@Ph**

"first" 90 day report is on a per entry basis. I have a long term multi entry visa where I get a new stamp each entry and tested this, I wasn't able to do my first after re-entry online, it was rejected saying go to immigration (Chiang Mai).

So DTV, every entry has a new first 90 day, and you'd need to go to immigration for a renewal anyway (if you get that, which seems next to impossible). It's true that after that, you could do your third online, but that's the only possibility (there won't be a 4th) and you're unlikely to get that far.

@Jo**

that explicitly says "special characters are not accepted" and he was rejected for leaving off a hyphen (not an alphanumeric character, and omitted by their own OCR). He followed the instructions exactly.

Noun

special character (plural special characters)

(computing) A symbol that is not an alphanumeric character; a nonalphanumeric character.

@Ph**

DTV it's always the first as it's a 180 day stamp. Can't be done online.

@Bi**

I'm aware. It's for the non-Americans: "I know my British friends use something, but I don’t know what they use."

@Bi**

the refunding Thai-side ATM fees has few equivalents outside the US. The larger component though is the home bank fee, on an average card that is far larger than the 220B charged Thai-side. If you can avoid that with a zero-fee card, good enough, and many countries including the UK and Australia do have good options there.

Regular HSBC debit card will charge 2.75%+£5 which is ~766B on a 20,000B withdrawal. Credit card is even worse, 5.98% which is 1,198B. Regular US cards if you don't shop around often charge $5+3%. So most important thing is to get one that eliminates or at least reduces the home-side fee, this is much more important than the Thai-side refund.

Starling Bank is an example of a zero-fee UK card. Some fintech cards like Wise or Revolut have zero fees on spend but do charge on ATM use, although it can be less than a regular bank charges. Best to shop around and get zero if you can, although this isn't possible in every country.

@Jo**

as is Elite, but it allows bank accounts and is specifically advertised as "residency".

@James ************

you pay on the Wise side, around 2% on top for the cash advance, which is larger than the Thai side fee. It's not terrible but it's not as good as transfer to a Thai bank account.

@Matthew ******

they actually don't, it's zero markup on the Visa exchange rate which is typically around 0.3-0.4% (you can check on the Visa site exactly what it is). It's actually usually *slightly* cheaper to take money out of an ATM with a Schwab card than use Wise to transfer to a Thai bank account. Slightly, they are both close enough it makes no practical difference

@Pe**

Elite is also a tourist visa. There's no explicit legal restriction on this. Having said that I don't deny DTV holders are finding it very difficult, and there obviously was a concerted change of policy. But it's not because it's a tourist visa and tourist visa holders are legally prohibited from opening bank accounts.

@Dany *******

there's nothing specific in the Thai tax code about citizens. They absolutely plan all this stuff around Thai people but it applies to all residents. The US is one of very few countries who have citizenship based taxation.