gearbox

It is short of details bit it may properly remove one of deterrents. TP and the insurance are still there, probably next to go from January....if the number of arrivals doesn't improve.

If you arrive after 1st of December you may get your PCR test charge refunded. It is usually priced in the Test&Go package.

I guess the difference is SHA+ hotels are no longer required, but why booking of transportation? Test the tourists at the airport and let them go if negative. Some may want to use public transport.

Yes, much better to invite the Democratic Republic of Congo....it even has "democratic" in the name! Corruption perception index - number 170 out of 180 countries. Makes Thailand to look pretty good. https://www.transparency.org/en/countries/democratic-republic-of-the-congo

Sure it is...and anyone here who strongly prefers to live in a democratic country should consider moving to a country in the democracy list...for example Iraq.

The Sandbox is pretty much the same as Test & Go, the difference is you have to stay in the same hotel 7 days, and need to show your ATK test result to the reception. In the Phuket hotels the Sandbox and Test&Go visitors are mixed in the same hotels, where I was staying nobody was checking me whether I was coming back to the hotel to sleep.

That's not true anymore. You can book your sha+ hotel with Agoda (many with free cancelation), then get a SHABA certificate from the hotel and then pay online the PCR test at the airport via the PSAS site. You don't need the hotel or the PCR test to be prepaid beforehand to get a TP QR code. The airport transfers can be prepaid with the hotel or you can get sha+ taxi at the airport. If you emailed the hotel and they don't give you a SHABA certificate within 48 hours just cancel the booking and book another hotel. Of course if you want someone to "package" this, they'll add extra charges, how big are the charges, depends how greedy they are. I didn't packaged anything and paid total of 10k baht for 7 days sandbox stay (4 star hotel with breakfast included + PCR + airport transfer).

I spent 7 nights in the Phuket sandbox, and I'm back in Samui since late last week. Compared to Phuket Samui is dead as Dodo. Some of the beach bars in Patong were 100% packed during the day, the alcohol flowing freely, the staff running around to get extra chairs and tables. Bangla road night time looks surreal compared to any place in Samui. No "certified green zones", "blue zones" "whatever colour zones" and tons of other hard to follow restrictions - are they expecting in Samui the tourists to read and memorize this cr1p? The sha+ and the other hotels are attractively priced, my 4 star hotel had happy hours serving great cocktails 170 baht for 2 cocktails. One would have hard time to find any good place in Samui serving cocktails in this price range. Before covid Phuket was still getting more tourists than Samui, but now the relative difference is huge - there are many more times tourists in Phuket. Looks like in the Surat Thani province they have no idea what to do to attract more business.

I don't need to consider myself a foreigner, I'm a foreigner, and I'm happy with that. No problems with the Thais treating me as a foreigner - in the end I'm here on non-O retirement visa, which I consider a sort of tourist visa, how would the Thais treat tourists - as foreigners. I seek little interaction with the Thais - have nothing against them, just have better things to do. Same as not learning Thai language - just have more interesting things to learn. So as long as myself and Thailand are in a deal and we keep sticking to the deal terms, both parties should be happy.

He should have been prepared but the map thing is another dumb "invention" by the Thai immigration. There is a thing called address, which is used in most of the countries to find physical location. If Lazada and Thailand Post can find where I live from the address provided, the immigration should be able to do the same. Again it is what it is.

Somehow I much doubt that this was the initial intention for the bulk of the farangs moving to Thailand. They were dreaming in the home countries to come here and support extended families in the sticks and so on? By the time they have figured what's going on, they were too much invested to have other choices.

This is one of the monumental design errors of the Thailand Pass. They wanted for some reason to use a common file format (png/jpeg) and decided to "outsource" the conversion to the common format to the end user. Big mistake! There are potentially millions of TP users with varying degrees of computer literacy, many struggling to figure out what to do or what they have done wrong. Instead they should have allowed the users to upload files in variety of formats (at least pdf in addition to jpeg/png), then the backend can detect the type of files uploaded, and convert in the background if conversion is needed without any user interaction. Easy peasy, done many times before.

