hi all

i have been reading posts with great interest for about a week

i was wondering if anyone has experience in bringing their gf over for a holiday

many thanks in advance

stu

Tell her to remember to send the 7.5% she promised.

need $100 / week for sick buffalo

$100/ week for sick grandmother

$100 for girlfriends sick buffalo

$100 for headman's sick buffalo

$100 for rego on motor cy

just send me all your money darling

stu,

about a ywaer or so ago, I tried to get a GF visitor visa to Oz. He owns her own business, 3 houses, and had over 150,000 Bht in her bank account.

They knocked her back for some unknown reason. We are going back again in April to try again. Hopefully this year there's no problem.

Bronco you left off.....

15000 Baht for Lost Mobile

stu,

about a ywaer or so ago, I tried to get a GF visitor visa to Oz. He owns her own business, 3 houses, and had over 150,000 Bht in her bank account.

They knocked her back for some unknown reason. We are going back again in April to try again. Hopefully this year there's no problem.

PM me with name of case worker can compare notes if you like

stu,

about a ywaer or so ago, I tried to get a GF visitor visa to Oz. He owns her own business, 3 houses, and had over 150,000 Bht in her bank account.

They knocked her back for some unknown reason. We are going back again in April to try again. Hopefully this year there's no problem.

Did you adequately document her funds and assetts for the Oz Embassy ?

Ok,

the general thing the embassy wants to see is a "Track Record" of Savings. So she must have had the funds probably for at least 6 months if she is coming for a 6 month holiday.

Some important things to consider. Although the immigration hotline in Canberra will tell you that your g/f can come to Australia for up to a year, as far as I know it is unheard of for them to issue a 12 month visa on the first request.

As a matter of course they will issue a 3 month visa for the first time visit.... Annoying that it is. The immigration help-line is very helpful and if you are in Australia you can call them on 131 881.

Generally the rule is they need a minimum of $1000-AUD per month of stay. Now you can get around that, but it takes alot of work. They want to see stuff like you are in a genuine relationship and YOU can support her. If you have a job that pays less that about $50k a year and you don't have much in the way of savings, this also can be tricky. You will need employment letters, emails, phone bills, bank statements etc etc etc and it all has to be witnessed by a JP. My documentation pack was over 200 pages and it also included a CD of photo's and a DVD of home movies..... At the end of the day we got a 3-month visa on the first try, but it took an enormous amount of work.

Gone are the good old days when you could put on a collar and Tie and take yourself, your Birth Certificate and your g/f complete with Passport to the embassy

Finally some guy called Sydney Tom wrote a rather descriptive article for Stickman.... here is the link http://www.stickmanbangkok.com/reader/reader540.html

Anyway Good Luck, you will need it dealing with them.

If you think that getting a visa for Thailand is difficult, it is an absolute cake-walk compared to getting a visa for a Thai to visit Australia.

Sometimes an influential Poitician can be a BIG advantage.

Ok,

the general thing the embassy wants to see is a "Track Record" of Savings. So she must have had the funds probably for at least 6 months if she is coming for a 6 month holiday.

Some important things to consider. Although the immigration hotline in Canberra will tell you that your g/f can come to Australia for up to a year, as far as I know it is unheard of for them to issue a 12 month visa on the first request.

As a matter of course they will issue a 3 month visa for the first time visit.... Annoying that it is. The immigration help-line is very helpful and if you are in Australia you can call them on 131 881.

Generally the rule is they need a minimum of $1000-AUD per month of stay. Now you can get around that, but it takes alot of work. They want to see stuff like you are in a genuine relationship and YOU can support her. If you have a job that pays less that about $50k a year and you don't have much in the way of savings, this also can be tricky. You will need employment letters, emails, phone bills, bank statements etc etc etc and it all has to be witnessed by a JP. My documentation pack was over 200 pages and it also included a CD of photo's and a DVD of home movies..... At the end of the day we got a 3-month visa on the first try, but it took an enormous amount of work.

Gone are the good old days when you could put on a collar and Tie and take yourself, your Birth Certificate and your g/f complete with Passport to the embassy

Finally some guy called Sydney Tom wrote a rather descriptive article for Stickman.... here is the link http://www.stickmanbangkok.com/reader/reader540.html

Anyway Good Luck, you will need it dealing with them.

If you think that getting a visa for Thailand is difficult, it is an absolute cake-walk compared to getting a visa for a Thai to visit Australia.

My wife's mother never has to deal with this level of hassle when she occasionally sojourns to Sydney with us.Maybe it is because of her age 60+.???

Bronco;

Sometimes an influential Poitician can be a BIG advantage.

My residential Address was in Philip Ruddock's electorate.

He was not helpful I think I remember him saying "That is a matter for the department and you come to me as an appeal process"....

Glad I didn't vote for the guy.

I got a lot of help from my local dont know if I should name her here, she and downer work together a lot

Gone are the good old days when you could put on a collar and Tie and take yourself, your Birth Certificate and your g/f complete with Passport to the embassy

Thats exactly what we did mattnich. On the application (downloaded from the net) we filled out that I was going to support her, I supplied my bank details, proof of my earnings (which was the hardest bit because I had just finished a contract). I did take some photos of us together taken through the previous year or so. Where we were going to stay in Aus. The lady behind the counter asked what the reason for us visiting Aus was, I told her it was so my family could meet her, if they liked her we were going to marry, the Thai lady gave us a big smile, told us to sit down and 10 minutes later called us back and gave my gf her passport complete with 3 month visa.

