WorkingTourist

The last time I got a SETV they gave me the paper shown below, basically saying that SETV is no guarantee of being allowed into Thailand and they could demand to see both money and return flight ticket.

I have heard that some land crossings require people to have a visa (although the only episode I am familiar with, they said “next time”), so here a SETV may be required, but from the note I got, it sounds like if for some reason they do not want to grant you entrance, it doesn’t really matter if you have a visa or not.

[…] if you leave on the actual 'admitted until' date stamped in your passport, unless you fly after midnight when legally they could.

I often fly after midnight, so the date of my flight is normally the day after my visa expires. I go through immigration before midnight, and never had an issue.

Asking to see a ticket or reservation seems to be quite standard, not just for Thailand, and I’ve always had to provide them with a copy of mine (and it’s also stated under required documents).

However, a few times it has been a one-way ticket, and once it was just an unpaid reservation. This did not cause any issues.

There were a good few others who were asking questions regarding quite serious over stays and never to be heard from again. Perhaps that are sharing some state provided accommodation in Bangkok without Internet access?

It’s quite common that people ask questions and never follow up with what they ended up doing, so I wouldn’t put too much into it.

If you have specific members in mind, you can see when they were last active on their profile page.

There seem to be a whole lot of people on this forum, and other forums, that always refer to biometrics and that it should be a dead giveaway when people talk about changing their name by deed poll.

But all the biometrics does is to compare your picture stored in the chip with the picture taken when going through the immigration.

I think you misunderstand what is implied.

If immigration have a list of banned people, and for these banned people, they have picture, retina scan, and/or fingerprint, then when you enter Thailand, they can check your biometrics (either obtained at the spot or read from your passport’s chip) against their database, and even if you changed your name, they would still be able to find your previous record.

That said, it would be a lot easier if they could look up your current passport number and get a list of any previous passport numbers associated with it. I assume that countries generally keep a log of what passports they have issued to each person which is either keyed on an identification number or “given name” (rather than current name), so it would be trivial to make such information available.

Of course I might be naive in thinking that such data is actually available to the Thai immigration authorities, so they are left with name, date of birth, and nationality as their database key, but could still attempt a facial/retinal/fingerprint recognition against their blacklist for everyone entering Thailand.

Seems there are a two unknowns here:

1. Is there a database where it would be possible to lookup a passport number and see any previous passport numbers issued to this identity (and/or is this history already in the biometric chip)?

2. Does the Thai immigration system use passport number as database key?

The answer to the first one is unclear, but I do see a few people (on the internet) indicate that history is indeed available for some passports.

The answer to the last one seems to be no. The database key seems to be name + date of birth. This would make sense if the system was designed before globally interconnected computers.

Given the latter, a name change would seem to give you a new immigration history.

They have photo recognition technology these days , you would have to change your face as well as your name

Isn’t it more likely that the new passport number is linked to the old one?

Changing your name does not break the link, so when they enter your new passport number, they’ll get a list of any old passport numbers issued for this person, and there they’ll see that one of them has been banned.

Just keep going with the 60 days tourist visa.

Yes, with the ability to do a 30 day extension or get a multi-entry visa which gives 60 days each time you re-enter (valid for 6 months), this is a somewhat acceptable solution.

I would probably be willing to pay 10-20,000 baht to avoid a border run, of which I would at most do two per year, which for me puts the value of the PE visa at 20-40,000 baht/year.

In order to justify the membership, I’ve tried to add the value of the other services to this (fast track, lounge access, limousine pickup, etc.), all this has a known value because everyone can buy it, we can even add the cost of a personal assistant to schedule our pickups etc., but there’s still a long way up to 60-80,000 baht/year for these services.

If it’s not clear, I really do wish I could justify the membership and I had hoped that you could supply me with some good arguments to rationalize it but with my current pattern it just doesn’t make sense to pay so much to avoid doing a 30 day extension twice a year, or even a border run. If I was staying longer in Thailand, I think it would be more attractive, which is ironic, because above you said that seeing it as an “easy long term visa, is a bit short sighted”, but really, this is the only value I see in their package, because it’s the only thing you cannot get outside the Thai Elite program.

