CO-CO
Rather wrinkly & occasionally cantankerous member
For the second year running I used the services of well established Pattaya agent to handle my 12 month extension application.
They are hugely professional and easily handle the smart arse Farangs who think they know better. There is system, and it works....it is corrupt, but then so is Thailand.
There are still hoops to jump through but you don't have to jump through any at Immigration.
In the agent's office I handed over my passport, Bangkok Bank passbook and 16,500 Baht. The first task was to increase the daily transfer limit to 1m Baht (to accommodate the in/out transaction of 830k). The facial recognition authorisation failed. Not sure if it was connected to that but I was then sent to AIS in Central Festival to get "a receipt" - no idea what for but the staff were clued up so I paid my 50 Baht and left to go Bangkok Bank on Beach Road. Two and half hours in there, which will make me review whether I need to take the agent route next year.
There must have been 8 of us all there for the same reason and in 2.5 hours I only saw half a dozen non-visa related transactions. There were 2 stages to go through after the initial visit to the cashier (which involved authorising the transaction on the App etc and having photos taken). I think that at least 2 of the people handing matters were staff from the agent; they retained my passport which will be available for collection in 3 days.
My final task was to go to Jomtien Immigration office and present my receipt to "Mr Football" and have my photograph taken at desk 7.
Finally, to add my personal reasons for using the agent - My extension expiry date is 19 June and I am out of the country from 6 April until July. Also, I decided in December that I didn't like the GBP/THB exchange rate so I kept my money in Sterling. Apart from earning interest on that £15k a 1% improvement in the exchange rate would more than cover the 10,500 Baht 'extra' that I paid versus doing everything myself - which I couldn't do anyway because only an agent can renew 3 months early.
They are hugely professional and easily handle the smart arse Farangs who think they know better. There is system, and it works....it is corrupt, but then so is Thailand.
There are still hoops to jump through but you don't have to jump through any at Immigration.
In the agent's office I handed over my passport, Bangkok Bank passbook and 16,500 Baht. The first task was to increase the daily transfer limit to 1m Baht (to accommodate the in/out transaction of 830k). The facial recognition authorisation failed. Not sure if it was connected to that but I was then sent to AIS in Central Festival to get "a receipt" - no idea what for but the staff were clued up so I paid my 50 Baht and left to go Bangkok Bank on Beach Road. Two and half hours in there, which will make me review whether I need to take the agent route next year.
There must have been 8 of us all there for the same reason and in 2.5 hours I only saw half a dozen non-visa related transactions. There were 2 stages to go through after the initial visit to the cashier (which involved authorising the transaction on the App etc and having photos taken). I think that at least 2 of the people handing matters were staff from the agent; they retained my passport which will be available for collection in 3 days.
My final task was to go to Jomtien Immigration office and present my receipt to "Mr Football" and have my photograph taken at desk 7.
Finally, to add my personal reasons for using the agent - My extension expiry date is 19 June and I am out of the country from 6 April until July. Also, I decided in December that I didn't like the GBP/THB exchange rate so I kept my money in Sterling. Apart from earning interest on that £15k a 1% improvement in the exchange rate would more than cover the 10,500 Baht 'extra' that I paid versus doing everything myself - which I couldn't do anyway because only an agent can renew 3 months early.
