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Issues Associated with Applying Online for Thai Visas

Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing the online application process for Thai Visas under the current circumstance where we have got Covid-19 in the background and since basically the beginning of the second quarter of 2020, the Thai Visa and Immigration process has really been a cumbersome, complex, downright nettlesome process compared to times past. Folks that were used to being able to get on a plane and come to Thailand and just be stamped in with a 30-day stamp or even just get a Tourist Visa abroad and come on in to Thailand, the days of that being a straightforward endeavour, I won’t say they are necessarily over forever but at least looking at the first and second quarter of 2021, I think it is safe to presume we are not going to see it be easy, at least yet.

A recent article, it was in the Postbag, I find a lot of information, it is interesting to read from the Postbag of the Bangkok Post print edition, and this is the print edition from January 2, 2021. It was in the Postbag, it is titled: Impossible Dream and it is written by a Stephan Karlsson.  Quoting directly from this: “I wait till December 15, start the phone call marathon to the Consulate again to ask them what I do next?

I get the visa staff member who says, “No you must print out the application”.

“But I already submitted online”.

“No, you must print out and send in with your passport”

Back to the application. I find out that you can’t recall the previous application, and you can’t redo it either. I have to make a new application with a “different name”. (The system rejects any attempt to re-apply with the same name) that I will clarify on print-out one screen page at a time. I print out this application.”

Long story short and this is really long. I am just taking a little excerpt to talk directly about the online application process, just the general application process associated with Thai visas right now. We have a lot of clients right now that have been working with us in order to get a visa here to Thailand and one of the biggest things that they say to us is: “Man, I am really happy you folks are helping because I couldn’t do this”. It is really no fault of anyone. This thing was just thrown up ad hoc, it is a Byzantine process. The online system in a US Immigration context too, I could go on and on about my issues with the online forms associated, especially the Department of State. Again, nobody’s fault, but it is one of those things where you will see an inefficient system and nobody is at fault but then to some degree, maybe are we all at fault because we are not improving it? There are certainly arguments to be made there. That is not the crux of this video. The crux of this video is “yes, dealing with stuff is pretty darned difficult”. People that are doing it for the first time we are finding are getting really frustrated and calling us. Sometimes, some of their ire gets directed at me personally and my response to that is “I didn’t set this up. We are just dealing with it as it is”.

It is not the perfect system and I would argue no system ever is a perfect system. But long story short, it is the system we have to deal with as of the time of this video and we are dealing with it as best we can. For those who are doing it yourself, my sympathy is with you. It is not a fun system to deal with. For those of our clients who have gone through this process with us, they know the back and forth on this, it really will just set your teeth on edge. For those folks who are clients of ours watching this video, we are trying our best. We are getting these through as best we can. They are working ultimately but it is something of an up and down, a roller coaster ride.  As I have discussed and will discuss in another video made contemporaneously with this one, it is something akin to tumblers in a lock. You just have to get everything right and then the timing has to be right and it all comes together.

We have had a lot of success especially in quarter 4 of 2020. We look to have more success as time goes forward in 2021.