Thread: Educational Visa new arrangements

Originally Posted by toddaniels

Tell me what you're studying, when your current extension expires when you're leaving and when you're comin' back, that way I could be more specific.

Indeed it could be as simple as buying a re-entry permit either at immigrations or at the airport before you leave, OR it could be a more convoluted process.

What I am studying? Good grief. It was a purely hypothetical situation, trying to place it in a real world situation.

Just been down to immigration and got my Ed Visa cancelled........and Im now free to leave . It was a simple process, just went down there , gave them my PP and school documents waited 30 minutes and got my PP back with a stamp in it .
Tod : I ve just come off a education Visa , now Im going to Laos to try to get a double entry tourist visa , as I understand it, they only issue two tourist visas per year , and as I havent had any tourist visas this year, I should be eligible .
Would you suggest that I go to Savvanakhet to apply , or do you think Vientiane will issue it ?

Fluke;
Either place will issue a double entry tourist visa for you. There is NO real rule about how many they'll issue in a specific time frame, it's totally up to the officer and the consulate.

I know people who've had 4 back to back double entry tourist visas from Vientiane before they got the "dreaded red stamp". Which actually says something along the lines of "this person has got a lot of tourist visas in their passport from here and may be denied next time or have to show proof of address in thailand".

Conversely, I know people who've gotten two double entry tourist visas from Vientiane and then got the stamp, so it's hit or miss.

Savannakhet is gonna have FAR less people than Vientiane will that's a given.. Both places are 'drop off one day before 11 and pick it up the next working day after 1:30.

Oh and be aware of thai holidayz; I think we've got a few comin' up here in the next couple weekz..

Originally Posted by Fluke

Just been down to immigration and got my Ed Visa cancelled........and Im now free to leave . It was a simple process, just went down there , gave them my PP and school documents waited 30 minutes and got my PP back with a stamp in it .

What stamp did you get in your passport? And for how long? 30 days tourist? 7 days tourist? Something else?

Originally Posted by Neverna

What stamp did you get in your passport? And for how long? 30 days tourist? 7 days tourist? Something else?

I wondered the same thing as you did Neverna;

How exactly do you cancel an extension of stay?

If it's canceled right then, technically you'd be on overstay until you exited the country and passport control at the border would see this.

What did they do, cancel your current extension of stay and sell you a 7 day 'get outta dodge' extension or what?

Just wondering is all.

Originally Posted by Neverna

Originally Posted by Fluke

Just been down to immigration and got my Ed Visa cancelled........and Im now free to leave . It was a simple process, just went down there , gave them my PP and school documents waited 30 minutes and got my PP back with a stamp in it .

What stamp did you get in your passport? And for how long? 30 days tourist? 7 days tourist? Something else?

It is just a rubber stamped words in Thai , about a third of a pass passport page long with the expiry date stamped in red .
The new red stamp is the same date as when my current Visa expired . I went to immi today .
My current Visa expired yesterday (Im now overstaying ) , the red date stamp was yesterdays date and theres also a blue stamp with todays date .
I told the immi guy that Im only overstaying because you wouldnt let me leave the Country.......and nothing more was said about it .
"When are you leaving "?
"When you stamp my passport allowing me to leave " said through gritted teeth

My intention was to leave Thailand on Thursday, the day my Visa expired .
On the way to the bus station I stopped off at a Visa shop and they mentioned about the permission required to leave , that was the first I had heard about it . I then went to my School and they confirmed this, so I got them to write me a letter and by the time that it was ready, Immi was already closed, so I went down there first thing this morning with the letter and got a stamp .
I went straight to the bus station and could only get a bus ticket with an early arrival tomorrow, so its going to cost me two days overstay

Maybe Immi have implemented these new measures because some people were exiting before their Ed Visa expired and then returning just before their Ed Visa expired and getting another 90 days ?

Originally Posted by Fluke

Maybe Immi have implemented these new measures because some people were exiting before their Ed Visa expired and then returning just before their Ed Visa expired and getting another 90 days ?

No, of the many, many hundreds of people I know here on ed visas, most got single entry 90 day ones at a thai consulate in neighboring s/e asian countries after their school gave 'em paperwork. Those are the people on extensions of stay which they get from immigrations every 90 days AND the one's who need the 'cancel study' letter if they're switchin' off an ED visa/extension..

No one that I know of who is here on a year long, multi entry, Non-Immigrant Type ED visa is affected and I probably 15-20 people who're here on them, because they got them in the US before comin' here to study.

If you hold that visa you just border bounce every 90 days to garner another 90 day stay and can get 15 months of stay out of that visa.. It's exactly like the year long multi entry Non Immigrant Type-O you get in Savannakhet for having a thai wife, except it's a Type-ED. It's treated the same way at passport control at the borders/airports...

There's no canceling, no extending at immigrations, no testing. In fact, once they get that visa they really don't even need to go to school. As far as the school and the MOE are concerned, they're not getting extensions of stay, because they can't stay in country any longer than 90 days at a time. There's no paper trail except the receipt of payment from the school & the letter of intent to study that they used when the applied for the ED visa at a thai consulate in the US.

Wow, Fluke; rather than paying the 1000 baht overstay, I'da just asked immigrations to cancel your existing extension and applied for a 7 day emergency extension for 1900 (which they'll sell to any tom, dick or somchai).. You'da been okay takin' your time leaving Sunday getting there Monday.

Now, no matter if you go to Vientiane or Savannakhet, you're hung out over the weekend, can't apply for a visa until Monday and pick it up Tuesday before you slog back in..

Still, good luck,