SO now, after stating that no tourist needs more than 30 days, they give them 60?

And you don't see this as the beginning of the backpeddle? Also: a few word of mouth reports of people who had back to back exemption stamps, but only stayed a week or so each time, getting told they can't get new ones.

General Mackevili wrote:This is great news! Now, the back-to-back visa runners will only have to do this crap 6 times a year!

Back to business as usual so quickly!

I'm guessing they will clarify a limit on how many times this can be done per year, and enforce some sort of required period of time between each arrival in-country. It's not really business as usual because the 30 days initial exemption applies only to airport arrivals, which is more expensive than border bus runs (which get only a 15 day visa exemption)...thus weeding out the cheapos (like me) who don't want to or can't shell out for an AirAsia flight to PP and back every 60 days OR a bus border run every 45 days.

They are definitely succeeding in making it harder for less affluent, longer-term travelers to remain there - which is their intention. The high end tourist places won't feel any financial pain, but many small guesthouse owners with $12/night rooms slightly off the popular areas are in for some tougher times ahead in the low season.

phuketrichard wrote: The whole reason was to stop back to back visa runners. ( do i really need to explain who those are again??)

The whole "reason" for drug laws is to stop drugs... meanwhile as a side effect a lot of people who don't do drugs still get their houses raided/etc on mistakes.

http://asiancorrespondent.com/122578/th ... or-expats/

On Saturday, tourists posted on the Thai Visa forum that they had arrived at the border at Mae Sai only to be turned away after being told that no one would receive the exemption stamp at that crossing. In the past, foreigners were occasionally turned away for having done too many consecutive runs but the crackdown seems to have been applied to all tourists trying to make the land crossing, regardless of how many stamps they already had.

I am interested on any changes they are making to the education visa process. Besides enforcing students actually attend classes, which is fine, are they also limiting the extensions? You used to be able to get one year at a time, only having to report to immigration every 3 months but not have to leave the country. I hope that doesn't change.

Again... Side effects of haphazard implementation and personal interpretation by Thai officials at the actual border gates. Its not out of context... It was a side effect regardless of what the laws are FOR impacting tourists. How many screwups will have to happen before you admit it can get screwed up and have effects wider reaching than the published intent?

Say 100 people turned away wrongfully and discussing it discourages how many from even trying at risk of being stranded?

OrangeDragon wrote:Again... Side effects of haphazard implementation and personal interpretation by Thai officials at the actual border gates. Its not out of context... It was a side effect regardless of what the laws are FOR impacting tourists. How many screwups will have to happen before you admit it can get screwed up and have effects wider reaching than the published intent?

Say 100 people turned away wrongfully and discussing it discourages how many from even trying at risk of being stranded?

I think you're really stretching it by taking an isolated incident and then quoting only part of the circumstances, which when reading the whole article points to a different specific issue, to back up your viewpoint and imply the policy is somehow going to be a failure for Thailand. I don't doubt there are incidences of inconsistencies of application at the moment and I hope the junta sort them out by the official start date, but the purpose of the crackdown is still correct in my view.

I was thinking that perhaps the ability to extend the non exempt visa from 30 to 60 days was a shrewd attempt by the junta to be able to emphasise their desire for real tourists against a somewhat inevitable backlash/mis reporting against apologists for those not able or willing to obtain the correct visa status.