BritTim

1 hour ago, oznomad said:

Fair point.

I have just gone through the process, for a direct comparison, fees included on 10k AUD.

Super Rich 211,500 THB

Transferwise 211,256 THB

 

For me, 244 baht is worth the convenience. Straight in the bank. No carrying cash around, no problems.

As a matter of interest, what date do you do the TransferWise transfer? The AUD has been dropping recently against the baht. I am surprised if you would get over 210,000 THB doing the transaction today.

To apply for a one-year extension, you need 400,000 baht in a Thai bank account for two months prior to the application. However, you can apply for a 60-day extension without financial proof, and then apply for the longer extension at the end of the shorter one.

1 hour ago, dodgybros said:

I had a mate use them recently and I am sure he paid at least 25k, no money, every went smoothly and he has his visa.

This is Thailand. If you want to pay 5K over the market price, many agents are happy to oblige you. Unless you already know the correct price, always probe to see if a lower price is available.

My sympathies on your tribulations. Bureaucracy in third world countries can sometimes be extremely frustrating.

1. Banks are inflexible on this, but do not despair. The police can issue you with a lost bank book report. I once went through this myself when a bank book was accidentally seriously damaged. It is an easy process. Just go to any police station, and explain the situation. They know what to do. You may need to pay a small fee to expedite the process.
2. You seem to have gone the agent route which does simplify matters. Change your agent if they cannot navigate you through these kinds of roadblocks. There are plenty of excellent agents in Pattaya.

My guess is that things like fingerprint data from 20 years ago will probably not be automatically searched when you pass immigration. Certainly, I doubt photographs would trip you up. That said, I would still advise using land crossings for entry. There might be more advanced tests done on those flying into Thailand by the Advance Passenger Information System that connects airlines with immigration.

2 hours ago, JHicks said:

I read that Vietnam was doing it based on nationality. Partial travel bans e.g. in Cambodia have been based on nationality as well. I'm hoping they'll let others in with a requirement to do 14 days' quarantine, but I'm not banking on that any time soon.

As yet, of course, there are no travel bubbles. When they are introduced, the intention should be to encourage travel between countries within the bubble while protecting against Covid-19 infections from countries with active community transmission of SARS-CoV-2 outside the bubble. Passport country should be irrelevant, except that any country might impose additional controls on entry from certain countries. For example, if there were a travel bubble between Thailand and Malaysia, there would be no quarantine requirements when moving from one country to another. However, visa requirements for different nationalities may well differ.

4 hours ago, JackThompson said:

If forced out of Thailand by July 31 (not saying that will happen), it is just a question of what other country wants the spending - who opens up first.  Then we go there, until we can return here.

Based on the trajectory of infections there, maintaining Covid-19 border restrictions in India looks completely pointless. Indian authorities might well take the view that a handful of additional cases makes little difference when 100,000 or more new infections per day are occurring. With the dire economic impact being felt there, it would make sense to open up to foreigners with good incomes.

11 minutes ago, Max69xl said:

Why would anyone with half a brain bring 20k US in bills into Thailand instead of transferring it from abroad and get at least the TT buy rate? And even more if using TransferWise (or Western Union).

To get the SuperRich exchange rate, and avoid the costs of international transfers. Current US$->THB rate at SuperRich is 31.13. What is the best rate you can get for TT, before considering transfer fees?

39 minutes ago, Sterling said:

The way I read that is that an applicant would need to have a contract with an entity in Thailand (not in my case) OR an entity overseas (my employer outside Thailand) who would assign me to work in Thailand.

Yes, but the intent of the Smart T visa is that it facilitate transfer of technical knowhow to Thais. You can have a foreign employer, but to carry out a project in Thailand involving technology transfer. This is not a digital nomad visa with no interaction with Thai staff.

30 minutes ago, Berti said:

Are there any talks if Elite Visa holders will be able to enter Thailand earlier or at the same time than holders of retirement and/or marriage visas?

