Convert 15 Day Arrival To Retirement?

[zziffle]

Oops. I messed this one up, but I'm not sure how badly.

I arrived Nov. 4th, 2011 on a multi-entry O-A visa. The plan was to pop out of the country and back before the year was up so I could pick up a second year's stay on that O-A. Today I had lunch in Tachileik for that very reason, but made the bone-headed error of thinking the trip needed to be within a year of my previous entry. Wrong! It needs be made before then "Enter before" date on the visa, which was Sept. 14th. The upshot of the error is that I'm now back in Chiang Mai with a 15 day visa on arrival that expires Nov. 3rd, instead of on a one-year O-A as planned.

My question is, can I go into Immigration tomorrow and apply for a permission to stay based on retirement? I've got the 800k in the bank, I'm over 55, so those ducks are lined up, but I'm uncertain if a 15 day arrival visa can be converted. Anyone know for sure?

Thanks...

[cooked]

I don't think so. You have to go through a complicated process in Bangkok to get an 'O' visa. Only this can then be extended. There are agents that help you do this, don't get ripped off. Go to immigration and ask, generally they are helpful.

[Mario2008]

Tomorrow is Sunday, so they will be closed. But Monday you should try it. They will probably do it, but you are running out of time so do get it done on Monday and line up for a queu ticket at 6 AM on Monday!

Officially you need to have 15 days left, but shorter time left seems to be OK. But not sure how strict they will be in CM.

[Jingthing]

It could go either way on permission to do that with such a small number of days left on your stay. Please report back about whether they do or don't allow it. If not you can fly out and get a 30 day entry stamp and that would work to start with the O in Thailand.

What you are going for now is the two step process.

Step 1: Change of visa status from your stamp to a single entry O visa

Step 2: Application for extension based on retirement

Your first issue is whether or not you can do Step 1 with only a 15 day stamp. Be prepared to show you are eligible for Step 2 even for Step 1; otherwise there is no reason to grant you the single entry O.

You do not need an agent to do step 1 or step 2.

Also keep in mind the likely TIMING of these steps. Step 1, right away. Step 2, most likely won't happen until during the last 30 days of the 90 day permission to stay of your hoped for single entry O visa.

BTW, what happened to you with the O-A is I think a common misunderstanding about how the O-A works May others read and learn so they can get the full benefit from the O-A which you lost.

Edited October 20, 2012 by Jingthing

[zziffle]

Thanks for the input.

I'll give it a shot on Monday morning at immigration, see how my luck goes and report back here.

I just read a comment by NancyL in another thread that says: "Be sure [your passport] doesn't expire during the life of your retirement extension". My passport expires Oct. 7th, 2013. Are my problems compounding???

[wpcoe]

Your passport expiring Oct 7, 2013 will not prevent you getting a new retirement extension of stay.

However, they will only issue an extension of stay until Oct 7, 2013 in your current passport. Once you get your new passport, you return to Immigrations and they will place a stamp in it with the full one-year extension. i.e. You don't get the full year extension until you have a new passport.

[dddave]

Isn't this Monday a holiday? Immigration closed?

[Mario2008]

No Monday they are open. But I believe Tuesday the 23rd is a government holiday (Chulalongkorn Day).

http://thailand.prd.go.th/view_news.php?id=5807&a=4

[ubonjoe]

Tuesday is a holiday. There is no notice on website saying Monday is also a holiday for them.

[zziffle]

Well, it looks like I made it to first base, but no further yet. CM immigration seemed willing to help. The first question they asked after understanding my predicament was "do you have proof of income or money in the bank", indicating that they were proceeding with getting me a retirement permission to stay.

I had brought a completed TM.86, 'Application for Change of Visa' but they wanted a TM.87, 'Application for Visa' filled out instead - I guess because I don't actually have a visa any more.

They also surprised me by saying they wanted a 'Letter of Guarantee' from the bank where my savings are held. That's as far as we got at the office. I picked up the letter from the bank today and will head back in on Wednesday with the bank letter, bank books, completed TM.87, completed TM.7, passport and passport copies, mug shots, and a bunch of 1000 baht notes. I suspect it will be mission accomplished. If not, I'll take a nice holiday in KL and start again from there.

[lopburi3]

Yes you have to obtain a visa from a visa exempt entry rather than change the visa. And yes they always require proof of financials to provide the non immigrant visa as it is based on your meeting the conditions for extension of stay (only the money would not have to be in account 2 months if using that). So bank passbook/copies and a letter of account balance from bank will be required now and again when you do the actual extension of stay. Glad to hear it is working out - they normally do try to be helpful when making retirement extensions of stay.

[zziffle]

... - they normally do try to be helpful when making retirement extensions of stay.

