I know these days the phrase "responsible journalism" is oxymoronic, but is it too much to expect that headline writers and posters make the tiniest effort to explain to people in clearly understandable terms that what is being discussed may not (or in this case does not) apply to them? The Lagas post is a model of how to do this the right way. The Thai Visa post referenced above is a model of how to do this the wrong way.

My opinion is that the people who have scaremongered on this issue should be tied up and put in a room filled with old expats and their Thai families and a "discussion" of how news should be reported should be held until everyone is on the same page ;-)

I'm not anti-search. I'm anti reading the nonsense and misinformation that was spread about this NEW, ADDITIONAL METHOD, NOT REQUIRED TO BE USED BY EVERYONE, that was available in many places. You can learn all that you need to know from the Lagas post above without all the scaremongering that led many people to believe that their methods of getting extensions of stay were changing. They were not. The guidance from immigration describes a NEW, ADDITIONAL method and it does not comment on existing methods which have not changed in the slightest.

@Jay **********

You won't find it in print from the Immigration announcement because the announcement is in no way about changes to existing procedures (because there aren't any). It is giving guidance to immigration officers about how to apply the new, additional, not for everyone, method that immigration put together for those nationals who were screwed by their embassies (UK, US, Australia, Denmark) when those embassies decided to unilaterally stop issuing embassy income letters.

Some of the headlines about that immigration announcement were absolutely horrible for not making that crystal clear from the get go.

The summary provided by Robert Lagas referenced above is a good one without any baseless speculation. Read that. Don't bother to read the stuff that came before that on this topic unless you would like to raise your blood pressure for no reason ;-)

Absolutely no change to the 800,000 baht in a bank for 2-3 months method of obtaining a retirement extension. None, zilch, zip, nada. The reference above to the thread at Thai Visa was horribly handled basically to inflate their views. They should have made very clear (crystal) that there was no change to the 800,000 method. Absolutely none! Every third reply in that horrible thread is someone saying does this apply to the 800,000 method, what about the 800,000 method? Disgusting, in my opinion.

The guidance that was posted from Immigration was to explain how the NEW, ADDITIONAL. BUT IN NO WAY REQUIRED, monthly deposit method for obtaining extensions of stay works. They said nothing about the 800,000 method because there were NO CHANGES in that method. The Thai Visa post could have made that clear but for whatever reason, they decided not to. My respect for the visa forum at Thai Visa dropped several notches because of how that announcement was mishandled.

I have to completely disagree with Jennifer's comment above. This is a case where you do not want to wade through hundreds upon hundreds of posts about the NEW, ADDITIONAL METHOD, if you are going to be using the old 800,000 method, because NOTHING HAS CHANGED for people using the 800,000 method.