Family members of Thais and Permanent Residents will get priority. Quite likely, Thailand Elite and retirement visa holders will be allowed back at about the same time.

If your company will insist on you being demonstrably legal then there is no practical solution.

As a digital nomad in Thailand, you are technically in violation of the labour laws. However, in practice, such activities are tolerated as long as you have no Thai employer or client. Immigration is aware that there is no practical way for you to be legal, and that your presence has no deleterious effects on Thailand. They never prosecute.

You would need a visa. Neither a tourist visa nor the Elite visa allows you officially to be a digital nomad. Both are fine in practice. The tourist visa becomes tricky to use for more than a few months. The Thailand Elite visa is a bit costly.

6 hours ago, Hal65 said:

This is actually quite revelatory ask it helps communicate their mindset. Now we know this much:

 

1. Thais first

2. Foreigners married to Thais, or with a permanent Thai address

 

I wonder how the permanent address is determined. Maybe I should get a new ED visa prior to leaving.

You misunderstand the meaning of "Permanent Residence" in this context. It has nothing to do with the address where you live. It means that you have been given indefinite leave to live in Thailand with no need to apply for extensions of stay or do 90-day reports.

3 hours ago, oporhatch said:

one last question..........if say travel from the UK was still not allowed. But from Amsterdam was, would travelling to amsterdam get me around the travel situation. ( as that's the route I take anywhere).   How will they determine my exit destination ??

 

Or would KLM veto it  - before I flew ??

 

There is no stamps on your passport - just a UK passport.  How are  they to know I am not living in Amsterdam ??

 

any thoughts     

While I cannot prove this, I believe there are going to be two groups of countries, Covid-19 free and Covid-19 infested. I believe the Covid-19 free countries will want to revitalise foreign travel, but only insofar as risks of Covid-19 outbreaks can be carefully managed. To facilitate this, there will evolve a travel bubble between countries that are (i) Covid-19 free; and (ii) have similar regulations about entry from Covid-19 infested countries.

In your example, if The Netherlands is both Covid-19 free, and has tight control over entry from Covid-19 infested countries, there could be free movement between Amsterdam and Bangkok. Part of the tight control would be a ban on international transfers from Covid-19 infested countries through Amsterdam. All this is academic because it seems very improbable at this stage that the EU will be Covid-19 free or that there will be strict controls on travel between The Netherlands and other EU countries.

1 hour ago, RichardColeman said:

Sure hope that the Thai authorities show some compassion in that case, as I'm stuck in the UK and my retirement extension is due on January 7th. 

The limited compassion shown will almost certainly be aimed at keeping Thais safe. January is a long way off, and the UK authorities have given lip service to the idea of Covid-19 elimination. However, the UK is not a country that I would bet on being Covid-19 free by the end of the year. Returning will almost certainly be tough if there is still uncontrolled virus transmission.

56 minutes ago, baansgr said:

Are travel bubbles just for citizens of that country...if you are not Japanese you won't be able to return to Thailand?

The idea of travel bubbles is that you build a fence around a group of Covid-19 free countries, allowing free movement between countries inside the bubble, while ensuring tight control of travel from countries with Covid-19 infection to any of the countries inside the bubble. Your nationality is pretty much irrelevant. What matters is the risk of your carrying Covid-19 from one country to another.

15 hours ago, DrJack54 said:

Nobody can answer. My guess is your return 12 September flight is NO WAY.

I have flights Saigon in sept and Oct to Vietnam and Dec 1 to Japan. I would bet money I won't to able to use any of them.

Although September is probably too early for much hope, there is a decent chance Vietnam and Japan might become part of a travel bubble with Thailand at some point. If government figures for Covid-19 are to be believed, Thailand and Vietnam already satisfy most of the requirements that would need to be in place for quarantine free travel. Japan still has some way to go, but they have a virus elimination strategy that can likely succeed in the medium term.

14 minutes ago, BangkokReady said:

With the mention of travel bubbles yesterday, I'm really hoping that a visa run to Svannahket will be a possibility next month without the 14 days either side.

