rollo tomasi

Get a FREE LEBARA sim card, add some credit and simply call direct.

I did it all summer this year and calling Thailand was cheaper than calling the next town!

6p / min to Mobile

1p / min to Landline

12p for an SMS

I would want our Thai Gold card to have a number we can call when we have Visa (as in immagration) problems.

Now we are really stretching things! What do you imagine that a bank issued membership card to a message board will be able to do for you that your embassy can't? What kind of 'immagration' problems might you face?

Problems aquiring a drivers license? What are you on about? Just go there with your work permit and passport and a photo. Take a test and your done! No work permit? Sorry - no license. That's the law and no-one can help you circumvent the law - not even the mighty Thai Visa operation!

Also - if you are living here on a tourist visa then you won't be buying land or a house anytime soon!

Sorry to sound so negative - but some of these posts are hoping for impossibly unrealistic expectations that no amount of the best and most expense legal help can provide you with let alone a bank card!

rollo

Don't forget that a lot of expats live in Pattaya, not only Bangkok. I regularly take the bus from Pattaya to BKK, but occasionally take a taxi directly to the airport for 800 baht. Perhaps a deal could be struck with the 'Red & Blue' colored taxi's for a discount for this service? By the way, from the airport to Pattaya it is usually about 1,200 baht.

ALSO, I highly agree about getting some mobile phone deal going since so much of what is currently available is just promoted in Thai, not English. Perhaps they don't understand how much money is available to a smart company that actually uses understandable English and targets farangs for their promotions!

The above post illustrates exactly what I am talking about when I say that no matter what services you offer - they will not really be used (other than to sell the card in the first place!)

If anyone seriously thinks that an 'arrangement' can be made with the Thai taxi companies to provide a discount on an 800 Baht trip from Pattaya to Bangkok airport then I'm afraid you're in for a shock. Drivers won't drive for less for three reasons...

1 - Because if you go to the trouble of using the card for a 50 Baht discount then the driver knows he won't get a tip!

2 - Expats usually won't want to go to the airport and will therefore deprive the taxi driver of that vaulable "in" at the airport taxi line.

3 - The driver scam of "I bought this trip from my mate for 200 Baht and your gonna have to pay extra" won't work either!

The card labels you as a 'Cheap Charlie!'

A deal with mobile phones? My phone costs 1 Baht a minute for the 20 people I most call and 1 Baht a minute for internet access and email. SMSs are dirt cheap and who is going to SMS directly to a forum that they are not sitting infront of? These services and many like them are already being offered by the big name carriers.

Eventually it becomes a farce. Discount golf when the course is empty and full fare players are in bed asleep! Pick ups at the airport which hotels already provide faster and more efficiently.

Finally - don't assume that many of your members don't already have some of these features as p[art of their existing credit card agreements. I carry an Amex gold card which has all these features anyway and I can honestly say that I don't use any of them!

No - keep it simple. Tie the deal in with a good health insurance policy and promote the "Look what I've got" appeal.

(A whole lot less headaches too!)

It's a nice sounding idea.

To be realistic the real advantage of owning such a card is the cache of carrying it in your wallet. Many of the goods and services are already offered by various companies and websites around the internet or in Thailand.

Also the amopunt of 'services' offered might seem overwhelming at first.

If the card carries a 'Visa Electron' emblem then the application process will be quite strict and the bank will have to insure and underwrite the peripheral services that you intend to offer.

I would focus on a few main features that would inspire people to shell out an annual membership fee - for example discounted health insurance.

Of course you will attract the 'party faithful' who will sign up whatever you do and that's fine, but for a broader appeal to casual forum posters and site visitors you'll have to offer a lot more than simply an email account or discount golf.

In fact this card sounds just like the "Thai Elite Card" and you should try to distance yourselves as much as possible from that fiasco.

Also - and I'm sorry to sound so negative about this, but my experience in this area permits me a certain amount of license to be so - if you are offering goods and services that come as part and parcel of membership to the card then you are accountable to your members for all of them and that means answering questions when things go wrong.

'Outsourcing to professionals' sounds like an easy way out, but as the Elite Card fiasco soon proved - the buck stops with the name on the door.

Finally - I have read some enthusiastic comments, but as a businessman myself I would largely ignore what people say at this stage of development. The stark truth is that if you offered free bungee-jumping in Chiang Rai, everyone would say what a great idea it was, but no-one would actually bother to show up to take advantage of it.

As I said at the beginning - at first your members will sign up simply to have it in their wallet! I would concentrate on that aspect of it's attractiveness. The vanity appeal!

Rollo Tomasi

Hmmm... one lie eh?

1 - I fall down drunk pretty soon after I stop teaching you morons

2 - Black coffee is the only reason I still have a job

3 - It's me that smells, not that crate of month old beer empties

4 - Paying for sex is the only way I can relieve the pain of abject lonliness that consumes me

Now all the people from the old forum at Ajarn who complained about the moderation -

What do you think of THIS new teachers forum!

Four threads locked and it's only just begun!

Ha ha!

He should have been carrying his passport on him, the naughty lad!

'banned for good' is a bit optomistic. This <deleted> need a good smack!