong Khai, I believe?)

3. You're in luck, since tourist visas are currently free of fee until March 2010.

4. You will need to get a cheap hotel for at least two days. You must apply for the visa in the morning of the first day, and return to pick it up on the afternoon of the second day. You'll need your passport and passport photos (2, I believe, but I may be wrong)

5. When you have the 60 day visa fly back to Thailand. It will be stamped for 60 days on your return. You can extend that in Thailand for 30 days before the 60th day. Which will give you 90 days total.

6. You will have to do that again at the end of the 90 days.

7. Since you are working as a professor, you really need to get your school to sponsor you for a work permit. Then you can legally stay for a year or the duration of that job...whichever comes first.

8. But first get that 60 day tourist visa in Laos. That gives you time to sort out the rest.

9. Also, officially, you should not be working on a tourist visa...but I'll just ignore that point right now.

[Gippy]

Do you think this guy is for real a university professor and cannot sort out a visa.

I can believe it. The professors I know can barely managed to dress themselves in the morning! One of them tried to leave on a 6 months round the world trip with 2 weeks left on his passport, got turned away at the airport of course

[Jonathanpattaya]

Do you think this guy is for real a university professor and cannot sort out a visa.

No I don't. I think a simple qestion would have sufficed without the embellishment.

[PoorSucker]

Go to the border on Jan 29.

Get 14 days visa exempt stamp.

Extend that with 7 days at any immigrations office in Thailand.

Cost 1900 baht, bring two passport size photos and copy passport and entry stamp.

That will take you to Feb 19 and you will leave Feb 17.

Don't go to a consulate where you must spend on night. ( make application before lunch and pick up next day after lunch)

[jjman]

Go to the border on Jan 29.

Get 14 days visa exempt stamp.

Extend that with 7 days at any immigrations office in Thailand.

Cost 1900 baht, bring two passport size photos and copy passport and entry stamp.

That will take you to Feb 19 and you will leave Feb 17.

Don't go to a consulate where you must spend on night. ( make application before lunch and pick up next day after lunch)

Thank you. Given that I am travelling w/ kids and have a car that I drive all over the country, this seems to be the most sensible option, even to a stupid professor who did not discover that there is a differentiation between tourist visas (between visa in advance and visa on arrival) on the Osaka Thai Consulate website or this site before leaving Japan.

Cheers to you for being helpful and not condescending.

[lopburi3]

Americans do not qualify for visa on arrival.

Look up visa exempt entry.

[jjman]

Americans do not qualify for visa on arrival.

Look up visa exempt entry.

Thank you for this clarification. I looked at the stamp in our passports again (the one we obtained at the border in Mae Sot), and it says "Visa class" and then a scribble and 15. I always assumed that this was a visa, but now I understand that it is a stamp indicating how long we can stay under the visa exempt status (US and Japanese passports).

I searched "visa exempt entry" on this site and was directed to the page /313.0.html

On that page, it says "Those who come in without visa can extend the stay for additional 10 days"

Would this statement apply to the visa exempt entry for 15 days we obtained at Mae Sot? In other words, could we go to a Thai immigration office (for example here in BKK or Chonburi) and extend our current exempt entry status for an additional 10 days? And if so, is there any reason why we could not cross a border before those 10 days expire and return with another visa exempt entry for 15 days (we are planning to take the train to Hat Yai first week of Feb and could cross at Sadao-Dan Nok on Feb 6). That would save us the trip next week to Aranyaprathet and cover us until our Feb 17 departure. Thanks.

[Lite Beer]

At Immigration you would get a 7 day extension but would need to show an Air Ticket leaving within those 7 days.

You need a Visa or 2 Visa exempt entries by land. Or one by air.

[lopburi3]

There was a time when 10 and even 14 days were often provided but that has long gone and now it is 7 days until extension is disapproved everywhere.