Easy, it took about 1 hour all up.

when did you do this Tuky?

My Thai GF came to Australia last April and we had little difficulty getting her a 3 month visa. I'm actually English and here in Sydney on a business visa myself so we thought it would be quite hard.

I wrote a letter supporting her application which detailed the extent of our relationship (year together in BKK, previously granted a UK visa to visit me there, etc.) I also put some money into her accout because although she has a good job (teacher in NE Thailand) she has limited savings. Think I sent about $2k Australian which she used to buy her air ticket as well. She made the application without me in BKK.

I declared that I was supporting her visit and sent details of my salary and savings for her to submit with her application. All up about a dozen or so pages, plus a copy of my passport, so well less than the 200 pages I saw mentioned in an earlier reply.

One of the key things is to demonstrate that she has reason to return to Thailand after her visit. We had a letter from her head teacher stating her employment position, salary and that she had been granted leave for the period of her trip.

I've just sent her another pack of info for the same visa for another visit this year so hoping things will go as smoothly. Will let you know in due course.

We are intending to move to England together later in the year and I feel that things will get more difficult from there as far as visas are concerned.

Good luck.

when did you do this Tuky?

This time last year Bronco.

The (now) wife wasn't working at the time and had no savings, so my word was all that i gave to prove she would be returning to LoS.

I think perhaps the embassy staff make judgements on the individuals. I did happen to see a lot of ladies crying and looking very disappointed after interveiws and so forth.

I am a very respectyable looking chap, well presented and very hansum man (or so they keep telling me )

it makes a difference.

about a ywaer or so ago, I tried to get a GF visitor visa to Oz. He owns her own business, 3 houses, and had over 150,000 Bht in her bank account.

They knocked her back for some unknown reason.

Could this be why Tiz? gender unknown...

sorry mate, could't help it

Bronco, I don't remember who the CW was.

Dr P, yeah, I thought that we documented everything correctly. The only thing that we didn't have was a wad of photos together.

Tuk, My Thai Ping is getting very bad...

It was about a Year ago and She owns her own business.

I think maybe that I just caught the case worker on a bad day.

My GF lives in a tourist area, is beautiful and had only just registerred her business in the weeks before her trip to the embassy. (even though she had operated the business for over four years).

In hindsight, I could see how the case worker probably thought that she was actually a bar-girl.

I don't know if it makes any difference that although I'm an Aussie, I don't live in Oz. Anyway, we ended up going to KL instead, and had a great time.

We will give it another try again in April. This time she has savings of about 300,000 Baht and a few stamps in her passport, hopefully we shouldn't have a hassle.

Does a previous knock back make the next application easier, or harder?

This might be a bit long winded but if it helps someone then it's worth a read.

We had the same CW on every occasion.

The first time this woman decided that my wife (to be) at the time was an overstay risk and wouldn't be granted a visa.

After we were married we applied for a spouse visa in November and an interview was booked for February and because of the wait time involved decided to get a Tourist visa for the interim.

We got the same CW and were refused pretty much immediately because she considered my wife an overstay risk.

I asked this woman what the problem was and she said nothing had changed since the first application.

I pointed out that my Wife now owned a house, she said nothing had changed.

I pointed out that we were married, again she says nothing has changed.

I pointed out that we had a spousal visa application in, and I had just paid AUD$ 1200 and we wouldn't risk the visa or the money by overstaying, again she says nothing has changed.

I asked for a refund on the tourist visa and she says "you know there is no refund".

I then pointed out that we hadn't had an interview and she says "you just did".

Trying to stay cool I pointed out that a chat at window #4 in a waiting room full of people was not what I considered a proper interview.

She says it is and to wait for our passports.

I then told her that I would be talking to my local Politician when I got back, she says Politicians are nothing and my only recourse is the M.R.T.

We finally got our passports back and she give me an M.R.T. brochure also and had a smug look on the face.

I saw my local member the same day I got back and got her foreign affairs secretary involved and we wrote down accurate details of the embassy experiences.

The CW made quite a few mistakes but the worst one was rubbishing the pollies.

I got a phone call in January from the secretary saying that our application was being looked at favourably and would be expedited and the CW had been spoken to.

I return to LOS in Feb and we go to embassy and guess who the case worker is, yes her again, I thought well there goes $1200.

Anyway we go into the interview room and this woman is extremely pleasant and helpfull, we needed some photocopies done, normally you have to leave the embassy and go next door, she says I will do them for you. We also needed an original of something, I said it was in KK and would have to get it, she says no it should be all right I will ask supervisor.

She wanted to know when I was returning to Oz, I told her and she says my wife should be able to return with me, I am stunned what a change.

Three days later we get a phone call, bring passport to BKK to get visa, it's over.

Maybe we were lucky I don't know but these women do overstep the bounds at times.

The politician that helped me was Chris Gallus and she is the member for Hindmarsh and also Parliamentry secretary to the foreign affairs sub-comittee.

I mention this now cause she has just announced she wont be contesting the next elaction and little jonnie is really pissed with her.

Things arn't going all his way now