According to the Bangkok Post article their cost per card is 130,000-140,000 baht/year which, given the above, is rather puzzling. How exactly are they spending all that money? If we take the PE visa out of the equation, it seems we should be able to offer all the same benefits, using already existing subcontractors, at a price significantly lower than what Thai Elite charges. With the golf and spa benefits, Thai Elite actually charge 128,400 baht/year.

It is ideal for those who do not need to worry about the "numbers", those who travel in and out often and want to feel welcome each time they come back

I don’t worry about the numbers, but I nonetheless need to justify the expense to myself Like buying a 20,000 baht/night hotel room, sure I can afford it, but is it really worth it?

Do you know that you can buy VIP meet & greet with fast track immigration for about a thousand baht?

Here’s the description from one such service:

• Our friendly Airport Hostess or host will meet & greet with you at the arrival gate […]
• She or he will help with carry-on luggage and lead you to the exclusive fast track immigration counters, where he or she will assist with immigration documents […]
• After collecting your luggage from the Bangkok Airport baggage claim area, she or he will then guide you through customs and deliver your bags to one of our limousines that just then pulls up in front of the arrival hall of the Airport. […]

To me that sounds like exactly the same as what Thai Elite does to make you feel welcome and the market seems to value this at around a thousand baht.

those who think that even a single hour at an embassy or immigration is too much, etc...

You make it sound like you’re at a completely different level. Would you be willing to pay 20-50,000 baht to avoid waiting at the hospital? Or any other place with a queue? I am thinking properly not. Waiting in line is tedious, but most rational people won’t pay a fortune to avoid it, regardless of how much money they have.

Also worth mentioning that there are VISA agencies that you can pay to handle your immigration office interactions and they do seem to have some fast track capabilities.

The various advantages of the membership are explained on the website […]

OK, thanks for clarifying. I am familiar with the bullet lists, but wasn’t sure if perhaps you referred to less tangible benefits, for example having the Thai Elite concierge get seats to the normally fully booked Nahm with just a few hours notice.

TheSiemReaper pointed me to this article in Bangkok Post about potential new benefits of the program being considered.

It has some interesting numbers, like the current expense per card, and it says they “sold 30-40 individual memberships since it increased the fee to 2 million” which I believe is about two years ago, then they go on to say that the new perks are “aimed at boosting sales by at least 10% in 2017”. So that translates to a goal of two additional memberships in 2017?

Personally I am very much on the fence about the card. I generally visit Thailand twice a year for 90 days each time. Immigration is handled in less than 20 minutes but getting a 60 day tourist visa beforehand and a 30 day extension when in Thailand is a minor nuisance which would be nice to avoid, but not really a 50,000 baht nuisance. My problem is not with affording the membership, but justifying it.

In a previous post gerry1101 said “There is much more to the membership than only the PE visa”

But to me all of these perks are meaningless because anyone can buy them, and cheaper than what you effectively pay via your TE membership. Adding more of this stuff (as it sounds like they plan) isn’t going to make the card any more attractive or easier to justify.

They need to add privileges that cannot be bought for money, like they have already done with the PE visa and immigration fast track (OK, the latter is for sale), and it sounds like they are considering adding another exclusive privilege with the land ownership.

Curious if gerry1101 can elaborate on the comment of his that I quoted above or if people can think of other privileges they could add to the card that would make it more attractive.

As said, I am very much on the fence, since I would avoid trips to the Thai embassy, immigration, and can stay for more than 90 days, but it’s hard not to look at the numbers. Best case I would avoid two visits to immigration, two visits to the Thai embassy, and one border run. For this, I will pay 100,000 baht or 20,000 baht per item in the previous list in order to not having to do it.

Why not address your questions to the Thai Elite people?

