$20/mo Google Fi. Works fine for me in Thailand.

There is a lot on Reddit about this. One commenter says that they applied direct to the embassy and it was a horrible and degrading experience. Most comments agree that you will never get a Thai girlfriend into the US. Another commenter explains, that single Thai women making small salaries are likely to abandon Thailand and work illegally as pee noi 'little ghosts' in the US for significantly higher salaries. Apparently there is a long track record of Thais that have cheated the system and made it incredibly difficult to obtain this type of visa. It sucks for us Americans that need to be in the US to obtain a salary, but have beautiful girlfriends in Thailand that want to see the U.S. and would consider moving here, but that we are not ready to get a fiancé visa for. These women, if they want to leave Thailand, or want to split their time between a western country and Thailand, invariably end up with a non-U.S. boyfriend (Aussie, Brit, German, etc.) and live happily ever after in those countries. Just another reason that more people from the U.S. are becoming expats.

@Sophie *****

Why would a tourist visa be better than a medical one?

@Antoine *******

Good advice.

You don't bring sand to the beach so why bring ties to Tieland? Maybe one or two in case you are invited to a formal book signing by the spare heir.

@Dave ********

Do you know of anyone that has pulled that off? Seems like meeting you Thai GF at the Tijuana airport and just driving her across, "surrendering" at to the immigration officer on the drive north, would be a popular method of avoiding the uncertain visa procedures.

@Istvan ********

It could be that I ran out of pages and got a new passport so perhaps it's in my old 1. I just don't recall them putting any type of stamp

Just hand your passport to the immigration officer at the airport and say, "C̄hạn pĕn h̄nī̂ khuṇ" (I owe you money.) If it is a few days, it is nothing to worry about. A few years ago I was a 5 day overstay and just paid the fine. No overstay stamp was put in my passport. This may be a new thing.

@Dimitri *******

You have a good point. I drive a motorbike. If you do not make eye contact, they think that you did not see them flagging you over (same with a car and tinted windows) and MOST of the time they will not go after you (from what I have seen).

@Dimitri *******

Yeah, but you could have to pay the fine every day. Today they were conducting strict enforcement near Central Festival and nearly every farang was stopped and checked. 400 baht for no helmet and not sure how much for no international license, but 500 Baht sounds right.