Tourist Visa - Access Denied Or Granted?

[trompelemonde82]

A bit of a dilemma just discovered today,,,am now in Phitsanulok, British citizen who came in on a tourist visa a month ago. I went to the Immigration Office to get the one week extension at 1,900 baht as my passport is almost completely full and there is no full page available for any sort of longer visa stay label.

Immigration here told me that they would grant me one week more, meaning I had to leave the Kingdom by 26th June and requested that I organise a new passport when I got back to the UK. They stamped the passport, I thanked them and went on my way, briefly checking the stamp was dated 26th June 2012.

However, today I was looking through the passport and actually read the stamp through properly for the first time (it's written in English and Thai).....now I feel pretty daft having not noticed sooner, (but they did clearly assure me at Immigration that I was good to stay until the 26th) that the stamp reads 'Application extension of stay not approved (something written in Thai script)...26 June 2012. Applicant must leave the Kingdom no later than 15 June 2012 (followed by more Thai script).

My initial tourist visa on entering the country was stamped until the 19th of June.

My Thai gf assures me that it's all okay and I'm alright to stay until 26th according to the Thai script. She doesn't speak enough English to explain it all in detail There is other Thai script signature handwritten on the stamp and some kind of signature squiggle over the 'no later than' part, so it's hard to say if everything is in order......I'm just not looking forward to getting to the airport only for some customs official to demand I cough up 500 baht per day overstay fine.

Any ideas? I know going back to Immigration would make sense, but to save me the bother can anyone shed light on the situation? Cheers!

[Mario2008]

Date after the one week "extension" should be 26th.

The confusion comes from the fact that it isn't really an exension, rahter you apply for an extension and they have 7 days to make a decision. (Which is that the extension is denied).

They will not have you stamped out on a earlier date than you originally had. So all seems to be in order. especially if your GF confirms that the Thai script says so.

[trompelemonde82]

Thanks for your reply. Yes, that all makes sense now. I was previously living and working in Thailand for 2 years so have (naturally) had visa issues before. This was a new one however so thanks for clearing that up.