 

It's certainly in the best interest of both Thailand and Laos to allow people on legitimate visa options in need of a border run to get out and in without too much trouble.

I think travel bubbles will evolve. It is highly optimistic to expect this any sooner than a few months from now.

3 hours ago, andre47 said:

In Germany hospitals get paid for a test EUR 35 from the insurances. That seems to cover the costs.

That is interesting. Based on my understanding, that is remarkably cheap. Perhaps, they achieve this by combining samples and only doing individual tests when the initial batched test shows someone is positive. As a government controlled health service, they probably also have a lot of clout in negotiating with pharmaceutical companies, and may have a sweet deal for massive orders.

8 minutes ago, bodga said:

Way  to early  to make any judgments on success yet, it needs  thorough investigation and then we have 2nd  waves which can be way worse than the first and what if that second wave has  little effect on the Uk but then decimates those countries who fared  better earlier.

If a second wave increases the death toll in Vietnam from 0 to 40,000 I will reevaluate my opinion.

15 hours ago, JackThompson said:

The problem in the USA - in NYC specifically, was that covid-positives were put into facilities for the elderly and even hospices.  This happened in other states also - the facilities were Ordered to take them.

 

As well, more is coming out now from "whistleblower" nurses in NYC, who said people like stroke-victims, who were covid-free when admitted, were put in the same rooms and floors with known covid-positive patients.  One nurse took films on her cell-phone to document this, before eventually being fired for speaking about these policies, saying "no one would believe it" if she did not do so (would call her a "conspiracy theorist"). 

 

The large earlier outbreak in Washington-State was similar - spread within a facility for the elderly, which included a hospice. 

 

Thailand's older-population is generally not locked-up in "old folks home" facilities, so the spread-pattern among those most vulnerable would not be comparable.  Then factor in rates of covid co-morbidities per population, and percentage of these populations in the most-affected age-range. .

 

There was certainly an issue with protecting those in care homes. This was probably a leading cause of deaths among wealthy Americans in NYC. However, there are two points I would like to make about this:

• When the health system is under severe stress, and a number of care home staff are infected, it is unrealistic to expect perfect decision making.
• A bigger overall contribution to death among the elderly was those infected at home. Statistics show that the biggest risk factor for Covid-19 is having someone in the same household infected. This is the reason why poor families are disproportionately affected by the virus. They live in larger households, and economic factors mean older members of the family are less likely to be in care homes.

Unlike in the US, some countries (such as the UK) have made shielding and protecting vulnerable populations (the elderly and those with preexisting health conditions) a priority. The concept was that you allow controlled spread through the general population (with little attempt at contact tracing and isolation) to develop herd immunity while preventing vulnerable members of the population from becoming infected. The erroneous belief was that virus elimination was not possible. Allied to this was a decision, initially, to avoid strict lockdowns. Over 40,000 deaths later, there is a general consensus that the UK's strategy was misguided.

An elimination strategy that includes rapid testing and contract tracing allied to early implementation of a strict lockdown has proven in country after country the key to infection control. The UK has belatedly opted to try for virus elimination, but they are starting from a situation where this will be extremely difficult, not least because they still appear to lack the political will to implement the strategy seriously.

Countries like New Zealand, Taiwan and Hong Kong (even China) have had the right idea. In the long run, virus elimination not only saves many thousands of lives, but also allows faster recovery from the inevitable economic damage wrought by the pandemic. 

5 hours ago, BritManToo said:

So you can't tell the difference between 'victims' and 'troublemakers'?

It is often the case (as with the demonstrations against systemic racism) that victims become troublemakers when they agitate for just treatment. If you believe victims should quietly accept their fate, we hold different views on human rights. 

1 hour ago, unheard said:

Contact tracing in a prison? ????

Although you may doubt this, prisons attempting social distancing do have a pretty good idea of who is in each prison wing, and the staff who have had contact with prisoners. Contact tracing in prisons is more likely to be successful than figuring out who used the same supermarket and gas station as someone else in the general population.