Sometimes you get more honest/detailed replies from existing customers, say their departure lounge is just a waiting room with free water and miles away from the departure gates, they probably have a more flattering way to describe it

But I’ll send them an email, I had previously looked at their contact page, but only saw basically an application form, thanks for the link.

4. No need to repeat one. You get a new one year entry every time you enter the country for the 5 years the visa valid. It should be possible to get a total stay of 6 years if you do an entry just before the visa expires.

So they check your 5 year visa added to your passport and then stamp your passport with an expiry date one year in the future?

There is only a 5 year membership for a fee of 500k baht or 20 years for 2 million baht. See: http://www.thailandelite.com/glimpse.php

The 5 year is 500k incl. VAT with no fees.

The 20 year membership is 2m excl. VAT and an annual fee of 20k also excl. VAT.

That’s why I wrote first one as 100k/year versus 127k/year (but I missed that annual fee is also excl. VAT) for the second one.

It seems the extra 28,400 baht/year buys you 24 times golf and spa plus a medical check up.

I seek some clarification about the Privileged Visa process.

As I understand it:

1. When going to Thailand, you tell TE about your arrival, and they’ll greet you at the gate, and you get a one year visa on arrival with no hassles.
2. If staying more than 90 days, a TM47 form needs to be filled out, which can be given to TE staff with passport, and they’ll do the actual immigration office reporting/queueing.
3. If staying more than a year, renewal of the visa is required and can be done for 1.900 baht.
4. When leaving the country, the one year visa is voided, but a new one will be issued upon return (i.e. repeat item 1).

Is this correctly understood?

One place describes the visa as “Renewable 5 Yrs Multiple Entry Privilege Visa”, so this sounds like there would be just one visa for the duration of the five years, presumably with one year stamps given on each entry.

Can you enter Thailand the day before the TE membership expires and get a full year, effectively making the Easy Access Membership last 6 years?

Furthermore:

5. Free limousine service from and to the airport (24 times/year on the Easy Access Membership).

As I am always going to Chiang Mai (via BKK), I would like to have confirmed that both item 1, 2, and 5 are all offered in Chiang Mai as well as BKK, correct?

And then there is:

6. Departure Lounge with several services available

Is this using an existing airport lounge? If so, which one? If not, what services are available? E.g. shower, food, etc. and is it only BKK or also CNX?

Lastly, if I only care about hassle-free visa then I assume the Easy Access membership is the better deal at 100,000 baht/year versus the Individual Membership which is 100,000 baht/year + VAT + 20,000 baht annual fee = 127,000 baht/year.

What is more annoying to me is that, now I have stopped using it, they keep sending me demands for further payment by SMS text but do not accept replies, nor do their previous text numbers work, nor does the current 1147 text address work (for me), nor does their Line address work (for me), and their website doesn't have a working English version ! So much for a communications company.

In all fairness, you have to properly terminate your contract with them and give them back their equipment.

Just go to their booth in Kad Suan Kaew to sort it out (and bring your router and maybe your last bill or contract).

As an update to my comment above (#10) where I said that I had lots of issues with Sinet:

For a little over a month, I have been using my condominium’s shared TOT connection (which seems to offer about 10/10 Mbit per condo/router) and my internet experience has been vastly improved since I paid Sinet for a 24/5 Mbit connection.

Since then I have gotten an AppleTV, so my use of streaming has even increased.

I’ve been having Sinet for the last 3 months.

I’ve had a handful of shorter outages, it’s not uncommon I have issues streaming from Apple Music, for 3-5 days I couldn’t keep a connection to my server in the UK (e.g. ssh connection, connecting to IRC bouncer, etc.), I’ve had lots of buffering when streaming videos (news sites, YouTube, etc.).

I picked the 24/5 Mbit option since that should be for people who want good international speeds, but while my experience hasn’t been terrible, it’s not something I would recommend.

