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Renewing expired Thailand Elite membership


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On 9/19/2020 at 7:13 PM, krey said:

ah yes that did sound confusing it has been a while since I did it, I did a post about it in the past

1. I left Thailand in October of 2019 and came back at that point I got the 1 year stamp that brought me to Oct 2020, at that time I was happy with that as I was only planning on staying to the summer of 2020

2. My Thai Elite expired in February of 2020

3. I had one side saying that when the Thai Elite expires (the visa) then I would be on overstay even if I had a permission to stay stamp.  Thai Elite said this, visa agencies said this, some members in forums said this and even some immigration officers said it at the local office in chiang mai.  However, many people were doing it with no problems and some forum members said it was okay etc

4. So I left the day before my visa expired to basically test it out, I asked immigration in Chiang Mai airport if I leave now and return after my Thai Elite visa expires will my permission of stay to Oct 2020 still be vaild, they said it would and I would need a re entry permit because I was coming in on an expired Thai Elite,

5. So basically I was testing out if the permission of stay would work even with a Expired Visa and it turned out it did work, my back up plan was to get a on arrival tourist visa and extend it a couple of times, but did not have to do that.  Then covid hit and cancelled my flights etc and decided it was safer to stay here longer, and it got to a point where I decided I would like to stay another year but Problem now is changing over to a new visa inside the country I am still considered Thai Elite since it was my last valid visa so I got to follow the rules of that particular visa, so it was either buying another one, or leaving the country and coming back and getting a different type, which was and I believe still not possible.

 

Thanks for clarifying.

 

I can understand them not wanting to renew an expired membership without the applicant going through the full process again but It's a shame that from some reports they now seem to be actively trying to stop people from receiving the full term of their final 1 year entry stamp if it exceeds the end date of the visa.

 

If they succeed then, to the best of my knowledge, this would be the only Thai visa that operates this way (although the O-A visa is now only supposed to allow people to enter for the validity of their insurance, which in some cases has no end date).

 

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10 hours ago, Jon1 said:

My membership expired on February.

Yes I get it.. also i was going for the last extra year too however it did not happen because of covid. Normally you would have been ok but not now. I get their strict interpretation. Nobody said it was 6 years many thought we could get 6 years but was not a sure thing. 

 

Sorry to hear your in trouble like that.

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12 hours ago, Jon1 said:

This is exactly what I'm thinking about. If I buy a new membership and the membership is active, shouldn't I be able to extend the permission to stay even though TE visa is expired?

 

If someone has knowledge if there is some special law regulating TE visas and especially that the visa itself, not only the membership has to be valid for the period of extension, would be very interested to know.

 

I think this is something I'll try to find out with the immigration and TE office if I'm still going to try to stay in Thailand with TE visa at this time.

Jon, you can try emailing them that if you're forced to leave the country, you won't buy the membership again. Maybe the bosses will see this and come to senses ????  Did you communicate with sales team or someone else?

 

That said, you'll probably have to clear some overstay after 26th. When I got my visa last month, they were already quite busy and setting appointments at CW two weeks in advance. This may be another reason for such answer.

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