Kenn

Hi Frmbkk,

Thank you for your message which was well received. We did not have a definite answer yet as we were still looking into this with the supplier. It seems now they have changed their plans so we had to remove the flight search engine.

I agree it's unfortunate to see this feature go and we would like to offer a one stop shop for all your travel needs. We will look into a new system but only want to offer this if we are confident it offers the best rates in a simple search.

Many thanks

Hi Guys,

Just wanted to let everybody know that we, Painai.com, now have Agoda included in our hotel price comparison.

As our site aims for users in Thailand, having Agoda included will often result in even better prices for our users thus making Painai.com the one stop for all hotel bookings.

Cheers!

Hi Guys,

Also give our search a try, it is similar to Kayak but we have a few different sites included in the comparison, always worth a try:

http://www.painai.com/flights.html

Hi John,

I can definately recommend the Tubkaak Resort, it's directly on (in my opinion) the nicest beach in Krabi. The resort itself has an intimate character which is nice, no mass production.

Check it out: http://hotels.painai.com/Hotel/The_Tubkaak...esort_Krabi.htm

Try our flight search: http://www.painai.com/flights.html

I checked for you and I see Jet flights on multiple dates for 25k including taxes (the site shows BA for 23k but that's excluding taxes).

Cheers

I can definately recommend the Tubkaak Resort, a boutique resort directly on a very nice beach. Only drawback is that it's not very close to town, check it out:

http://hotels.painai.com/Hotel/The_Tubkaak...esort_Krabi.htm

Hey Heyal,

I would recommend the Amari City Lodge in Soi 19 for this budget, perfectly located with direct access to the BTS and MRT and the price is very nice with decent clean rooms, check them out:

http://hotels.painai.com/Hotel/City_Lodge_...tel_Bangkok.htm

Cheers guys, thanks for all the suggestions.

Will pass them all on and see if we can get them implemented.

Thanks for all your feedback guys, much appreciated.

@Thaiphuket

As far as I'm aware there is no legal obligation to accept a voucher for a hotel (either way enforcement would be rather difficult to say the least), it's merely a ticket for the hotel guarenteeing payment from the operator that made the booking on the customers behalf and thus accepting the customer.

In my experience reservations not honoured mostly stem from overbookings with the hotel simply not having rooms available. In this case it's either the hotel or the operator who will find an alternative, assistance provided obviously differs from hotel to hotel and operator to operator (as in every business). I guess theoretically a hotel could prefer one operator over the other as contract rates could be different and 2 different vouchers for the same room could mean different revenue. Unlikely though as 2 customers will hardly ever arrive at exactly the same time.

Thanks for all your suggestions.

@sbk: On the homepage we have added links directly to the most popular destinations in Thailand. These will take you directly to their respective page.

Agree with your currency button for the flights and taxes should be included (which is the aim and should actually work for most sites)

@allcladrad: I can't claim for 100% it will always find the best price, there might always be some touroperators, smaller travel agents or touroperators who have specials we don't pick up. However I do think that in most cases you can and will find the cheapest option in our search.

Thanks again for your feedback, we try to make the site into a one stop shop by bringing together all the best travel programs. Hopefully we are a service to Thaivisa members and we can continue to support the forum.

Hi Guys,

Thanks for your replies.

Internet sites (such as Venere or Hotels.com) do not have a contract with every hotel that's correct. They might have direct contracts with some hotels while they buy other hotels through local operators. As there are multiple of these in every single market and all supplying different rates depending on relationships, turnover etc, there are also many different rates to be found online. So no matter if they have a direct contract they can always buy it through other operators at prices stated in contracts.

Reviews come directly from our supplier who gathers them, I don't think they come from other websites such as Hotels.com.

Thanks for the suggestion on business class, I will pass this on.

Hi All,

Just wanted to announce that we (Painai.com, sponsor of this forum, see banner at the top of this page) have improved our flight searh engine.

You can search for flights across more websites and prices will be displayed in THB now as opposed to USD (please note the offering website might still give you a different currency).

Also, we have Air Asia included on several routes! (Phuket for example)

We are still working with the developer of the search to also get Nok Air included and to make the overall search even more relevant to Asia.

