Smiles wrote: ↑Fri Apr 26, 2019 8:32 am
IMy question is very short: must the 800,000 Baht in my Thai Bank account be sitting in there
3 months or
2 months before applying for my Extension in mid-September?
I have heard both, which sounds weird, but there you have it.
Simple question, complicated inconsistent answers, welcome to Thai Immigration.
Wednesday (May 1) in Bangkok I renewed my non-o Visa, also referred to as a retirement visa. I went in with two bank statements: One from Bangkok Bank, a "credit advise" report. One page each for every month showing money transferred in from USA in excess of 65,000B each month. Then I had another bank account K-Bank showing a deposit in excess of 800,000B deposited around 4 months ago. I had a bank letters along with the pass books.
The official looked at the assembled documentation and picked the K-Bank documentations but wanted the bank book
updated today, I had it updated the day before, not good enough? Luckily there's a K-Bank at Bangkok Immigration. She took the original bank letter and rejected a photo copy.
I would have preferred qualifying with the monthly 65+ method but when I asked about that she said, NO! Mai dee. Not good this year, maybe next year. She then kept me busy signing my name again and again on all sorts of forms, none of which I had the opportunity to read.
Nothing about checking that I have 400,000B in the account in 4 months though I might have signed something about that.
I had to show something with my address, that's new for Bangkok. My DL was sufficient. Also new, I had to draw a map of where I live in Bangkok.
Now, I have no idea if I only had the bank 'Credit advise" and did not have the money in another account if I would have obtained the visa or not. She might have just picked the bank deposit method because it was easier. She was very polite but I got the impression she did not want to answer a lot of question and did not speak much English to me.
When she was looking at the bank book with the deposited money from January, she said OK, this is good, has to be in bank for
3 months before application date.
It all went very fast and then I had to wait two hours for my passport and bank book to be returned and stamped.
As I sat waiting I did notice a lot of frustrated farangs getting rejected but I did not have details of why.
This is my personal experience at a single moment in time with a particular immigration official at the
Bangkok office. Your millage will vary under different conditions, jurisdiction and the official reviewing the application.
As a side note, dealing with the banks:
Credit advise Bangkok Bank main branch 300B, second floor, foreign accounts department. Two day wait.
K-Bank- the BF called and asked if I can get a bank letter at a K-Bank branch or did I have to go the the main office where I opened the account. He was told any branch can give you the letter. First thing out of the clerks mouth was you have to go to the main office for this. When the BF told her the call center told her any branch can give the letter she huffed a little, asked someone, there was a discussion, and it took two people to figure out how to key in commands to obtain the letter, 100B fee.
This is a K Bank branch where farangs are not common. At Bank Bank's Silom branch farangs are common they were not confused and spoke English.
Bangkok Immigration;
Arrived 6:45am got # 70 for the pre-entry ticket at 8:30 opening. Then #10 for non-O section. Called in 9:30 and passport returned at 11:30am.
The majority of the people in line were Asians. There were 70 people in front of me to enter and around 100 after me. I counted a total of 9 farangs. China?
There are 6 operational non-o desks, 5 were open. Very busy, very slow. More busy and slower than years gone by. China?