You can't sponsor someone if you are on elite. Elite does offer the visa for a family, you might be able to upgrade, ask elite staff.

They were probably talking about different things. The rules of one country to determine your residency based on taxes has little to do the visa you have in another.

I just got mine a few months ago. I believe times is based on your nationality. I from US. I think took about 3 or 4 weeks to be approved. Then they took about 1 week to confirm payment (credit card), then to change in country about 2 weeks for an appointment.

It's the job of the airline to make sure you meet the legal requirements for entry. Visa exempt requires a onward ticket by Thai law. The airlines are following the law and will be held financial responsible for your return plus a fine if they allowed someone to board that doesn't meet the requirements. It has nothing to do with being upsold.

Rarely immigration will check unless they want think you might intend to overstay or have insufficient funds. This is why western travels sometimes are not checked at all and the airline may not ask either.

Geoblue, unlimited coverage. Can exclude US to save.

Yeah.. Easy.. Just don't take the first no... Keep handing them documents until they say yes.

Bring everything you can. With a resident cert you should not have much trouble at Bangkok Bank or krungsri. If you have to just go to a different branch.

You can open an account on visa exempt, but if you have some non imm visa the better even without a wp.

@Ondrej *****

the people who have trouble with it are the ones who do it multiple times a year.. As long as you have no abused anything in the past, you should not have problem.

It's totally normal for regular tourists to visit neighboring countries and come back. It's the primary purpose multi entry tourist visa.

1 tourist visa plus extention, then border run, visa exempt or another tourist visa.

Or if you can get a multi entry tourist visa is good for 6 months, but will need border runs or extentions.

Both options are pretty simple. Ignore the suggestion of elite or retirements, those are both insane suggestions for a less than 6 months stay.

@Stuart ********

thank you. Same counter I extend at right? Counter N if I recall.

Unfortunately, elite doesn't help you cancel. I am on my own to cancel in the morning, and then after lunch they meet me to affix.

@Siddhartha ********

not sure in that area. But check reviews and most schools will let you sit in a trial class for free. Recommend you try that. I think ALA for one year with visa would be around 35 or 40k. I believe Duke is just a bit more expensive.