New Passport

[TCA]

I need to get a new passport and will do so when I'm back in the UK in a few months. I'm currently extending a single entry ED visa by 90 days at a time as I continue my Thai language study. So I guess my options are:

1) Pay 1,000 baht for a re-entry permit and have my old permission to stay stamped in the new passport at the airport when I return to Thailand. The visa would remain in the old passport, which may mean that I'm messing around with two passports any time my ID is required or indeed when I go for further extensions on the single entry ED visa in the old passport.

or,

2) When I'm in the UK, I get a brand new single entry ED visa for my new passport for roughly 2,300 baht, and everything is clean and tidy with 90 days on arrival. Obvious (minor) downside is I need my (recognised) school to produce the visa paperwork via the Ministry of Education to apply for the new visa with my new passport number. But this should be no problem, albeit with documentation requiring to be sent to the UK.

Any recommendations or am I missing any angle?

Thanks in advance.

TCA

Edited May 4, 2010 by TCA

[lopburi3]

You are on an extension of stay and not using a visa. The extension of stay can be transferred into your new passport. You would not have to mess around with two passports

[davyboy]

You are on an extension of stay and not using a visa. The extension of stay can be transferred into your new passport. You would not have to mess around with two passports

An extension of stay is the same as an extension of a visa. A visa is a permission to enter the country and stay as long as it is valid, and a short time before it expires you apply to extend your visa (stay).

If as you say your visa is finished then surely you are not allowed to be in the country!

You always need a visa to be in the country legally!

Please Mods stop splitting hairs!

Not really sorry, I said what I thought!!

Edited May 4, 2010 by davyboy

[olivier2553]

It works well (at least to me) to have permit to stay and re-entry in the old, canceled passport book, while having stamps in the new book each time I cross the border.

This demand a bit more work from immigration office, but I never had any problem doing so (use some sort of PostIt band to mark the pages with visas).

I keep both books stapled together until I process new permit to stay and re-entry: they go in the new book and I don't need the old one anymore.

So, having the visas in old book and new stamps in new book is not an issue.

Now extending or renewing your visa is a different issue, but it is not your main question, is it?

[lopburi3]

A visa allows entry into a country - a permitted to stay/extension of stay does not allow entry and is issued by Immigration and can be transferred from one passport into another. The initial visa is used once you enter the county. When on a permitted to stay stamp you used re-entry permits to enter the country.

They only time you need two passports is when you have a valid multi entry visa in the old passport and use that for new permitted to stay stamp on each entry.

[TCA]

Thanks for the above replies. Can someone tell me about the re-entry permit please. Is it something that's attached to your passport or is it an ink stamp? If it's a stamp, how much space does it take up? Space is very very limited in my old passport.

[lopburi3]

It is a stamp about half a page.

[TCA]

Thanks Lopburi. I think that'll be the deal breaker. Half page - mai mee. Looking like a new visa then.