Retirement Visa At Hua Hin, Some Oddities

[wpcoe]

I posted on another thread how I was told by Hua Hin Immigrations that I needed to season the savings in my Thai bank account for 90 days when using a combination of savings + income to qualify. I was able to get an "exception" where they accepted the savings with less than 90 days, but "this time only."

However, at one point in the transaction I was offered the opportunity to get an extension for B4,000 to give me 90 days to season the money. I thought that was an odd amount. I believe the charge is B2,000 for the special 90-day Non-Immigrant O they give when converting from another visa type to apply for a retirement extension, but this was the first I had heard of anything costing B4,000.

Then, just this past week, there was a report on another (Hua Hin related) forum where an applicant at Hua Hin Immigrations was told that if he were using income to qualify for a retirement extension that they could forgo the Embassy letter and simply pay Immigrations B4,000 in lieu of the letter.

And then another person spoke up and said that last year Sept when they applied for their first retirement extension using the income + savings method and were told the money had not been in the account for the requisite two months (first extension,) "the official said a 4000 baht payment would solve that problem."

Can anybody explain just what the B4000 "fee" is for when money is not seasoned long enough? Are any other locations offering to waive the embassy letter of income verification for B4000?

[Colabamumbai]

Could it be tea money? Each office seems to be a law unto itself.

[moe666]

My ex has a friend in that office who will get you a retirement extension of stay for 20,000baht, I told the ex donot need I meet all of the requirements.

It would seem a copy of the requirements in both Thai and english would be good to have whil visiting there

[wpcoe]

It would seem a copy of the requirements in both Thai and english would be good to have whil visiting there

Doesn't help. The Immigrations Officer had the same (or very similar) printout to the link posted here on ThaiVisa.com with the requirements for obtaining a retirement visa using combination of income + savings. Didn't matter. I was told I still needed to season my bank account for 90 days using the combo method. Mai pen rai?