Arrival in Thailand

[farangmerou]

I came to BKK yesterday from Myanmar and my PP had more than 4 entry visa to Thailand which is normal when traveling over 2 years and the PP was already used since 3 years. Now, the young lady at the immigration counter stopped counting at stamp number 4 and since she got an overflow directed me to another lady who simply said you have more than 4 stamps which means you cant enter Thailand anymore, they wrote something in the PP and admission again is prohibited, so now what? Is this the new handling of foreigners coming to Thailand?

The people who make all this stuff are not aware (no education) that Thailand is in the center of SEA and that means in and out when travel around here, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar is typical since it is almost impossible to travel to this countries without touching Thailand etc. I can only recommend to anyone who travel around here use Singapore as a hub the Thai government don't want tourists, regardless whatever they say, because they do the opposite of what they say.

[tartempion]

It's called "shooting yourself in the foot"

But did they let you in?

Edited August 20, 2014 by tartempion

[farangmerou]

Yes they let me in for 30 days and after it's blocked for entry.

[Ricardo]

Yes they let me in for 30 days and after it's blocked for entry.

Or perhaps you need to get a tourist-visa next time ?

[farangmerou]

No all discussed, it applies to arrival, tourist or whatever.

[Roger Lee]

Wow, just 4 stamps and that's enough? Next time no entry?

That's scary, didn't think they were counting stamps now, just looking for in and outs, and non-tourists.

[tartempion]

Thus regardless how old your passport, 4+ entry stamps and they write a "no comeback" remark in your passport.

Indeed if you use BKK as a SEA hub you're screwed

[Fab5BKK]

I guess next time you'll have to come with a visa (and not rely on visa exempt.) and / or extension of stay.

Just my 2 cents

[Ricardo]

No all discussed, it applies to arrival, tourist or whatever.

I would be mildly surprised, if you applied to a Thai-embassy for a tourist-visa and were given one, but they then later rejected you at-the-border.

Given that you have more than four arrivals in two years, is there anything about the VOA-pattern, which might lead them to think you were actually living here, and doing border-runs ?

Did you show them your onward-ticket, out of the country, when questioned ?

Were you asked to show enough money, B20k is one figure I've previously heard, to live-on while here ?

Further details of your entry-history & experience would be helpful to others.

Edited August 21, 2014 by Ricardo

[rreoop44]

I have a different question about arrival, exactly about airport transfer. I want to take my family for a holiday, we don't know yet that It will be the organized trip or "our own trip" but we have to take any kind of taxi there, not only to pick up to and from airport and hotel, but we want to have a "driver in touch" (for example to visiting some historic building) In last holiday I was in Krakow, we find there Krakowdirect. I'm looking the similar company. Maybe some of you know some company ?

[Roger Lee]

<script type='text/javascript'>window.mod_pagespeed_start = Number(new Date());</script>

Thus regardless how old your passport, 4+ entry stamps and they write a "no comeback" remark in your passport.

Indeed if you use BKK as a SEA hub you're screwed alt=clap2.gif>

I guess next time you'll have to come with a visa (and not rely on visa exempt.) and / or extension of stay.

Just my 2 cents

There has to be more to the story than just 4 stamps. There must be some in & outs or he's traveling on business or something. Just four stamps in 4 years? What's the visa exempt stamp for then, just a one time lifetime opportunity?

Perhaps he couldn't prove he's a tourist or he didn't have the 10,000 baht in his pocket on arrival.

[Ricardo]

<script type='text/javascript'>window.mod_pagespeed_start = Number(new Date());</script>

There has to be more to the story than just 4 stamps. There must be some in & outs or he's traveling on business or something. Just four stamps in 4 years? What's the visa exempt stamp for then, just a one time lifetime opportunity?

Perhaps he couldn't prove he's a tourist or he didn't have the 10,000 baht in his pocket on arrival.

In the OP he said "my PP had more than 4 entry visa to Thailand which is normal when traveling over 2 years", but he hasn't yet said how many more than four stamps.

That might well be part of the problem he encountered, which must have been worrying, when something he'd done easily before suddenly produced a different response ?

Perhaps he hadn't seen the many stories/threads on ThaiVisa, over the past few months, that had discussed the coming clamp-down ?

Hopefully the OP will give us more information to go on.

[farangmerou]

<script type='text/javascript'>window.mod_pagespeed_start = Number(new Date());</script>

There has to be more to the story than just 4 stamps. There must be some in & outs or he's traveling on business or something. Just four stamps in 4 years? What's the visa exempt stamp for then, just a one time lifetime opportunity?

Perhaps he couldn't prove he's a tourist or he didn't have the 10,000 baht in his pocket on arrival.

In the OP he said "my PP had more than 4 entry visa to Thailand which is normal when traveling over 2 years", but he hasn't yet said how many more than four stamps.

