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Post by Fletchsmile on Jun 3, 2019 18:40:19 GMT 7
Mrs.Smile has a new passport, and her previous 5 year UK Visa will have expired.
Has anyone applied for a UK visa for thei Thai spouse recently? If so any tips?
It's always a long-winded process and the UK info websites are terrible.
People complain about Thai immigration for expats renewing, but the process is much simpler and easier for expats in Thailand than it is for the UK
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Post by Fletchsmile on Jul 4, 2019 16:41:58 GMT 7
So my wife got her 5 year visa today.
The online process is time consuming, and we couldn't upload docs properly. As usual they were also vague about requirements.
They ripped us off on the exchange rate. They charge in USD. So convert GBP to USD at a crap rate. Then the USD/THB rate looked crap even though used a visa card. I suspect it was dynamic currency conversion without offerring a choice rather than visa's rate.
Took the best part of a day to enter most of the info online. You then have to pick a date. We paid extra to get an earlier one at a decent time rather than wait.
So timeline:
4 June (Tue) applied online. Excluding booking an apppointment, as we still needed a couple of docs from the bank.
7 June (Fri) got the docs from the bank and booked appointment online, paying extra not to have to wait a couple of weeks
10 June (Mon) wife went for appointment at Trendy building
4 July (Thu) got 5 year Visa
They say 15 working days from the appointment for most cases. Ours was a bit more
Also paid extra for:
- scanning docs as couldn't upload. Well worth it though for just THB 450 ish as we had loads of docs
- 1 doc translated (Tabian Bahn)
- THB 4k or so for early appointment
Total cost was around THB 32-33k including the extras. THB 28k+ without
Not a great customer experience but done for another 5 years
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siampolee
Detective
Alive alive O
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Post by siampolee on Jul 4, 2019 17:22:50 GMT 7
Been cheaper to have claimed refugee status and probably quicker too. Plus of course, funds are allocated to refugees to assist with their living costs, around thirty eight pounds a week I think you'll find.
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AyG
Crazy Mango Extraordinaire
Posts: 5,871
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Post by AyG on Jul 4, 2019 17:56:46 GMT 7
Been cheaper to have claimed refugee status and probably quicker too. Plus of course, funds are allocated to refugees to assist with their living costs, around thirty eight pounds a week I think you'll find. Have to convert to Islam first, though. Definitely not worth it for GBP 38/week, what with all that praying 5 times a day, wearing a black sheet, and being controlled by men your entire life. |
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chiangmai
Crazy Mango Extraordinaire
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Post by chiangmai on Jul 4, 2019 22:45:08 GMT 7
I couldn't have added much of value so I didn't post about our experience last year in applying for the 2 year visa which was shortly after the changes were made at VFS. At the time it was all quite confused and it took far longer than it ought to, we saw reports of others who had applied after us, being granted visa's before we'd heard anything. Eventually it was granted but the wait was unpleasant, around ten weeks in total and the window to book a flight kept getting smaller and smaller. I found the continual attempts by VFS to up-sell very annoying, they are not my favorite organisation to begin with, the dollar charging issue is, as you say, frustrating also. But hey ho, once every few years and then you can forget about it....until the next time!
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