Transcript of the above video: 

I did a video recently about Thailand Elite Visas and I got some feedback; I got a comment on that video; let me quote it directly. "That guy had already had a 5-year sticker affixed. His passport expired and so did his old 5-year sticker, and apparently Bangkok, BKK, (I think they mean the airport), bounces them to Chaengwattana and requires a new background check. It happened to another individual today. It seems like the airport doesn't want to adjudicate." 

Well no, hold on. Here's what we are talking about here. When the Elite Visa expires; so you get a sticker, even if you have a 20-year Elite Visa, each sticker is only valid for 5 years and you have to go back in and request a new sticker to keep up your status. Part of that process is going through the criminal background check again and just double-checking that you've adhered to Thai Immigration rules, you don't have any complaints in Thailand and then they reissue the five years. That generally speaking cannot be done at the airport. It has to be done at Chaengwattana, CW as some people call it as an abbreviation, at the Chaengwattana Immigration Office. So that's the thing to understand in this video is if your Elite Visa is coming up for expiration and you just think, "oh it can all be handled at the airport" that's a presumption you may not necessarily want to make. Also other Immigration Offices, like if  you are coming in through Phuket you would probably be using local Phuket Immigration, whatever, you're going to have to deal with the Immigration Office as opposed to being able to deal with all of that necessarily at the airport. Quite frankly, again especially for the background checks and things, which they are getting more stringent about. I've been keeping up with this for a long time. I remember when there was no background check, and they introduced doing that and then now they do it every five years before they give you the updated sticker. So the thing to take away from this video is do not presume you can deal with the details of the extension of your Visa sticker status in your passport pertaining to the so-called “Privilege” or what has always been in the past referred to as the Thailand “Elite Visa”, do not necessarily presume that that can all be dealt with at the airport. You may have to be dealing with that at a Thai Immigration Office. 

Something else to bear in mind. I'm making longer form content where I talk about many things pertaining to expats, also news of the day here in Thailand, news regarding economics in a regional and local sense, and you can get this paid content via [email protected], that's our email address. You can email us, get an email chain. I do give you all the back episodes as well as the new ones, so email us. We have five episodes now; I’m getting ready to do a sixth. All of them are at least 30 minutes long and we get into depth about many different topics in those videos. Also something else, I want to go ahead and plug Pancake Palace. That is a restaurant that me and my better half have started here in downtown Bangkok. We've got American diner food, chilli, we've got buffalo wings, we've got cheeseburgers, we have got also all-day breakfast and pancakes, as the name would imply. We've even got glass bottled Coke now which is my favourite iteration of Coca Cola. We've got all of that and we are looking to add things like milkshakes and things of that nature as well as time goes on. But if you are in downtown Bangkok and you feel like a bite of good old American diner food, come on by the Pancake Palace. 

That said, sort of circling back on all of this, the thing to take away from this video is do not presume you can deal with all the details of your Elite Visa status - including but not limited to extension of Elite Visa status - don't presume that can all be dealt with at the airport. You may have to go down to a local Immigration Office to get that sorted out before leaving and coming back to the Kingdom of Thailand.