Keep us posted how it goes, I will have to do the same soon

I didn’t book a flight and they never asked me. I took a gamble that if they did ask me for tickets I’d take it as a good sign and quickly buy them at that stage. But as I say, they never asked.

Anonymous participant 616 as I’ve had to claw and scratch for my DTV (recently obtained from London Embassy) I’d be very interested to know who pushed for it!

I applied, £11k in account for 34 days, sent bank stats showing this + two lots of wages going in + payslips. Not asked any questions about this. Didn’t supply flight tickets either, wasn’t asked for them.

The only thing they wanted was a better selfie pic and a letter promising I’d stay in the UK until the visa process was completed. I supplied both items, visa was approved 3 days later. FYI, I never provided a flight ticket, they never asked to see one.

Copy and paste the letter request into Chat GPT and ask it to write an appropriate letter in response. That’s what I did, and it was accepted by London Embassy.

Not the same situation, but I too had a run-in with Emirates whereby they weren’t going to let me board a flight from UK during Covid in 2022 because I wasn’t vaxxed, even though I had all the proper medical/test paperwork, documents, etc. The supervisor had to intervene (it turns out that the young girl at check-in had a “personal opinion” about anyone not vaxxed and decided that SHE didn’t want to let me fly!) Just mentioning this because sometimes airline staff can be misinformed or have a personal opinion which they then project that onto the traveller. Regarding the Visa, sounds like you ran into someone who didn’t know their job.

@Adam *******

when you say don’t submit on that passport, am I correct in assuming you mean my current passport?

@Ivan ***********

thanks Ivan, your advice is comforting and excellent!

I hadn’t considered renewing passport in Thailand tbh, I kind-of had the consideration it would be more convoluted and expensive than doing it in the UK.

I think I’ll keep my current passport for now and decide nearer the time. In all likelihood I’ll probably have to return to the UK.

@Ivan ***********

thanks again!

I did ask Chat GPT some questions i.e. is being over 50 a barrier for Workation visa (apparently not!), if my contract says “remote working from home” is this an issue, also apparently not as it was suggested that these are common in remote working contracts. My employer doesn’t carry-out business with or in Thailand, but I suppose I could ask employer for a letter if necessary confirming remote working status.

I was considering renewing my passport now rather than upon my return to the UK, just in case I decide to stay for the year using the one-time extension, but my consideration is that my current passport will be on their system showing that I have been to Thailand many times in the last 15 years, I have always had extensions and I have never overstayed.

I was thinking that this will count in my favour, but if I renewed my passport with a new passport number then I’m not sure if this would correlate with my previous passport and therefore present myself as somebody who may not have been to Thailand before on their system?

I appreciate I’m overthinking this quite a lot, it’s just that the rules for the DTV Visa seem indefinite and vague, open into interpretation.

Hence my attention to detail!