Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing sending documentation to Royal Thai Consulates or the Embassy in the United States. When we are talking about documentation here, we are talking about Visa application documentation. There is certain original documentation that needs to actually be physically sent to the Consulate in order to get Visas and Certificates of Entry issued. 

In a recent submission to the Bangkok Post and this is to their Postbag, this was published January 2nd 2021, in the Bangkok Post print edition; I suspect it can be found in Bangkok Post online at bangkokpost.com, the submission is called Impossible Dream submitted by Stephan Karlsson. Quoting directly: "Okay, I have FedEx envelope ready," and he is talking to the Thai Consulate in the US. "Do not send FedEx, send USPS." That is United States Postal Service. "overnight with return envelope inside." "Okay, got it." End quote. 

So, the reason I am bringing this up is just to provide some insight for folks who are dealing with the overall Visa process in the United States. As he goes into in this article in this submission, unfortunately he just goes through a major rigmarole only to be completely disappointed at the end and not be able to get on a plane because the gentleman was unaware of certain documentation. He was unaware that there was certain documentation which was seemingly duplicative but was in fact documentation necessary to even board the plane. Things like "fit to fly" documentation and Certificates of Entry. In this one instance, we are talking about yeah, they are accepting stuff by US Postal Service with return delivery. The Embassy in the United States or I should say the Thai Embassy in the United States will accept things that way. 

Now if you are dealing with this for the first time, please note sending things in directly to the Embassy is not the first step. There is a whole series of things that have to be dealt with in preparation to be able to do that. As I have noted in other videos, a lot of folks that have gone through this process with us have told us either midway or toward the end, or a lot of our clients once they get in to Alternative State Quarantine, they tell us "Man I just really am glad I did not have to deal with that on my own because there is just so much tug of war, back and forth. Everything has to be done in this certain order. It has to be filed; there is timing associated with it." I describe it like Tumblers falling into a lock. They have to fall in a certain way, under a certain timing in order for the lock to come unlocked. It is just a difficult process. We found a lot of our clients have told us "yeah it has been really helpful to have somebody that has a bird's eye view." We have dealt with this from beginning to end and definitely in quarter 4 especially of 2020, we had a lot of success in assisting clients into getting into Thailand. The other thing to bear in mind with respect to this is if you don't do things the correct way, so if you do for example send something by FedEx, that can massively delay a case. We have had cases, again the do it yourselfers and truly my sympathies are with you, I do understand this thing is a cumbersome process. It is far more complex than it has ever been to be able to get into Thailand. I do understand your position and compared to times past when you just get on a plane, come to Thailand, get a 30-day stamp or be able to just get a Tourist Visa, or a Retirement Visa fairly straightforwardly, yeah that is not the current state of play and I do again I sympathize with your position. A lot of the do-it-yourselfers that have come to us, they have been mired in kind of a quagmire because they will mess up a step and they will sort of get stuck and then oftentimes it takes us a little while to get it rectified but ultimately, we are able to get it sorted and keep the thing moving through. I look at it as sort of like a really convoluted conveyor belt with folks going down that conveyor belt. You just have to do the right things at the right moment in order to keep things moving.  We will keep you updated on this channel as the situation progresses.