Enjoy and please let me know what you think.

May I also suggest you try the search on our website painai.com (link with sponsors at the top of the page).

We search all major airlines and should give you some good ideas. It's still in beta though and prices are shown in USD but you can easily convert them yourself. Air Asia is now also included in the search (not Air Asia X yet).

Cheers

Sure no problem, keep in mind however it greatly depends on the dates plan to go as prices can fluctuate day by day:

Agoda.com

AsiaRooms.com

BookDirectRooms.com

Booking.com

CTrip.com

Expedia.com

FastBooking.com

GtaHotels.com

Hotel.info

Hotel-Board.com

HotelBook.com

HotelClub.com

Hotels.com

Hotels4U.com

HotelsChart.com

InterContinental.com

LastMinute.com

LateRooms.com

NeedItNow.com

OctopusTravel.com

Orbitz.com

Priceline.com

RatesToGo.com

ReserveTravel.com

RoamFree.com

Skoosh.com

TotalTourist.com

TravelGuru.com

TravelMate.com.au

Travelocity.com

Venere.com

Hi Guys,

Correct, we do not provide the booking service but just the comparison tool. The websites included are all reputable companies however and I have not heard of any serious issues with these sites before.

We indeed partner with other websites to offer these services, the goal is to provide independent travelers with a one stop shop to quickly find the best deals. We include these tools because we think they are the best in their field (not because they pay the highest commissions perse), such as the hotel comparison and the flight search and hopefully tours in the future as well.

With an easy to remember name we hope people will turn to us to quickly see if there are any better deals out there.

Hope you guys can support us as well so we can continue to support the Thaivisa Forum.

Cheers

Hi All,

We just started our partnership with the Thaivisa Travel Forum and I think we can offer a great service to everybody at this forum;

We are Painai.com and our goal is to provide independent travelers with the most efficient ways to find the best deals on hotels and flights by bringing together industry leading services. You can find our link at the top of the page or in my profile.

If you visit our website and give in your travel dates we compare over 30 different websites to find the best prices for your hotel. The same goes for the flight search engine which will search almost all major airlines to give you an easy overview.

I have worked for an inbound touroperator in Thailand and really think you will find the best deals this way and it's an easy stop to compare some prices before you book. I was in charge of several of our Dot Com agents and know what a mess the pricing structures can be.

Anyway, give it a try and you might find it useful.

Hi All,

May I suggest you to try our new website Painai.com. We just became sponsors of the Travel Forum and you can find our banner at the top of the page.

Once you search for a hotel with your preferred dates of stay the system should filter out any providers where the room is listed as not available (subject to certain hiccups occasionaly, no system is perfect) and list the website where you can find the hotel at the best price for your desired period.

Hope you will find this service useful. We also have quite some experience with hotels in Thailand so we would be happy to answer any questions you may have.

BTW: It's often not the fault of the online booking website that rooms are not available. Hotels without the IT infrastructure to automatically inform the booking agents may leave their inventory open without informing anyone or even more common; They do not want to sell at rock bottom prices to online websites, they rather hold the rooms in the hope to sell them at a higher price to the so called Brick and Mortar agents, this is especially true in high season.

Any news on the identity of these guys? A couple of my friends are there.

I live right across the street from the night bazaar and would hate to see the place go, great to pick up some food in the evening or take visitors for some beers in the beergarden.

There are signs standing around informing the owners that they have to leave before March 31st now. I'm truly sad Besides the fact that the place is going to be a dump for the coming years if they start building new stuff I wonder who needs yet another shopping mall. Why are they killing of their own tourist attractions, if I want shopping with the subway I will go to Singapore.

One spark of hope: My Thai friend who knows a shop owner there told me that apparently the rents had been collected until November and shop owners still think they can stay.

Does anybody know where I could get myself a Wii points card? They dont seem to have them in the shops around here, I need one for my American system (to download Mario Kart of course).

Play-Asia.com does not have them so I tried to order with VIDEOGAMESPLUS.CA since they would email the code, however they cancelled the order as they do not ship to Thailand (dudes it's just an email).

Thanks for any suggestions.