People need to take into account that when using online converters the documents are first uploaded there, then converted. I absolutely won't upload my bank pdf statements to be converted by some random online site. I use command line tools under Linux to do the conversion, it is very easy and flexible. The same tools can be installed under MacOS/IoS and Windows as well. https://imagemagick.org/script/download.php Google "imagemagick convert pdf"

The most farangs do is exchange of money for goods and services. Forget about this contribution rubbish. When I buy groceries in Australia do I need to wai the supermarket workers because they are "contributing" something, providing food to keep me alive? Nope, we have a deal, money in exchange for food. In fact some here are getting really good deals, like wifes younger than their daughters, try to price this in the home countries. There are some real volunteers contributing selflessly, but they are few and far between.

and: 4) If you buy insurance for the whole time period of your extension, and you plan to go outside of Thailand and come back within that time period, make sure you have a "multi trip" insurance for your circumstances. This one almost got me with one of the Thai insurances, would have been void when I go to Australia and come back. If the land border between Thailand and Laos is opened, you can go for a day to Laos and come back, your insurance is not valid anymore if it is Thai single trip insurance.

I went to Europe in July and came back last week. The tickets to Europe are pre-covid prices. I'm in the Phuket Sandbox, costs me 10000 baht (7 days 4 star hotel with breakfast, 1 x PCR test 2400 baht, sha+ taxi from the airport booked via the hotel 900 baht) . My gf was allowed to come and join me after my PCR test was confirmed negative. The other extra cost was 45 euro for a PCR test in Europe, I could do it cheaper in Turkey but couldn't be bothered. The hotel in Phuket would be significantly more expensive pre covid times. The accommodation in Phuket is still a bargain, the prices are up since my last visit in March, but nowhere near normal times. The negative was that it rained 6 out of 7 days ???? Limited amount of sunshine collected, many cocktails drank. Overall vast improvement in cost compared to my 15 days ASQ quarantine in January - paid around 45k baht for ASQ jail. Of course the Thailand Pass is a hassle, hopefully will go away soon together with the PCR testing when landing in Thailand.

One can get a rtn ticket for around $900 SYD-CNX in Feb/March next year...but pretty much no chance whatsoever during the Dec/Jan school holidays. A friend of mine had to travel urgently (within a week) to BKK from Sydney a few years ago during the school holidays...paid $1600 return.

When...during the December/January school holidays? Yeah...

One thing I forgot about...the number of people coming and covid positive after testing is small...the government should contract a couple of hotels in the popular destinations and put the inbound asymptomatic positive cases there free of charge. This would shore up the confidence in would be tourists - small price to pay but can impact the numbers coming quite a bit. The insurers around the world won't change their policies just because the Thai government has some weird ideas.

Thailand Pass is 95% useless, as the airlines don't use it and want the same documentation presented (the one used for TP), same is valid at many places at the Thai airports. They are just checking how much pain the tourists are prepared to bear, and adjusting the measures on the fly when the tourists are not coming. Sooner or later the TP and PCR on arrival will be gone, but the high season will be gone too....May 2022 is coming and they'll need to compete with the Mediterranean destinations again.

I very much doubt that you can buy 2 X return tickets before covid for $1400 SYD-BKK to start with... that's the peak travel season and I haven't seen tickets sub $1200 especially if booked a month or two in advance. There is a Jetstar sale "return leg free" for $379 Sydney-Phuket, travel period 13 Jan-13 Apr starting tomorrow. Easy to fly to Chiang Mai from there.

I have a bicycle and a foldable kayak to move around, but I'm not aware of any airline which allows more than 40kg checked in baggage at reasonable price. I used the train to move with my bicycle, would be good to hear if any airline offers check-in baggage with reasonable surcharges, the air coverage is better than the train one.

I'm currently in Phuket and there are tourists coming....just not enough. Once the figures are collected for a month or two I expect the Thailand Pass and the PCR test on arrival to go away. The risks seems to be too small to be worth handling with obstacles like these. My prediction is Jan 2022 for proper reopening.

And how did that one worked out? Today is 18 November 2021, there is still shortage of vaccines.

Pfizer wasn't even approved by the US FDA until mid December 2020. Again, Thailand is not in an unique position, none of middle and lower income countries managed to secure enough mRNA vaccines. They should have purchased as many vaccines as possible (including the Chinese), but got caught asleep at the wheel, blinded by their early containment success (same as Australia), not taking into account the long porous land borders they have. Once the covid came back in Jan/Feb and April this year they were in catching up state. The same happened in Australia, people got shoved AZ vaccines down their throats, although clearly many preferred Pfizer shots.