SooKee

I've found Wise to be much more erratic these days. For me delays seem to happen more frequently on Mondays, on the 1st of a month (both of which I try to avoid, especially Mondays) and when there is a lot of currency fluctuation. In those cases the normal transfer time of seconds can go to hours, or even days. I do wonder if when they give you a guaranteed rate, if your exchanged currency drops even further below the guaranteed rate, they hope you will cancel and try the transfer again at the now much lower rate. I always wait it out. You guaranteed it, you pay it! I still find Wise pretty decent overall but not as good as they were as the delays and their charge increases become more frequent.

My theory from the outset with this was that IF it ever did happen, the suppliers would adopt the view that people are used to paying the current prices, would not pass the tax reduction on to the consumer and would simply pocket the difference as extra profit as a result of them having to pay less tax.

Looks like this never happened then. When they announced this I noted the prices of 8 wines that I normally buy as a go to in the low, medium and high price brackets. As of September 2024 the prices remain unchanged except for the normal 1-2 baht variance between retailers. What a surprise 🙄

IIRC, MRT can get Senior Card, BTS cannot.

Cheers. The TM8 / photo is already done, planned to do a Permit when I renewed my Extension at CW 5 months ago, just wasn't certain we'd go and I'd wasted one already the year before. No idea why I had it in my head that it needed to be in the passport before being stamped out, like I say, never had to give it any thought before. I definitely wouldn't forget, just making the point that it's not obtaining one that will cause problems, not being stamped out without one (e.g. the problem doesn't arise on exit, it arises on on re-entry). I'm mildly paranoid about the day I go Immigration will have a complete systems outage and can't for some reason do one 😞 I'd imagine they could do an emergency / temporary paper version in that case. Yes I agree, anything but CW, once a year is more than enough!

This may sound bizarre as I've literally never given it any thought before given I've always had a Re-Entry permit in my passport before exiting Thailand previously. For some reason I'd always thought that not having the permit in your passport before going through Immigration Passport Control would lead to your Extension being invalidated. Having checked through and seen multiple posts that the Permit desk is AFTER Passport Control it twigged that it's not passing through Immigration to leave Thailand without the Permit that cancels your Extension, it's boarding the flight and then trying to get back in without one that does it. I've seen multiple posts about there never being any queues for the Permit and, while I'd rather have the Permit in my passport before going, I really can't be asked to trek to Immigration at Chaeng Wattana, I'm assuming nothing has changed at DM Airport? How is DM these days? Horrendous check-in queues still or have they got their act together since the chaos of Covid? Lucky I checked too, seems one has to do an online digital arrival card for Malaysia (MDAC) now too, would have missed that one!

It's all going Pete Tong eh? 🤣

Customs seem to have managed to get their act together with charging VAT on all parcels now, rather than just those over the THB 1,500 threshold. Alcohol duty reduction seems to be taking longer. Wouldn't surprise me at all if the price doesn't get reduced for the customer ("they're used to paying that price so why should we") and will just increase the profits for the suppliers. Happy to be proved wrong, wait and see I guess 🙄

I've had two parcels come within the last 2 weeks, value below the THB 1,500 threshold that applied for Duty / VAT previously. VAT of 7% charged on both. Easy enough to pay though as they didn't retain the parcels at the post office for me to go any pay, merely attached the VAT invoice to the parcels in a plastic pouch. Paid by scanning the QR code. So it looks like Customs have got the systems up and running to do what the PM announced. Not sure they would send the parcels before the VAT was paid if there was a significant amount to pay though, in my case it was THB 7 on one and THB 35 on the other. I suspect the cost of collecting the VAT far outweighed the sum I paid, especially the THB 7! Interesting comment about DHL. I've see so many horror stories about couriers that I have always avoided them like the plague. Had no choice recently as DHL was the only shipping option but I have to say I was very impressed with the service. Regular updates on the parcel tracking, notification that duty / VAT needed to be paid (THB 350 in this case), downloadable assessment and invoice, link to pay by multiple methods, immediate receipt on payment (even a very detailed email from 2C2P / Prompt pay). DHL added on THB 214 for processing the parcel, I don't use a car or even a bike in Bangkok now so it would have cost me THB 120 return trip to the post office to pay the duty and then THB 20 for Thai Post service charge. It was easily worth the THB 74 for me simply to not have to trek to the post office. Pleasantly surprised, I was fearing the worst!

I withdrew from a Bangkok Bank ATM at the end of May as the Kasikorn ATM next to it was out of cash, came in handy for that reason. It threw up a message saying that from X (can't recall, didn't look too closely) date in June there would be a charge. Not sure what the point was in promoting it then doing it just for a month or two. Trial run maybe so they can assess the usage to iron out the details for any permanent arrangement, or just another TIT initiative 🙄

It seems that even what customers see on their portals is different! "Guide to your insurance cover" downloads a completely different document to General Conditions a document that, for some customers, is very elusive!!

By way of a final update, and given the time constraints, I plan to renew my April policy for 2024/25 as a stop-gap with an increased deductible then take a more leisurely approach to finding a new provider with my new broker, AOC. At the moment New Health International are looking favourite but AOC will also start handling policies from AXA later in the year, that's another option too, there may be others. Having asked AA World to get a specific answer from April about the reason for my premium increase if, as they said, that the zone change is NOT affecting renewals (the exact opposite of AOC), they eventually sent me an April one page flyer (a typical insurance company blah blah blah document) about all the things that MIGHT influence premium increases. Nobody seems able (more likely willing) to provide a specific answer to a very specific question. For the industry standard 10% or so increase the pamphlet would probably cut it but for a 30% hike I'd expect a better and more detailed explanation. The region change is not mentioned anywhere at all! It does seem that region change is a topic that April seem keen to avoid, at least insofar providing customers with any information about it. Thailand is however listed as being in region 2 in the 2024 General conditions and there's a specific example given in another document, a help sheet for choosing zones of cover, both of which were supplied by a broker that I wasn't even with at the time. Neither of these documents had been supplied to me by April or anyone else and were part of a bundle of 4 documents that AOC advised me should be supplied by a broker along with the renewal notice under the European Distribution Directive. Doing the bare minimum seems to be the order of the day in some cases and even April didn't send me the documents when they emailed my renewal notice directly, nor did they make any reference to their existence! IMO it's definitely worth discussing with a reputable broker, one able and willing to provide more than superficial replies, in order to get the full low down on the current situation with April and, for instance, exactly how the costs of the region change (in total about 40% I'm told) for Thailand will be recouped.

I just sent you a DM.

As I said, for me it's not (probably why I posted that it wasn't in the first place), I say again the ONLY documents showing for me under My Documents are: My Insurance Certificate Insurance Card Guide to your insurance cover (this is not general conditions) Information notice - the processing of your personal data (GDPR) SEPA Direct Debit Mandate It may be that what you see under My Documents is not the same, it wouldn't surprise me given the shambles that is April administration.

I expected it would too, however while you can access some documents from the April customer portal, your certificate and "Guide to your insurance cover" along with a direct debit mandate and some blurb about data protection, the document you actually want, "My Health International - General Conditions 2024", isn't one of them, in fact, I couldn't find it on their site at all (that said, I didn't spend much time trying to find it, better things to do). Your broker SHOULD provide this document along with some others, with your renewal notice, needless to say, my current broker (now ex-broker) didn't! They provided JUST the renewal notice and vert little else after. Bare minimum is probably being generous!