rndz

Your comment about an ATM in Thailand makes me a little uncertain if you'll be in the US or Thailand mostly, but we're faced with a similar situation and we're using TD Bank. One of their account tiers (I forget the name) has free checking with a minimum required balance and allows one free international wire transfer per month. It still requires you to visit a branch in person. So, you could have the direct deposit into this account and then make the monthly transfers. If you can't or don't want to do that, you could always use Wise to transfer the money to the Thai account. We use both methods, and I've noticed there's little difference in the net cost. Wise advertises good exchange rates, but you'll pay a fee for each checking-to-checking transfer. The TD Bank wire transfers usually show up the next business day. Sometimes the Wise transfers are instantaneous, and for some reason they've never been able to explain to me sometimes they are delayed for 2 or 3 days, so plan for this if the funds are needed in the destination account immediately.

Had our interview in June cancelled because of an interpreter no-show (we had contracted someone from a local agency to be available by phone). Showed up at rescheduled 11/29 interview and a second interpreter we hired was standing by waiting for our call. Instead, USCIS interviewer called another number somewhere within the organization and was connected to an interpreter almost immediately. Wish we had been this lucky 5 months ago but we were approved and I guess all's well that ends well.

During the recorded answering spiel, say "Infopass" and you'll get into a queue to speak to an agent - at least that has worked for me as recently as last week. We're in the same situation - didn't think there was a need to apply for AP, then my wife had a death in the family. Good luck.

We're November filers and just had something strange happen. Had our interview in June - our interpreter didn't show. The interviewer decided that a hastily-arranged substitute didn't meet his standards and the interview was canceled, with a follow-up NOA indicating that it would be rescheduled. Have heard nothing from the USCIS on the application or new interview date, but in the meantime a family situation almost requires us to travel back to Thailand (we didn't apply for AP with the AOS submission). Last week we submitted the AP application with the hopes that we could have it expedited after it is received. Today we received two separate NOA's for the I-485. The first one notifies us of a rescheduled AOS interview mid-October. The second one cancels the same interview. The Notice Date on both is the same. It seems that these NOA's arrived too quickly to be related to the AP filing - the Notice Date is about 4 business days after I mailed the I-131. But I can't imagine a scenario where an interview would be scheduled and then canceled on the same day.