@Andy ***********

Perfect reason to do a border bounce. I don’t blame you!

@Marty ********

The LTR is attractive, I admit. Good for you.

@Sue *********

Like I said, I considered an agent but thought I’d give it a try on my own. It didn’t take long and wasn’t hard. I guess it can seem daunting to people that don’t understand what’s needed or how to go about it, so I don’t blame anyone for getting an agent. I only spent about a half hour waiting to get in to see the immigration officer. I think the only difference between what’s needed for the non-O vs the non-OA is the insurance certificate, and I would get health insurance if I was on a non-O anyway, so I’ll stick with the OA for now. Sounds like you’ve got it down on your own now, and I think I’ll keep doing it on my own from here on out. Now don’t get me wrong, if I didn’t have the required money in the bank, I’d definitely get an agent to sort it out.

@Andy ***********

Free of charge? Doing a border bounce would have cost me more than the 1900 baht fee at immigration and a lot more time. Didn’t make sense to me since I had the 800,000 baht seasoned in my account anyway and you have to get health insurance regardless. Didn’t make sense to me to pay for travel to border and spend hours doing it to save 1900 baht. If I didn’t have the 800,000 baht I could see it. But I did.

@Neil *******

Sure. I made an appointment on the immigration app a month ahead of time. Arrived at Building B, gate 2 which is right where the immigration office is. Went to the counter that the app told me to go to and waited for my queue number to be called. A lady came out and called my number and told me to go to a different counter to get my paperwork checked. I did and that’s where I found out I had forgot to make a copy of my appointment confirmation and a copy of my bank book. The lady gladly made a copy of both for me. Then I went back to the original counter and sat down to wait. My number came up on the screen and I went in to the cubicle with my wife to see the officer. She looked at all my paperwork and told me she wanted us to hand draw a map of the location of our condo. So I did. Then she pointed out my lease agreement wasn’t signed by my landlord so we had to call our agent we rented the condo from and she emailed us a copy of the signed document and they printed it out for us. There was a lot of paper shuffling and hand stamping of paperwork going on in a flurry of activity on the officer’s desk while we waited and looked on. I had to sign a ton of pages of the paperwork and copies I submitted and then she told us to wait in the waiting area. About 10 minutes later she brought my bank book and my passport with the new stamp out to me. I was there about an hour total. The officer spoke thai to my wife asking for documents and didn’t say much to me. My wife agreed it was a pretty easy process. What to look out for? Make copies of everything and check and recheck you have all the forms you need. I filled out the TM7 application for extension of stay ahead of time to save time.

@Bob *********

I got my OA visa last year in the U.S. and this is my first extension of stay.

I just renewed my policy with Pacific Cross. I’m 63 and in pretty good health. If you want a contact in Bangkok, the agent I worked with was Chayut Chatrakul and the number is 02-401-9188. I haven’t filed a claim yet so I can’t comment on that, but the customer service so far has been good.

I used Bangkok Bank’s SWiFT code and wire transferred it from my American bank. Fast, easy, and secure.

@Sam ****

Yes

That’s how they do it here. They want you to sign everything.