I'd also check with the embassy, personally, if any visa I received had my name spelt wrong. Might be a problem, might not be, but it's probably better to know that now rather than when you land in Thailand.

Oh okay. That might be one of the ones where you need to take your tent then. Good luck! :D (you should search the CM groups though as Tod said - I haven't paid attention to the current situation but the topic does come up a lot)

Are you just extending a tourist visa/exemption? If so, you don't need to (and can't (well, you can, but it'll be shut and you won't get a queue number or anything)) go to Promenada the night before. As far as I know it's only the marriage/retirement visas etc. that has people going at crazy times (Tod - I know these aren't the correct terms, but can't be bothered checking what the correct terms are :P).

I haven't done it myself in a while, but I would personally always go about 2-3pm. 3pm was maybe on the late side and there was a chance of getting turned away if they were busy. Going at this time generally meant getting out again in 1.5-2 hrs. I don't think it's any faster to go in the morning, and I was definitely never interested in going there 5 hrs before it opened to be the first in the queue and "save" a couple of hours of waiting in the afternoon.

Oh ok, that makes sense. I'm curious if they'd let you do Thailand - Malaysia - Thailand - UK or something, but maybe it depends on who's issuing the ETD.

Why couldn't you get a 30-day exemption with an ETD? I was of the understanding that this is possible and Thailand accepts them. How did you get in the country to overstay then?

I assume your brother is German though. I seem to remember reading the German emergency passport is just basically a shorter 2-year passport, whereas the UK one is a lot more restrictive. :)

In that case I'd just wing it. You might get a funny look at immigration and have to explain the situation a bit, but as long as you have the work permit etc. to support it, I wouldn't personally be too worried. (there's not a lot else you can do anyway, besides going back to the UK) :)

Did you actually get the ETD yet? It seems unclear from your post. Because you have to specify the countries you plan to visit in the intended order (which is printed in the ETD) and I think you're stuck with that after. I would imagine if the British consulate in Bali has a problem with the end country being Thailand, they'd mention that when you submit your itinerary and ETD application.

It's not Thailand, but I needed to get an ETD in China (where I was living) to go from China - Germany - Netherlands - UK - China, transfer all the residence stuff over from my lost passport to the ETD, and then after the trip transfer everything over to my new passport when it arrived (in China).

The two things I'd probably be concerned with is (i) whether the 30 days exemption is long enough to get a new passport in BK (you can check the gov.uk website - last time I checked the lead time was 3-4 weeks or something), and (ii) if the work permit is useful for anything, since you're planning to enter on an unrelated exemption and sort out the non-B visa later. Would it be possible (in principle) to get the non-B visa in an ETD? They can change the validity date depending on your requirements.

What I might be tempted to look into personally is submitting an itinerary saying you're going from Bali to Thailand to Laos (or whatever - for the non-B) to the UK, then get the new passport in Thailand and switch over to that between exiting Thailand and entering Laos. Though I suppose there might be issues with getting all the documents in time, especially if you need your new passport number for the documents for the non-B. Just a thought - don't know if it's feasible or not.

It depends on the entry port - most areas are 72 hrs, but Shanghai/Jiangsu etc. is 144 hrs.

Just a thought - it might be worth getting a Chinese visa from the CM consulate despite the option of the 144-hour visa-free transit. I'm just not sure how easy it would be to open the Chinese bank account without a visa. I have no idea either way actually, but I wouldn't be surprised if trying to do that ends up being a massively frustrating experience for some vague reason or another. The CM consulate is pretty friendly and the single-entry visa pretty cheap, so might be worth doing to avoid the risk of a wasted trip or a lot of visiting banks.

Having the visa beforehand would also avoid the need to fly to a third country after China, giving you the option to be more flexible with that part, re-enter Thailand with an exemption, and handle the Thailand visa stuff in a separate trip days later.

I seem to remember you had another post about Chinese bank stuff a month or two back where I commented in more detail, but when you go to the bank you should probably have a Chinese phone number already and take the Registration Form of Temporary Residence (or the print-out of your registration from a hotel, depending on where you're staying). It might (=will) be a hassle to set up the account in English, but I'd recommend doing whatever Chinese bank stuff you need to do (online banking, linking with WeChat/Alipay, maybe routing any confirmation stuff to your Thai phone number if possible) and checking that it works while you're there, since it'll be difficult/impossible to do outside China. I'd probably be tempted to open two or three accounts personally, just in case of any problems later. I'm with ICBC and the online banking is acceptable (in Internet Explorer, haha), but that's just because my previous employer used that bank and it's not a particular recommendation. :)