Thai Elite Card and Retirement Visa

[aussieinphuket]

My wife and I retired here to Phuket about 5/6 years ago, we are both on retirement visas as over the age of 50. We are Australian. We have no issues each year renewing or as it's called now

rolling-over our 12 months retirement visas and obtaining our multiple re-entry visas also for 12 months from Phuket Immigration it quite easily done every 12 months as long as all your paperwork

is inorder...

A good friend of mine is leaving Thailand to move back to the UK to live. He and his wife also English have the Thai Elite cards they purchased more the 6-7 years ago which entitles them to

5 year visas plus some other small perks..

He has kindly offered to transfer these across to my wife and I, i just don't know if it is worth all the problem to do this or if even if the Thai authorities would allow us to live here on Retirement Visas

and also have the Thai Elite Card....

My simply question is if we accept his generous offer and take the Thai Elite cards will this have repercussions to our Retirement visas i hope you can follow the point i am trying to make here...

I am not trying to hold both retirement visa and Thai Elite card for 5 yearly stays or can I.... thanks for reading my dilemma as i would prefer maybe to say thanks but no thanks....

[Jingthing]

Rolling over your visas? That's a new one to me! Is that actually a common way of naming what are actually annual extensions based on retirement in your circle?

About your question, it's a bit unusual so wait for a Guru, but it seems obvious to me if you can use the Elite card for a 5 year stay you can't SIMULTANEOUSLY be on an annual retirement extension, and why would you want to anyway?

In my opinion, just owning a card does NOT mean you MUST use the 5 year stay option (if that still exists, I'm not sure), but I'm wondering why you wouldn't WANT a 5 year stay rather then the bother of going for new one year extensions annually.

I really think MOST people who are living here with the CHOICE of a 5 year stay vs. a one year stay would consider choosing the 5 year stay a no brainer.

Edited August 19, 2013 by Jingthing

[aussieinphuket]

Hi Jingthing

thanks your most prompt reply. yes there was an article a little while back saying they were dropping the wording RENEW to ROLL-OVER as Renew kind of meant you had to reapply

and they could possibly refuse you, whereas Roll-over ment you ofcourse had the Visa already ....

i agree with your comments that holding a 5 year visa through Thai Elite card would be much easier then having to Roll-over visas every year but sofar we have never had any

issues with the local Immigration in Phuket... but on either case you must still do the 90 day reporting which again no big deal...

I am just concerned how the authorities might react to us dropping retirement visa and then holding the Thai Elite card instead.... and ofcourse is this card still going to remain valid for how long.

I see there was some discussion about offering new cards for foreigners aiming at Chinese and i think Russians for thb 5 million....

maybe my friend would be better off selling him cards to someone else...

[Jingthing]

Renewing your visa is incorrect as well.

What you ACTUALLY have been doing is applying for annual extensions based on retirement.

On this forum, I think you will find that is the standard term for it.

Anyway, good questions about the card. Wait for the guru(s). I probably said too much already about use of the card. It's not really my area of expertise.

Also, if you can use the card for some time that doesn't mean you can't LATER start over with a new O or O-A visa and do what you have already been doing for years, going for annual extensions based on retirement. It's quite common for people to drop out of the continuous annual extension system (for various reasons) and then just start over.

Cheers.

Edited August 19, 2013 by Jingthing

[humbug]

i dont understand the op here are you saying you are umming and arrring in either using a 5 year visa with no cash requirement holed up in a bank for. 3 months or an annual pilgrimage re-newing the pensioners visa

its a win win situation elite card first then after that the pensioners visa

i

[Sheryl]

Moving this to the visa forum

[ubonjoe]

If they are giving you the membership free it could be well worth it.

Are you aware their is a annual fee. Tried to find how much and some more info on website but it does not work on mobile browser. Link: http://www.thailandelite.com/home.php

You would have to change your extensions over to the elite card. I don't know what the procedure for this is. There may be info on website.

[merijn]

I would not bother of changing to the Elite card extensions. ( don't know if you can roll over to the Elite Card extension )

First of all there is a yearly fee for you get almost nothing back.

Now you have to do the extension ( TM7 ) only once a year which is fairly simple and hassle free.

But it involves the Phuket Immigration back row officers who are not the friendliest in the world.

If you are on a Elite Card extension you have to do this process every 3 months and the 90 day reporting at the same time.

because you only get a 3 month extension at the time.

This is the case for Phuket but i believe that this ( 3 months at the time ) is also applicable for other provinces.

So if you qualify now reasonable simple ( financially wise ) for the one year retirement extension i would not change it.

Edited August 24, 2013 by merijn

[sfokevin]

I believe the only Thai Elite Card office that is still open is located in Dubai...

[gerry1011]

As a Thailand Elite member, I can tell you that it is well worth being part of this program.

I am not sure about the arrangement you have with your friend, but the transfer of the Elite cards to your names is not free. The transfer costs 20% of the prevailing rate. I guess you will have to pay that yourself, since you will use the privileges. Or maybe your friend is really generous...

Once you are a member, be reassured. The Thailand Elite staff will be there to answer your questions and they make all procedures very easy at immigration. They accompany you all the way. So, I am sure there will be no problem to change your retirement visa to an Elite Visa. Just inform them about the situation.

Your Thailand Elite visa entitles you to stay 1 year per entry. The 90 days reporting is done by the Thailand Elite staff on your behalf. You do not need to go to immigration. It is the easiest visa you can think of if you enjoy staying long periods of time in the country and don't want the immigration troubles.

There is an annual fee of 20.000 baht, which is negligible, compared to the advantages that you receive.

Disregard the negative posts about this program on this forum. I am a member since the very beginning and I can tell you that it makes your life really simpler.

Just ask your friend about the transfer cost... If you don't mind paying that cost, be welcome as a new member !

Edited August 24, 2013 by gerry1011

[merijn]

[samran]

Fine if you've got oodles on money I guess. For the 90 day reporting, easy enough to outsource that for a small amount.

[KittenKong]

Looking at their website I see:

Extendible 1 year visa

2MB (plus VAT) initial purchase price

Transfer (only possible once) 20% of purchase price (plus VAT)

Annual fee 20,000B (plus VAT)

Apart from being able to jump the queue at immigration at BKK (I only go there once a year anyway), I really dont see anything useful that I would get for all that money that I dont get for 1900B on my retirement extension. So I will pass.