digbeth

บริษัท is sometime pronounced as บอริสัด might even be archaic spelling too

maybe due to the way some sanskrit/pali words were written, there's no distinction between ออ and อะ vowel

So they can do 90 days report for you but can't do the 1900 baht extension of stay?

For half a million I'd expect better service, at least a record in their system to at least remind when your visa's up and offer to at least escort you through the process of getting an extension if they can't do it themselves due to some legal reason.

When they got your passport for the 90 days 'service' they had multiple opportunity and should have at least checked 

If there could be a resolution to this if they could get their acts together with immigration and allow a backdated extension of stay 

Newer buildings now uses post tensioned concrete and low mass bricks. If the cables and rebar are capped properly there shouldn't be problem with corrosion

Lots of trading company and even banks now let you have a gold account where you buy in a share of the fund that's indexed to gold price, you only need to hold the paper, but some company lets you 'cash out' in bullion too.

The bank funds only seem to be a fund that invest in 99.95 or 99.5% gold that's probably indexed with international price

The (Thai) gold company trade in Thai 96.5% gold and Thai price

The Thai gold companies match the gold shop price, I think one is the gold traders association themselves, when you buy the gold on paper, at least they don't charge the 'premium' to buy and sell like in the physical shop, and you can cash out with real gold, they have branch all over the country just like gold shops.

The ones I know are Ausiris and Hua Sen Heng

I have it, you get Air-Asia miles every 20 baht spent on the card, also priority boarding.

Also gets free drinks worth 60 baht on board... that's a can of coke or whatever you choose from their menu

the voucher they gave for upgrading things when you first got the card are useless, they expire too soon or something, never used them.

also let you book certain sales before general members.

Is the black cock's bottle bigger than the red one?

Pineapples are cheap now, I think most of the Thai 'cognag' and some rum are made with pineapple

When needing things like statements in English in support of visa application, some Thai banks are more useless than others.

My personal experience:

Bangkok Bank: best so far, even small branch can make a letter from the manager in English stating how much money you have in 'figures' (nothing too specific to be vulgar) and seem to know their way around what's needed for a Visa application, printed statements etc. All done within hours.

Siam Commercial Bank: Can do statement and bank letter, small branch not as clued in.

Krunsri: useless, they seem to have their own system of transliterating Thai names into latin character based on what's entered in Thai when opening accounts.  Wouldn't even correct mis transliterated Thai name in their system to match passport/ID card

Kasikorn: No bank letter but can do English statement but 1 day wait, they had to have corporate help out or something, 

What are your experiences when applying for visa for your spouse? 

Some countries like those that gets outsourced to VFS now accept photocopies of just the Bank book in Thai just fine right? but with the trend being about moving the actual decision and processing of application away from Bangkok, would the need for support documentation in English be more needed then? I've seen translation place that'll translate the bank book/statement for a fee but that seem excessive.

You're right they might not have a licence, they just seem to legitimate with certificate and everything displayed behind the desk

I heard that only hotel licenced place can give tax receipt for the special tax return break. the revenue department even have a list of which hotel are eligible. The list for Chonburi is comically short with only around 300 hotels

Come to think of it, when we had relative come to stay and I put them in the room they made a small hassle about getting the tax invoice, and looking through the list I don't see the name of the hotel listed, they could be using different company name but I doubt it. I understand any registered company can issue tax receipt.

Well then, I'll be watching to see when they are raided next then, the new one soon to open just opposite this one is owned by ex MP Thai too, this will be interesting.

Line Pay in the 'Line' messaging app can pay both metro and rural electric, but only metro water but they accept credit card

@BestB  The last couple of years, Thais were able to claim hotel expense on their tax return, I think it was for stays during certain period. I think it involves the 'hotel' making a VAT receipt, only registered hotels can give these out, were you aware or able to make these under the 'rooms for rent' licence? 

In my small soi in Pattaya, there's 2 new hotels, one was opened in the last couple of years, one is due to open any day now, all are of the same format, 7-8 floors, completely built to the property edge, no 'green area' to speak of, only a handful of parking spot on ground/basement level, both of these has a roof garden/pool, maybe they count these and the lobby area as the required space? They must have built to within an inch of the new rule. The one that's already opened definitely had a hotel licence and the soon to be opened one don't have a sign of slowing down.

Maybe this is the new 'low-end' for hotel licencing, these two hotel probably only have around 60-80 rooms charging 1000+ Baht a night.

it is actually complicated as alcohol in Thailand are not taxed by the alcohol content, but on variety of arbitrary factor from classification cost / litre amount / and %abv to the final retail price. 

