How much time required to pick up visa from PWTC?

[papaya]

How long does it actually take to get the visa stamped in passport at PWTC?  Is it a one-day trip?  A full day trip?

I'm just trying to plan how long we need to be in KL to get the visa stamped in.  Any possible delays that might happen?

Only just realised that our agent, Joy-Stay, is nowhere near PWTC, and the friends we were hoping to stay with are not particularly close to either

[stuurman]

We got it in the morning and were back in Penang late afternoon. I think we spent about an hour in the PWTC building.

[papaya]

That quick??!  Did that include seeing Yvonne first then on to PWTC?

[stuurman]

She met us at the PWTC building and brought the original letter of approval with her.

[scott]

hi,

The visa issuance from the Immigration Unit at the PWTC started in May 2009. The conditional approval letters state PWTC as the place to go.

The address of the Immigration Unit is : Immigration Unit, Ministry of Tourism Malaysia, Level 6, Menara Dato' Onn, Putra World Trade Centre, 45 Jalan Tun Ismail 50695 K.Lumpur.

If you're renewing you need to phone immigration and check where to go, i.e. PWTC or immigration central in Putrajaya.

As of yesterday, the Immigration Unit at PWTC was still not issuing mm2h cards. 

[papaya]

I thought I'd double check with Yvonne at Joy-Stay and she said that, in her experience, normally it takes 2 to 3 hours, though could be shorter or longer depending on queues etc.  She did however say that she knew of a few people who had to return the next day due to the computer system going down.  I think I remember someone posting on this forum of this experience too.

So, if you're flying in from somewhere else, it sounds as if you need to allocate at least 2 days to be safe.

[papaya]

She met us at the PWTC building and brought the original letter of approval with her.

We are semi-DIY so I guess we will have to go to Joy-Stay's office first.  At least, that is what it says on the Joy-Stay website.

[papaya]

As we had to pick up our approval letter from the agent in the southern suburbs of KL  got a taxi down there after 10 in the morning (we were told that traffic would be easier - it was).  Finally arrived at PWTC MM2h office just before 11:00.  Quite a lot of people in there, waited 10 minutes to get to the counters to submit everything, waited about 1 hour and got our passports back with visas all before lunchtime.

Whilst this should be end of story, it wasn't.  After lunch back at the hotel, we were admiring our new visas and I discovered that Mr P still had his departure card in the passport, but I did not    We phoned MM2H office and could not get any sense out of them, so jumped back in another taxi with passports, lousy traffic of course.  At MM2H office the guy just said Oh - it should be okay (without a departure card).  And that was it.  So... just hope for no hassle at the airport tomorrow.

[scott]

hi, papaya,

Congrats on getting the visas.

Easy-peasy.   

I once exited Malaysia for Singapore without a white card, I lost it, and there wasn't a problem.  I hope that you're equally lucky.   

[papaya]

No problem at all.  Went up to the Immigration man at KL low cost terminal, flashed the new MM2H visa page  and he gave me a big smile back and just stamped the exit stamp in the passport.  Just for fun, Mr P did the same and the guy didn't take his departure card.  Maybe they're really not bothered?

[scott]

hi, papaya,

That's great. 

When you re-enter Malaysia flash the mm2h page again, and make sure that the immigration officer stamps you in. You'll get a stamp permitting you to stay till the expiry of your mm2h visa. It usually takes an extra couple of minutes for the immigration officer to get it sorted.