'Enter Before' date: something to be aware of

[sfmadison2]

I never knew this before, but it is possible to screw yourself out of your second (or third) entry on your tourist visa by not paying attention to the expiry date. This is surely obvious to people better-versed in how tourist visas work, but according to the officer at the Mae Sai border, I was the second person already that day to end up losing out on one of his entries.

I had (foolishly, it now seems) assumed that I could enter Thailand on my first 60-day TV entry, extend that for another 30 days, and then, towards the end of that 30 days, pop across the border and activate my second 60-day entry. My plan was to eventually extend that entry for another 30 days too, thus getting nearly six months out of my double-entry tourist visa.

The 'ENTER BEFORE' date on my visa quite clearly says April 29, and I showed up at the border on May 2nd. Now first of all, I had never paid this date any attention before, but once it was pointed out to me by the woman who stamped my visa for 30 (not 60) days, I protested that I thought this was the date by which one had to activate his first entry. Apparently not. According to them, this is the date by which one has to activate all entries. And because I came after this date to activate my second entry, it was void.

I think it's quite possible that I would have never noticed this--and not had had my second entry ruled expired--if not for the fact that I applied for the visa while on holiday in Hanoi, and then hung around for 3 or 4 more days before coming back to Thailand. So the 90-days they give you to activate both entries began when the visa was issued (January 30th). I didn't enter Thailand until February 3rd, and I didn't realize that the gap between those events was ticking against my maximum possible days I could get out of the double entry tourist visa.

Anyway, this is just a long-winded way of warning people to pay attention to your 'Enter Before' dates on your visas. Don't be stupid like me.

[beechguy]

What can I say, discussed here, dozens of times before, so nothing new.

[thierryviteau]

Thanks to some people here I feel that I am smart like a rocket scientist...

[ChristianPFC]

Nothing new, but I have to admit a year or two ago I found out by chance (but didn't lose time or money over it).

The question is: why do Thai embassies issue visas with such little extra time? To fully eploit the entries and extentions, you can't spend significant time elsewhere.

[The Fat Controller]

Whilst we are on the "remind people to look at their visa" bandwagon, depending on where they are issued, multiple entry tourist visas may either have a 3 or 6 month period between "DATE OF ISSUE" and "ENTER BEFORE"

What does surprise me every time a thread like this appears is that people do not set reminders in their phones for such important dates.

Even my £9 Nokia from Tesco here in the UK has a calendar with reminder alarms.

[sfmadison2]

Whilst we are on the "remind people to look at their visa" bandwagon, depending on where they are issued, multiple entry tourist visas may either have a 3 or 6 month period between "DATE OF ISSUE" and "ENTER BEFORE"

What does surprise me every time a thread like this appears is that people do not set reminders in their phones for such important dates.

Even my £9 Nokia from Tesco here in the UK has a calendar with reminder alarms.

I can't speak for others, but the issue with me wasn't a lack of reminder/calendar notation, but merely ignorance around the meaning of that 'enter before' date.

Hopefully a couple people who would have been caught off guard by it otherwise will now not make that mistake. That's why posted this. I realize it's old news to many people who read this forum regularly.

[KhunBENQ]

What does surprise me every time a thread like this appears is that people do not set reminders in their phones for such important dates.

For important dates I prefer the old fashioned big wall calendar (whole year on one sheet)

Additionally marked on the one month calendar sheets (another calendar).

Yes, not for the typical tourist.

Edited May 4, 2015 by KhunBENQ