Good luck and please update about tm30.

Indeed, Patrick. I tried to tabulate roughly what I would spend in a year maintaining tourist visas. Aside from all the stress involved, Elite isn't really much more expensive. Sort of moot point, of course, these days.

Best of luck.

Oh, right. Forgot about that :) Not sure if it applies to members being approved now.

@Kaho ***

Time is of the essence. If you're going for elite, apply now!

That would start the first approval phase. After that comes payment. And then final approval.

My process took 6 weeks. Lost some days during payment. But it's cutting it rather close.

No. You buy a visa. Cheapest one is 500k baht. Gives you nearly 6 years with minimum hassle.

I think it could still just be doable. I did it in April-May and it was 6 weeks. But! I lost like 7-8 business days due to bankers being wankers.

Also, there was some talk during June-Juli that they had been able to speed up processing even more. I'd ask them.

Either way, one wouldn't loose anything by applying and clearing the background check phase.

Right. The mysteries of tm30. Sigh :)

Do you own the place you're staying in? Is that necessary to do this?

Bangkok Bank. Letter of reference from your embassy. Did it on a tourist visa. But I'm pretty sure the guy didn't even check that.