@Carlos ********

I mean, don’t get me wrong, Thailand is amazing, but sometimes you’ve just got to get over to Hanoi for a pizza, man. (And don’t even get me started on the egg coffee. Or the bun oc.)

@Nguyễn *******

oh man, that sucks. It sounds like the exemption rules must be different for Vietnam than they are for the US, unless the officer thought you were applying for something different?

Can you get what you need from Vietnam’s embassy?

At least for me, it’s been sort of both. Technically, it’s an extension, but in Bangkok, they treated my first application in January as if it were a conversion of my existing tourist visa to something new, so my sixty days started on the date of application. (Chiang Mai’s office also told me it’d be treated this way.) But I went in to extend again last week, and they gave me sixty days from when my current extension is due to expire.

I’m not sure about Pattaya, though.

@Nguyễn *******

the Thailand Pass just means you satisfied the covid-related requirements for entering. The visa is what says why you’re coming (tourism, education, marriage, etc.), and how long you can stay — like a tourist visa for 60 days, for example. But Thailand also has specific exemptions for citizens from various countries that basically let you come in for thirty days without any visa at all.

In your case, it sounds like you did the paperwork for the Thailand Pass, but didn’t also apply for a specific visa, so you got in with a 30-day exemption. If so, you can probably get a 30-day extension at the immigration office. Assuming your exemption and extension follow the same rules that folks from the US get, Michelle’s comment above gives the basic info, and the information desk at immigration will have most of the paperwork you need. For passport photos, there are lots of places around town with signs on the window advertising passport photos, so just pick one with decent reviews on Google maps. You’re also going to need a printout of form TM 30 — wherever you’re staying needs to submit your info online and give you a printout to bring to immigration (If you’re staying at a hotel, they’ll know what to do. A private Airbnb might need to do some registration stuff in the system first.) And you’ll need copies of your passport page that has your photo on it, the passport page with the stamp for your current visa/exemption (i.e., the age with the stamp that says you can stay until the 26th), and a copy of your TM 6 — that’s the little “departure card” they would have given you when you first entered Thailand. They may have stapled it into your passport for you.

The extension costs 1900 baht, cash only.

I hope that helps! Visa extensions/exemptions/renewals/whatevers were super-confusing and stressful for me at first, but the officers are really helpful and patient.

Holger Mette crap, that’s actually a really good point. Most banks in the US are ok about refunding ATM fees, but lots are also sneaky with foreign transaction charges or just crappy rates, so Schwab tends to stand out as an ideal option. I have no idea who the best banks in Europe would be for international ATM use, though.

On the bright side, though, I think all of the European credit cards should work fine on Thai websites and apps. (They’re using the same security protocol that Thailand is using online, I think.)

@Stephen ******

does Wise refund that? A lot of banks do now — although some of them have foreign transaction fees on top of the ATM fees.

Schwab is the best ATM/debit card I’ve found for international travel. No foreign transaction fees, they refund everybody else’s ATM fees, and their customer service is available via online chat. A couple years ago, I was in Indonesia, and the ATM machines kept triggering security and causing my card to freeze. Schwab customer service found a local number that I could use to reach them, and then stayed on the phone with me for at least twenty minutes as I walked around the city to find a couple ATM machines that worked.

@Klaus ********

ah, interesting. Thanks for that info!

@Gino ********

I think there was an announcement last year about not coming in for extensions/renewals until shortly before your expiration date, so they could keep the number of people physically coming in lower during the height of the pandemic. So maybe the person you interacted with is still operating as if that's a thing? (Personally, I didn't run into the issue in Chiang Mai in December.) Or maybe they're expecting a surge of covid-related extensions over the next week, and trying to make everyone else take a back seat?

@Bobby *******

yes, but they do treat the first "extension" as a conversion to a new visa that starts your 60 days from the date of application, so it's a kind of a hybrid from a perspective of how long the extension really is.