Thailand - Visa on Arrival - for those that have domestic flight connections at BKK

This is a million-dollar question that has not been cracked as yet.

Should you be eligible for Visa on Arrival in Thailand, but say you are connecting to a domestic flight immediately from Bangkok - per the normal procedure, you actually go through immigration (in the transit corner) in Bangkok before proceeding to catch your flight. But then, I don't recall a VOA facility at the transit immigration location. So if you are eligible for VOA, are your only options

1) Go through VOA procedure and proceed through immigration to ENTER Bangkok and go back upstairs to enter security, hence you have to buffer at least 3 hours ? or

2) Get visa BEFORE going to Thailand ?

I think this is the real question that anks329 is trying to ask at
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/thailand/1353554-immigration-bkk-hkt.html

I think everyone has to clear Immigration in BKK. If bags can be interlined then you can clear Customs in HKT.

If you require a Visa On Arrival I assume you would proceed to the area where they do that, in Concourse D just before the ramp up to Immigration. Then you would clear Immigration, then up to level 4 to re-clear security for domestic departures.



http://www.suvarnabhumiairport.com/passenger_guide_transfer_inter2domestic_noBD_en.ph p

This is a million-dollar question that has not been cracked as yet.

Should you be eligible for Visa on Arrival in Thailand, but say you are connecting to a domestic flight immediately from Bangkok - per the normal procedure, you actually go through immigration (in the transit corner) in Bangkok before proceeding to catch your flight. But then, I don't recall a VOA facility at the transit immigration location. So if you are eligible for VOA, are your only options

1) Go through VOA procedure and proceed through immigration to ENTER Bangkok and go back upstairs to enter security, hence you have to buffer at least 3 hours ? or

2) Get visa BEFORE going to Thailand ?

I think this is the real question that anks329 is trying to ask at
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/thailand/1353554-immigration-bkk-hkt.html

If you are entering the Kingdom of Thailand, and BKK is your first landing point, then you will go through immigration in BKK. It doesn't matter if Bangkok is your destination or you're going to any other domestic airport.

If you're eligible for VOA then you need to factor in the time that it might take to queue up and process that visa.

I don;t know if procuring a VOA restricts your use of transit immigration, but quite honestly heading upstairs and then back through security will not take more than 15 minutes with recent immigration lines.

The question anks329 posed was read by me in the same way it was read by transpac. Immigration will be performed in BKK but customs will be gone through once collecting bags in HKT.

Of course, if you are inclined to get a visa before departing to Thailand you don't need to worry about the VOA line.

This was actually a second part of the question that I was going to post. I wanted to first see where I would need to do immigration, and then ask about the visa on arrival. We're not going to have any bags (just carry on), and we should get boarding pass for the domestic (BKK to HKT) flight when we check into our first flight as both are on one ticket. We do have a little more than an hour between the two flights (6:50 am to 8:05 am), so I'm guessing this is going to be enough time for the Visa on Arrival process.

This was actually a second part of the question that I was going to post. I wanted to first see where I would need to do immigration, and then ask about the visa on arrival. We're not going to have any bags (just carry on), and we should get boarding pass for the domestic (BKK to HKT) flight when we check into our first flight as both are on one ticket. We do have a little more than an hour between the two flights (6:50 am to 8:05 am), so I'm guessing this is going to be enough time for the Visa on Arrival process.

I would recommend you get a tourist visa from the Thai embassy/consulate in your home country before you depart. I am not sure you will be able to complete the VoA process, clear Immigration, clear security and make a connecting domestic flight in that time-frame. Sometimes the lines at the VoA desks appear quite large. Having a valid visa in hand would speed your process, and you could then use the mid-concourse Immigration desks.

Please be aware that runway repairs at BKK start 11 Jun and continue for at least 60 days. Arrival/departure delays are expected and MCTs are now recommended at 80 minutes or more.

When I arrive early morning there are a couple of flights coming in from India, and there is a long line at the VOA
If you are Indian, and you get your visa beforehand they give you 30days and they don't delve too much into all those questions about do you have enough money to stay.
The visa on arrival is 15 days

Thanks for all the great replies! Hopefully the process to get a visa in India isn't too long.

So here is a follow up question -

We are saying that if you happen to be on a flight from India or landing in Bangkok around the time there are flights coming in from India and you have to go through VOA, there might be a long line at the VOA queue and you might be better off getting a visa beforehand.

Does the same phenomenon happen with flights coming in from Russia and Taiwan ? Strange thing is - this does not happen with flights from mainland China as Chinese authorities do not allow citizens to leave the country without a visa beforehand in the passports, so Chinese citizens arriving into BKK direct from Beijing/Shanghai etc. would have visa on their hand already.

So here is a follow up question -

Does the same phenomenon happen with flights coming in from Russia and Taiwan ? Strange thing is - this does not happen with flights from mainland China as Chinese authorities do not allow citizens to leave the country without a visa beforehand in the passports, so Chinese citizens arriving into BKK direct from Beijing/Shanghai etc. would have visa on their hand already.

Russian get the 30 days visa examp when entering Thailand same as Thai get when entering Russia. So don't expect the long queues at VOA process.