PS: You cannot buy them through the Wii shop channel either as they do not accept credit cards with a billing address in Thailand.

Does anybody know where I could get myself a Wii points card? They dont seem to have them in the shops around here, I need one for my American system (to download Mario Kart of course).

Play-Asia.com does not have them so I tried to order with VIDEOGAMESPLUS.CA since they would email the code, however they just cancelled the order as they do not ship to Thailand (dudes it's just an email).

Thanks for any suggestions.

PS: You cannot but them through the Wii shop channel either as they do not accept credit cards with a billing address in Thailand.

Hi everybody,

After some hassle to get the Wii hooked up to the internet it finally worked when I bought a new wireless router at Pantip, works like a charm now.

The weather channel has been released today as well so you can check forecasts, for Bangkok it only has a 1 day forecast however. Have to set my standard location to somewhere in the US as I have the US version.

Surprised to hear that the US versions differ so much in price with the Japanese ones, I picked up mine about three weeks ago for 19000 THB, at least it was worth it then.

@mikeinminburi: Games for the Wii will not be region free but I'm also wondering whether the games you can buy in Thailand will be from the US or Japan?

Kenn,

Can you tell me which router you bought please as I have same problem

You are with True as well correct?

360 & PS3 work fine online but not Wii - weird!

Cheers

Ian

Hey Ian,

I bought a Lynksys WAG54G V3, strangly enough there is harly anything to be found about this router/modem on the internet, firmware versions on their website are only for version 1 and 2 for example. The first and second version were supposed to be crap however so dont buy them. Had some problems with this one in the beginning but now its working fine, you have to put it vertically though otherwise it gets too hot.

It looks like this one although my type is slightly different: here

It's quite weird but it works now, if you still have to update for the first time try with a dial up, this worked for me and after the first update it also workes on the true router. You can also flash the true firmware of your router, look on the lordofwireless website how to do that, there's and url somewhere. Hereafter you have more control over the settings.

Hope this helps.

You think there will be more games for the US or Japanese version in Thailand in the future?

Hi everybody,

After some hassle to get the Wii hooked up to the internet it finally worked when I bought a new wireless router at Pantip, works like a charm now.

The weather channel has been released today as well so you can check forecasts, for Bangkok it only has a 1 day forecast however. Have to set my standard location to somewhere in the US as I have the US version.

Surprised to hear that the US versions differ so much in price with the Japanese ones, I picked up mine about three weeks ago for 19000 THB, at least it was worth it then.

@mikeinminburi: Games for the Wii will not be region free but I'm also wondering whether the games you can buy in Thailand will be from the US or Japan?

Kenn:

Switch to Loxinfo. No problems. That could be an alternative.

Hey i got to the part in Zelda where Link turns into the wolf. Took me 4 hours! The adventure is just beginning!

Turok

Unfortunately I'm still on a True contract till next year, plus my phone line is True so probably cannot switch to Loxinfo at all, bummer.

I heard that after the first update you have to select a country, did you select Thailand or US?

I succesfully got rid of the True firmware on the router yesterday and was able to turn of its firewall and other security, unfortunately still 32002 and 32004 error message when trying to connect. I looks like there is not even an attempt to connect. I installed the Nintendo USB wifi connector which connects flawlesly with the Wii, just updating does not work.

I'm about to throw out my old router and just get a wireless one, trouble is it could be my router, pc, usb connector or the Wii itself, madness

Kenn:

Switch to Loxinfo. No problems. That could be an alternative.

Hey i got to the part in Zelda where Link turns into the wolf. Took me 4 hours! The adventure is just beginning!

Turok

Unfortunately I'm still on a True contract till next year, plus my phone line is True so probably cannot switch to Loxinfo at all, bummer.

I heard that after the first update you have to select a country, did you select Thailand or US?

I succesfully got rid of the True firmware on the router yesterday and was able to turn of its firewall and other security, unfortunately still 32002 and 32004 error message when trying to connect. I looks like there is not even an attempt to connect. I installed the Nintendo USB wifi connector which connects flawlesly with the Wii, just updating does not work.

I'm about to throw out my old router and just get a wireless one, trouble is it could be my router, pc, usb connector or the Wii itself, madness