Thailand Visa Question...Please Help!

mr president

hey. myself and my girlfriend are heading to new zealand in may. we are stopping in bangkok and and traveling around SE asia for six weeks, flying out of bangkok again. our plane tickets show the 6 week period. i was in usit last week and the girl there told me that because our tickets showed that we were flying in and out of thailand with a six week gap that we would have to get a the 60 day visa for thailand. we would have to apply ourselves to the thai embassy for these so she wasnt saying that just to sell us somthing. i was in there today and was talking to another girl and she said it was fine to head on the free 30 day visa you get on arrival and then just border hop at some stage and when you come back in they give you a free 15 day visa. im a little confused as to which one is right. i suppose the question im asking is: is there any problem with entering thailand on a free 30 day visa when your flight out shows more than 30 days? any feedback would be much welcome. cheers

Fanny Cradock

mr president wrote: »

hey. myself and my girlfriend are heading to new zealand in may. we are stopping in bangkok and and traveling around SE asia for six weeks, flying out of bangkok again. our plane tickets show the 6 week period. i was in usit last week and the girl there told me that because our tickets showed that we were flying in and out of thailand with a six week gap that we would have to get a the 60 day visa for thailand. we would have to apply ourselves to the thai embassy for these so she wasnt saying that just to sell us somthing. i was in there today and was talking to another girl and she said it was fine to head on the free 30 day visa you get on arrival and then just border hop at some stage and when you come back in they give you a free 15 day visa. im a little confused as to which one is right. i suppose the question im asking is: is there any problem with entering thailand on a free 30 day visa when your flight out shows more than 30 days? any feedback would be much welcome. cheers

I did this years ago (and will have to again soon enough). There are actually private travel companies (dudes with a delux Hi Ace) that will take you to a neighbouring country (Malaysia in my case) where you can nip over the boarder for 2 minutes and then re-enter the country on a fresh visa. Apparently they are cracking down on this a little bit, but it's still a very common way of getting around the visa problem.

I don't believe that there would be any problem entering on a 30 day visa and leaving 60 days later if you have been issued a new one. If your stay is for 60 days then it could be tricky if you renew your visa on the 29th day (or less) - giving you a total entitled stay of 59 days (or less). Does that make sense? In other words, to get the 60 days you will have to get a new visa the day the old one expires.

For a second opinion, you might want to try TrailFinders (link to their visa section) or phone the Thai embassy. Though I seriously doubt the latter would encourage you hopping across the boarder and back again

mr president

cheers for that fanny. well we are gonna be in south east asia altogether for 45 days. and we dont really need to pop over the border for 2 mins. no prob heading to laos or cambodia for a week or two. just worried about not been left on the plane in heathrow for not havin enough days on our visa, or not been left out of the aerport in thailand when we get there.

Fanny Cradock

You'll be fine, I should think. I'll be heading there myself shortly, and I would guess that we will only need a 30 day visa and then do a bit of travelling in between the surrounding countries.

Still, it's better to be safe than sorry. Confirm what I've said to you.

S.M.B.

Technically the first girl is correct. You're supposed to have an onward flight within the 30 days of arriving in Thailand to show at immigration or at check in in Ireland.

In reality, this is rarely checked so if you're willing to do a quick border run you should be fine.

My suggestion, get yourself a 60 day tourist visa because they should be free at the moment and it will give you the luxury of not having to worry about renewing your visa if you're not near any border.

chillywilly

The thai government are issuing free tourist visas from march til june, so all you have to do is apply in the normal way and you will save yourself 40e!

more info here

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/Free-Tourist-Visas-March-5-June-4-t246136.html

Arcee

I flew into Bangkok in September with a plane ticket showing my return flight leaving Bangkok 2 months later and no one asked me any questions. I just got the regular visa on arrival, spent the 2 months travelling around SEA and returned to Bangkok in time for the flight home....

RATM

Ive flown into Bangkok twice in the last 3 years with no onward ticket ( that was the reason I flew to Bangkok- to get a cheap ticket home ).

Have heard before that if you overstay visas in Thailand the fine is around 250bt per day overstayed. This would probably be okay for an overstay of 1-5 days but any longer and immigration might think you're taking the piss.