Though I have no experience with any of the other providers, maybe it’s a general problem, as apart from the handful of shorter outages, the issue is about connectivity to international servers, as doing a speed test to Bangkok generally shows excellent throughput.

I am using Sinet, had a rocky start with the connection being unstable, but once that was fixed has been relatively smooth sailing however I am hardly ever getting the advertised speeds.

I am meant to be on 28 mb download, 8 upload, and these are what i just got now. Less than half what I am meant to be getting.

You are testing the speed to a server in Yangon (Myanmar). Try test against Bangkok, North America, and/or Europe.

rent is the future

for all of those that thinking paying in advance is cheaper in the long run ...

bad neighbors ... try to sell it to someone else

no regulations about zoning, so if your neighboor want to start a garage / karaoke / good luck with that

DD goes a long way and will avoid these issues. I built our property 9 years ago for just under 3Mil, to rent the equivalent would be 25K a month, If renting that money was wasted. I don't even care to think about the value now because of its close proximity to the beach.

I assume “DD” is an initialism for “due diligence”, and would tend to agree. Also, buying versus renting isn’t just about money, owning your home gives security and more possibilities in what can be done (e.g. major changes, or even renting it out to others).

For me, I definitely want to own my home, though that excludes a Thai house, because I can’t actually own the land, so for now I’m going with a Thai condo and have done my due diligence to limit nasty surprises in the future.

Got lots of cash waiting for the stock market to dive too.

I doubt all of this will happen soon. I couldn't get that lucky but I am certain to increase my portfolio a fair amount.

Google Spreadsheets allows you to lookup stock and currency prices (via Google Finance) for arbitrary dates.

So you can build a spreadsheet with your fictive portfolio, had you invested your cash when they became available for investing, and then compare this strategy (“time in the market”) with your actual strategy (“timing the market”).

I think you’ll find that “time in the market” is generally the winning strategy; and listening to the experts, timing the market is pretty difficult, sure you can say that the market has taken a dive of 10% after the fact, but are you sure this is a local minimum, or will it fall further?

I am still in BKK for a few days so opening a bank account is possible. However, I'm a little unclear about how the SWIFT process. My bank tells me there is a $35.00 fee for an international wire transfer as well as an up to 4 day delay. Am I missing something about how all of this works?

I have Wells Fargo and Krungthai Bank.

It costs $45 for a wire transfer, I think it was “only” $20 when I set it up…

Unfortunately I have to call the bank to initiate a wire transfer, but the transfer is effectively same day, e.g. I have called Wells Fargo at midnight (Thai time) and the following day, the money was there, i.e. less than 12 hours.

If you want to give your girlfriend an ATM card then you can have two accounts with your Thai bank, give her the ATM card for one of them, then transfer the majority of the money to the other, and use internet banking to transfer between them.

If it’ll be cheaper in the long-run depends on how much she’ll use the card (ignoring currency fluctuations).

I pay 200 baht/year for the Krungthai ATM/debit card but no fees when used except for inter-region ATM fees.

would I still be allowed to transfer the money back to the UK if I wished

As a foreigner transferring money out of Thailand you normally need a document stating the source of funds.

If the amount is significant, I would ask the seller to include a copy of their FET form together with the sales agreement, or more likely, insist that the payment be sent from a Thai bank (you can likely do a GBP currency account to avoid exchange rate fluctuations).

AirAsia does CNX → DMK for 790 baht and Bangkok Airways does BKK → HKT for 1,500 baht.

Although you’ll have to add luggage fees if you have checked in bags, and timing the flights might be a challenge, but seems more attractive to me than 22 hours in a bus for about the same (granted, you are asking for cheaper options).

Update: If you go by plane there is also the airport shuttle to consider. But if you’re on a tight budget, be aware that Phuket is one of the more expensive places that you can go.

Nervosa... Can you give a little more information about the good Isaan restaurant that is 2KM from Chiang Mai?

Don’t know what Nervosa was talking about, but I normally go to Khrua Wiang Bua for Isaan food.