That might well be part of the problem he encountered, which must have been worrying, when something he'd done easily before suddenly produced a different response ?

Perhaps he hadn't seen the many stories/threads on ThaiVisa, over the past few months, that had discussed the coming clamp-down ?

Hopefully the OP will give us more information to go on.

[farangmerou]

<script type='text/javascript'>window.mod_pagespeed_start = Number(new Date());</script>

There has to be more to the story than just 4 stamps. There must be some in & outs or he's traveling on business or something. Just four stamps in 4 years? What's the visa exempt stamp for then, just a one time lifetime opportunity?

Perhaps he couldn't prove he's a tourist or he didn't have the 10,000 baht in his pocket on arrival.

In the OP he said "my PP had more than 4 entry visa to Thailand which is normal when traveling over 2 years", but he hasn't yet said how many more than four stamps.

That might well be part of the problem he encountered, which must have been worrying, when something he'd done easily before suddenly produced a different response ?

Perhaps he hadn't seen the many stories/threads on ThaiVisa, over the past few months, that had discussed the coming clamp-down ?

Hopefully the OP will give us more information to go on.

[farangmerou]

Of course there where more but the thing is they didnt even look orderly, as usual, they opened the PP and she only looked at one or two pages, counted 4 and got an overflow and stopped, she didnt have a calculator and that means over 5 it gets difficult. Just simple logical thinking, there is a PP 3 years old with some visas from Cambodia, Myanmar, Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines etc. means there are some in and out stamps. On top of it consider Thailand is in the center means when I travel from Myanmar to Cambodia etc. I need to go through Bangkok etc. the thing is here are people running the show who are not able to handle this, why it worked before? They only had a similar problem installed after they kicked out Thaksin it was there for a year. They are afraid of foreigners because most simply have a higher education standard and who likes that?

[Ricardo]

I can understand how, if someone were making frequent trips between neighbouring countries via Thailand, with a stopover en-route (direct-transit passengers not needing to pass Immigration or actually enter the country), then it might accidentally look as though you were based here and doing frequent border-runs.

I do agree that the people manning the Immigration-desks at BKK need to be trained on how to differentiate between the two different situations. They may currently, at the start of this clamp-down, have been given some erroneous over-simplistic rule-of-thumb to apply. In which case we can hope that the rule will soon be relaxed.

Perhaps one short-term solution is to use Air Asia in future, and travel via their KUL hub, if you don't actually want to visit Thailand too ?

I don't accept that it's due to xenophobia, or concerns about foreigners being so much better-educated than Thais, nor can it be blamed on the recent military-takeover, as this clampdown was announced several months previously, long before the junta took over, and was supposed to put pressure on people who were living or working here, while holding the wrong sorts of visas. Which the country has every right to do, if it wants.

I think you were just a victim of a careless check, which failed to show that you were actually spending most of your time in neighbouring countries, and not in Thailand ?

But if in fact you were previously using Thailand as a base, and spending most of your time here, then perhaps you need to check-out the alternatives to VOA.

Out of interest, were you asked about what funds you were carrying to support yourself, and did you show an onward ticket when asking for a VOA ?

Edited August 22, 2014 by Ricardo

[Ricardo]

I can understand how, if someone were making frequent trips between neighbouring countries via Thailand, with a stopover en-route (direct-transit passengers not needing to pass Immigration or actually enter the country), then it might accidentally look as though you were based here and doing frequent border-runs.

I do agree that the people manning the Immigration-desks at BKK need to be trained on how to differentiate between the two different situations. They may currently, at the start of this clamp-down, have been given some erroneous over-simplistic rule-of-thumb to apply. In which case we can hope that the rule will soon be relaxed.

Perhaps one short-term solution is to use Air Asia in future, and travel via their KUL hub, if you don't actually want to visit Thailand too ?

I don't accept that it's due to xenophobia, or concerns about foreigners being so much better-educated than Thais, nor can it be blamed on the recent military-takeover, as this clampdown was announced several months previously, long before the junta took over, and was supposed to put pressure on people who were living or working here, while holding the wrong sorts of visas. Which the country has every right to do, if it wants.

I think you were just a victim of a careless check, which failed to show that you were actually spending most of your time in neighbouring countries, and not in Thailand ?

But if in fact you were previously using Thailand as a base, and spending most of your time here, then perhaps you need to check-out the alternatives to VOA.

Out of interest, were you asked about what funds you were carrying to support yourself, and did you show an onward ticket when asking for a VOA ?

"In which case we can hope that the rule will soon be relaxed."

Lo and behold, some four hours later, it looks as though this may now be happening.

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/754033-immigration-bureau-told-to-be-flexible-with-visa-runners/

Which will surely come as a relief to many travellers.