@Matt ***********

Dianne gave a very thorough answer. Your best bet is to wait till you are 50 to do the exact same visa as your dad. During however many months you have until then, it is a simple matter of using existing options for American tourists (your residency in Mexico has no bearing as Thailand only cares about your passport country). USA passport holders can enter via visa exempt entry where you just show up without any visa and show your passport (30 days, extendable for 30 more days each time you enter), or with either a single entry or multiple entry tourist visa that you can very easily apply for from a Thai consulate like any tourist could. Single entry tourist visas allow one-time entry for 60 days, extendable one-time for 30 more days, giving you 90 days. You then go to a neighbouring country like Malaysia and come back in either via visa exempt (30+30 days) or on another tourist visa (60+30 days). Or, get a multiple-entry tourist visa, which gives you unlimited stays of 60 days each time, within the 6 month validity period of the visa, so you would need to leave the country once every 60 days, for example, to take a day trip to Singapore or Laos or anywhere you choose. By the time you do some combination of those options, you've made it to age 50 and can apply for what is commonly called a retirement visa. Keep in mind that entering by visa exempt entry (without having pre-applied for a single entry or multiple entry tourist visa) is limited to 2 land entries per year, and is technically unlimited for air entries, but Immigration may question too many repeated visa exempt entries and ask you to apply for an actual tourist visa. Doing it a couple of times is not going to be any issue.

@Matt ***********

just explain your personal situation and what you are trying to accomplish, and you might find that the answer is much simpler than you think

For example, say "I am a 70 year old retiree from the UK looking to move to Thailand permanently and I do not have a Thai wife" or "I am a 20 year old college student from Canada looking to stay in Thailand for 6 months" or "I am a 30 year old digital nomad from India looking to move to Thailand for a year while blogging" or "I am a 40 year old from Australia looking to spend 2 months going around different countries in Asia with multiple short repeated times in Thailand" etc. All of the above are daily scenarios that the members of this group deal with. You'll probably find your situation isn't unique and is common for members to advise you on. As someone else posted, it might be the difference between paying 1900 baht to do it yourself vs tens of thousands of baht or more to have an agent do the exact same thing for you that might take you 15 minutes to do yourself.

Why don't you mention what is complicated to you, and I bet the members here can give you as clear explanations as any agent or company.

Isn't the issue with all those onward ticket sites that they don't generate a PAID ticket reservation with an e-ticket number? All they generate is an unpaid reservation that gives a PNR code but you could do that yourself by using any airline that offers a hold your price service for a few days.

Tod, you are the most important resource on the Thai visa groups for quality information. You're the Richard Barrow for visa advice. Thank you for your efforts!

@Duncan ******

that only gives him 30+30, not enough for his desired stay.

Thanks for the heads up for those of us who registered before to report stays in our own homes who wouldn't otherwise notice until the next time returning to Thailand from a trip.

@Justin ****

considering how many hundreds if not thousands of posts I've seen in the various Thai travel advice groups over the past decade from people who used these tickets successfully and reported they were indeed verifiable by the customer by simply entering the PNR code and their own last name into the "Manage Your Booking" section of the website of the airline on the ticket, I would say there is plenty of proof it is real and works. Why not spend the $10 or so and try it yourself if you are so convinced it's a scam. Have them issue, say a British Airways ticket from Bangkok to London for a specific date, then go to the BA website and enter your ticket confirmation code and last name and see if BA shows it as a valid confirmed ticket. These onward ticketing sites promise the tickets will show as valid for a certain period, say 3 days, so check again right before they expire and see if they still show as valid, and then check after the expiration and I imagine you will see the ticket now shows as cancelled. I believe the way these websites work is that they are a travel agency and book a fully refundable full fare ticket for their "client" which they can then cancel later as if their client cancelled it, before the period that the agency would get billed by the airline for the ticket. That's just a guess of how they are able to do it, by exploiting a payment terms loophole for when travel agencies have to pay airlines for tickets they book for clients.

@Justin ****

Have you even looked on the websites for these types of services? They say the ticket is fully valid and can be verified by anyone by typing in the PNR (ticket confirmation code) into any airline website or into Amadeus (the common software all airlines and travel agents use to pull up bookings) and it will show as a completely valid ticket during the time period that the service promises to keep it valid. The whole point is that it is verifiable as a real ticket, not just that it looks real, otherwise anyone can just edit a ticket confirmation email from any old ticket and make a fake one. There have been posts in the past from people who said the airline check-in agent actually typed in the PNR code to check if the ticket is real.

@Justin ****

I thought they WERE real tickets, just ones that automatically get cancelled after some time, so during the period of validity, they are completely valid ticket bookings.