I would love to experience some of that helpfulness. Picked up the bank letter on Monday afternoon. Went to immigration at the crack of 6:30 this morning and got a ticket for the same queue and same counter that I dealt with on Monday - in fact, I got the same ticket number: 007. At 8:45 my number was called and I got an older, loud guy behind the counter who glanced at the papers and yelled "NOT ME!". Told me to go get another number from the ticket machine. Attempts to get more information from him was met with another "not me" and a repeat of the instructions to go back to the queue ticket machine.

Off to Thai Language class at 10:00 I go, back to immigration just after lunch, where the guy at the ticket machine tells me to come back early tomorrow morning. I struck out Monday morning, struck out Wednesday morning, struck out Wednesday afternoon, and will give it one last shot tomorrow morning. I hate this nonsense and feel like I'm stuck in an unfunny Monty Python sketch. A little bit more of "how can we help?" from that office would be well received.

[Mario2008]

Sorry to say, that office is one of the most overcrowded/understaffed in the country that I know off, hence your situation.

They only have a limited number of tickets per day, that is why the regular crowd there goes early in the morning for a ticket and doesn't bother going ther in the afternoon.

[zziffle]

It is becoming quite a challenge to maintain my zen-like composure, good humour and cheerfulness.

I was back at immigration at the crack of dawn again today - #12 on the outside sign-up sheet. Showed my passport and completed TM.87 and TM.7 to the uniformed women running the queue ticket machine who said that a queue ticket was not required for a change of visa and to proceed to the centre counter where they will take care of me. I tried to say, no, I need a queue ticket for the change visa queue please. They said no, just go to the counter, and proceeded to deal with the next person.

Now I was pretty sure the train had already run off the tracks, but dutifully proceeded to the centre counter as instructed. After a bit of a wait I showed all my paperwork to the cheerful girl at the counter who then told me that the TM.87 is wrong, I need to have a TM.86. Ok, here we go. I explained that I was in on Monday with a TM.86 and they sent me away and told me to come back with a TM.87. She gave up and called someone else over. This new, and surly, young girl then checked everything over and handed me a new blank TM.87 form. I said no no, I already have this form filled out and ready to go, and showed it to her. She called over a uniformed woman from one of the desks who seemed to know what she was doing. She wanted to know if I had bank letters and copies of my passport. I showed her all this and she indicated that it all looked in order - please go to the ticket machine and get a ticket for the change visa queue. I explained that I had already been there and that they would not give me a ticket and they told me to come to this counter. She said, you need a change visa queue number and walked away.

Well, I saw that one coming and wasn't really surprised. Back at the ticket machine there was someone else running it. He gave me ticket and said "for afternoon". Ok. Hop on the bike, head home, bang my head against the wall for a while, and I'll head back there at 1:00pm to see what goes wrong this afternoon. I figure it's 50/50 that they called my number in the morning and they'll tell me to come back tomorrow, but perhaps this horror story has a less-predictable plot turn waiting in store for me.

Oh, and by the way, the TM.86 and TM.87 forms are identical except for the number and title.

Edited October 25, 2012 by zziffle

[lopburi3]

Yes but they are used for different entry - one is for a visa change (meaning you entered with visa) and the other for a visa issue (meaning you entered visa exempt). The positive version would be they sent you to counter to insure you had the correct paperwork to allow queue ticket issue. Good luck after lunch.

[zziffle]

Success.

I finally got access to the correct desk this afternoon and was quickly issued a 90 day non-imm by an efficient and friendly professional. All it took was 5 trips to the immigration office and a total of 13 hours of waiting there.

Kids, don't be like me. Don't mess up a valuable multi-entry O-A by engaging in ill-timed border hops.

[naboo]

You really chose a bad time to go. I was there Wednesday morning, before you at 5.55am (may have seen you, were you the one talking to the young American girls about thai language lessons? I was assleep in my car until 7:30am). I've never seen CM immigration so busy. Really felt for the Burmese stood in a queue that hadn't moved at all by the time I left at 11am.

Something needs to be done about Chiang Mai immigration, its an absolute nightmare. I don't really mind as its all on company time, but the boss might start to get a little upset we're all missing so much work.

[Jingthing]

Something to do with the backlog from the holiday?

Jomtien immigration was super busy today; never seen anything like it there before.

[zziffle]

There may have been a bit of a spike on Wednesday from the holiday, but the CM office appears to be broken. It was a zoo on both Monday and Thursday as well with every seat taken and crowds of people standing around the room. Moving through the room often requires a little bit of aggression and a whole lot of "excuse me"s. A similar number of people, maybe more, are waiting outside. The typical wait time seems to be about 4 or 5 hours. Arithmetic tells us that if they could get that time down to 1 hour the crowd would be a quarter of its current size.