There is no mention of the requirement for a government pension that I can see, though I know that it is (or was) a requirement. Have I missed that? I think that it used to listed but can't see it now.BobHelm wrote:I would be interested where the reports are concerning the London Embassy refusal of OA visas to applicants under 65 years of age, as that is certainly not something I have heard of.
Yes, absolutely, I have heard of people under 65 being refused an 'o' visa based on retirement because they didn't have a Government pension from the London Embassy - infact I was refused one myself in 2014..
While I absolutely agree that Thai embassies & consulates have differing sets of rules I would be surprised if they had a different set of rules to those they outlined on their own web site - that would be a recipe for total confusion.
The screen shot I printed above was from the Thai Embassy London web site. I would be very surprised if those are not the rules that they are applying..
http://thaiembassyuk.org.uk/?q=node/51
There are also reports of people being given an O-A visa when they are over 65 but have a government pension that is less than the minimum of 65,000 baht equivalent and are not asked to show any savings.
No standard basic government pension provides the required £14,000 per annum income and they have issued O-A visas to people with the base pension and no savings were asked for.
So it's clear that the rules applied appear to be a little different than the ones on the website.
It is certainly possible that they are now applying the rules listed. That would mean that if you were to apply today as you did 2years ago (with the same circumstances i.e. no government pension) you might be given an O-A visa
It would also mean that no one on the basic pension and no savings would get an O-A