2021 is 6 months away. international tourism is dead.

people just need to forget about ever going to thailand again.

After coronavirus it'll go back to normal, if they've started accepting tourists in august you could just leave and come back on a tourist visa / try for a 2nd ed visa if your school offers it / the thai elite card / the visa agents in pattaya

If it doesn't go back to normal until september I would just overstay until then, they are being lenient about overstay now, until flights resume

Thanks for the fast response. I appreciate it

Interested to know this as well. Let us know what you end up doing.

My biggest fear is that Thailand stops automatically extending the visas like they've done until now and I have to fly back home in one of those humanitarian flights since no other country would take me in.

Hope that in the upcoming months some countries of the area start allowing people in. Saw some news about some travel bubbles possibly happening between ASEAN countries with their numbers under control in the next month or so. Guess we'll have to wait and see.

The visa amnesty / no overstay fine applies until July 31, they will probably extend it again cos it'd look bad for tourism to not extend it if incoming flights are still not available after that, it'd look like they were kicking out foreigners without any way for them to come back

https://www.pattayamail.com/latestne...july-31-305553

The immigration dept is so devoid of logic it's hard to know what they'll come up with.

In China they at first gave everyone 2 extra months

Then they cancelled all existing visas and allowed you to extend without leaving once per month for like $150 just signing a piece of paper that there are no flights out (there are just very few and not cheap)

Recently lowered price to about $25, currently attempting to get a real visa again and that's pricing difficult because they are super stringent now started process two months ago, hope to have it done by end of July

Aware that Thailand =/= China but it's a possible roadmap Thailand could end up following

LOL good movie!

Not saying they wouldn't do it given their track record but it makes no sense for a place like Thailand. Even someone like Autozam who isn't a "high value" tourist, they still pump every penny of their $1,000-1,500 budget directly into the local economy, which is still more than the average Thai, without taking a job from said Thai person.
Sure, you get a few enclaves of some stinky hippies but seems like an overall net win to keep visas easy.
(Post covid debacle obviously)

Havent you heard, they want nothing to do with these types anymore, only high status foreigners from now on, forget Saint Tropez, Pattaya Thailand is the new spot.


https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand...et-the-wealthy

Monaco shaking in their boots

Thai logic: "less customers, wat do?" "let's increase the price!"

are these agents able to help those residing in bkk?

yeah i'd assume so, should just be a case of going down to pattaya to drop off passport

Why would anyone with a lot of money go to a nasty overpriced 3rd world sh*thole where he gets treated like trash by delusional 3rd world people - a place that is largely barely above India save for the lack of creepy rapey guys and designated sh*tting streets.

The elites are completely disconnected and delusional and the death of Thailand as a tourist destination is pretty much imminent.

Prices are absolutely insane in Bangkok both for rents (especially if you factor in that you need to taxi it everywhere) and nicer restaurants - completely disconnected from white collar salaries.

These nicer restaurants which are still on nasty decrepit sh*thole streets are London level pricing with 3rd world sh*thole service.

Who wants to deal with that crap?

Not only price increases but customers being shamed and driven away for not playing big spenders.

A thai rather stays at home than spending less than 400 baht for a meal and some fancy frappuciono in a coffeeshop than going there everyday and drinking an espresso there where worthless staff will shame the customer for being poor and look down on the customer. (thai logic)

Their whole face and status culture only benefits the top tier corrupt elites and everybody else is destroying their business for buying into it.

• Driving customers away through the shitty behavior of staff that is tolerated
• Not asking customers what they actually want
• Not getting customers input on marketing when the place is always empty
• Gigantic oversized menus with zillion items that nobody ever orders
• Extremely bad value by western standards
• Shaming and insulting customers / keeping staff that is crazy and out of control.

I could go on and on but thai civilization is on it's last legs, even more so than the west...

your first post in ever that is partially correct (wrt to restaurants)
for the most part rents have adjusted i paid 8400 baht this month for a place that used to be 18k, not just airbnb too, checking some rental sites last night many condos i was interesed in pre corona have slashed prices in 1/2.

restaurants... you are spot on all of the 'hiso' restaurants in pattaya have been massive letdowns sky gallery, surf and turf, bacco beach, the glass house. its the same story every time. prime real estate, horribad service, underwhelming food broken illogical pricing. its amazing how they all have the servers use tablets to simplify their jobs yet every waiter/waitress i have encountered is mentally ******ed.
i found the same things at many of the thai owned hiso places in thonglo **** prices **** service and just mediocre food.

the exceptions... farang owned joints. both here in pattaya where i went a couple days ago a new spot called bali lounge. and on suk 63 in bkk bourbon street farang boss keeps the workers in shape with a whip prices on point, good food.

http://www.phuketvisa.com/?fbclid=Iw..._ZhPAqdH5EQJPI

This service told me that they can do 1 year visa 60k baht no need to leave the country. I saw some sketchy reviews in google reviews (scroll down) what do you think?

What kind of visa did they offer you?

I went to make application to school today for ED Visa, 25k baht for school, 16k for immigration.
After 1 week should go to Phuket Town immigration with staff from school to give my passport and change my tourist visa to ED visa.
Was on multi entry tourist visa which expired in middle of May.

I have ed visa and i want to extend one more year. My issue is that i have to leave country even for 1 day which isnt possible at the moment. I went to school yesterday and they are waiting news from the goverment Your situation is the easiest. I did the same last year and you dont even have to leave the country. You should be fine even with the current situation

That sucks. Go to other school? No clue what your options are.
Maybe try to post on Thai Visa - Visa and Immigration Forums?

Can you pm me the link? Thanks

Your post is a bit overly negative. I've never experienced any rude waitstaff whatsoever. I actually feel that most are even friendlier than in the states. I don't know India, but most places I go to here in Bangkok, is actually quite nice. Actually, I would imagine a Bangkokian visiting Oakland would think the US is shithole in comparison.

I do wonder though how do all these mid tier restaurants ($10 to $20 dishes) stay afloat given the low income of most thais and that there are no tourists.

A few days ago, I was at Central World, I believe it has about over 100 restaurants spread over 3 floors. About 80% of them are empty.

Poor white collar thais go to semi expensive places to give friends & colleagues face even if they don't have much money.

Also a lot of younger thais have thai boomer parents that give them free housing and a semi fancy car.

If you have 20k baht pure spending money, a car and a free place to live, it's not such a bad salary and if the person is a guy the salaries tend to be more around 40k.

I believe that there is a lot of money laundering going on in a lot of restaurants where the elite has been made partner.

There are lots lots of hobby businesses run by kids from moneyed families.

There are places run by thai elites where you can get in touch with them as a random person via the workers and sometimes the guy hangs out there with friends.

Central World does long leases that certainly did not factor in corona. Without tourists the restaurants are f*cked. The average thai works 6 days a week and has no time or money to go to these places.

does anyone have the contact info for these agents in pattaya that are able to help out with visas? i am currently on a ed visa that ends in late august and want to keep my options open. i havent talked to my current school about extending but i remember them saying that they dont extend so if anyone could help that would be great. thanks!

So the process takes about a week to get the visa? I'm going to be looking into something like this myself soon.

I imagine these schools are going to swamped with D day coming up. I sure as hell dont want to go back to the virus infested riots on the street USA anytime soon. Imagine listening to LOL69s advice and leaving Thailand to go back to 3rd world America when this stuff started.