Last time I checked was way before this new law

Beers seem to be define as less 7% abv and wine less than 15%abv, and there's a threshold of 'final price' where if the cost per bottle goes beyond 600 baht, another 36% tax is taken off of it, they must have tweeked the price threshold that makes bigger size bottle and cask untenable now.

There's also a calculation of 'pure' alcohol' content per litre that maybe by lowering the alchohol content can save on this bit.

Most other cards let you sign up with passport number, if PTT is actively rejecting customers where their competitor don't, or fail to train their staff that such a practice is possible it's their loss, why should you give them custom

I've had AIS Fibre at 3 locations in Bangkok now, if you live in a building like a condo or apartment where they can't run the fibre to your room is where you won't get the best speed, at my condo, they had fibre to the basement of the building but use the old phonelines (VDSL) to get it into the room, and the speed and router choice in that case is very limited, can't even get good Wifi out of the supplied router then.

At 2 other house, no problem, fibre to the house, great router with wifi, even if I need to use other router, bridge mode is available with not much hassle.

Never had much dealing with customer service, but paying via the app is okay, 10% discount if you use 'line pay' for now too. or you can pay in the shops too.

If you already have an AIS phone number they'll discount the Fibre bill for a year.

I've also had one place where upon presentation of previous internet supplier's bill they discount me for half a year for switching.

Installation is free with minimum contract, like a year, or if you pay for the installation then you can cancel anytime, or if they see you are a foreigner, they might ask for the whole year's service up front

The Ais Play box included for free in some package is rubbish though, although you can watch HBO and some international channel with it, it needs wired connection (Ethernet LAN) to your TV to function properly, I can stream from phone apps to my TV via wifi better than AIS's box.

Some package has included sim card to use in your phone too, unlimited data (calls are extra) for your phone for only 1 payment is convenient, but AIS is really stringent on the sim card in that you can only use it on 1 phone, they'll throttle it down if they caught you using the sim card  to share data with multiple computers/hotspot/ router. unlike True which allows most things.

Bridgestone shop isn't name bridgestone anyway, just has Bridgestone sign.

Unless it's ACT which is owned by Bridgestone.

I'm always wary of the big corporate type place, they might have the machine, but lack the people with expertise manning them.

Glad to hear you had good experience with Bosch, I use that place for service all the time but go to smaller guys for alignment

With this much exposed concrete for decades yet it was still salvagable

I think the project was only bought out in 2015 and was only looks like it's completed this year

This is one of the abandoned building next to the expressway in Klong toey, didn't even had cladding on when it was abandoned, but was used as advertising hoarding since, but only been bought out and completed just this year as 'Harbour View Residence'

The Waterfront building has most of the cladding on, so it could potentially last even longer in the present state

What exactly do you look for in alignment rig?

most of the place have laser on the wall and reflector on the wheel,

some of the rare type has laser on the wheels and reflector on the wall.

problem with capsule system is that you're at the mercy of the importer here in Thailand.

BonCafe had a system a while back that they discontinued, and the new capsule system they currently sell is not compatible

There's two Nescafe system now dolce gusto and nespreso, dolce gusto is more available in local supermarkets

If you can accept that 2-3 years down the line the importers could discontinue and leave you with expensive paperweight, then that's ok. established brand like Nespresso will always have people bringing them in 'grey market'

Proper espresso machine and grinder on the other hand, takes any beans, but of course it require some skill to build the drinks and clean, fully automated machine also available, if you can't be bothered with grinding, tamping and associated mess and cleaning there's also well established 'pod' system that you can use and throw the coffee grounds away like capsule, works in any espresso machine but the pods do come in less variety than capsules. But decent proper espresso machine setup is at least double those of the capsule machine. It depends on how much you drink for the cost of machine vs each coffee cost to see how a more expensive proper setup would save you in the long run.

Nothing wrong with capsule machine of course, but see where you normally shop to see if you can get the capsule regularly

19 hours ago, jimster said:

They use numbers for the characters after the 26th Thai alphabet, as there are only 26 characters in the Latin alphabet, but 44 in the Thai alphabet. For example, the 27th Thai character is "1", the 28th is "2" and so on.

The system for making 'latin' plate for going to Malaysia which is white letter on black background on stickers seem a bit arbitrary, seem to go for letter with similar sounds instead in some case, or capital letter for the first 26 then lower case from 27th letter onwards has also ben seen, followed by three letter abbreviation of the province name

your guest don't need to know, one set of receipt/book for the guest and another for when they come looking again, but only have monthly advertised price on premise, big 'monthly rental only' on the wall might help too.

If the police take the initiative to look you up on agoda or booking.com or have someone book in and use that as evidence then such charade isn't gonna help

Hopefully this'll blow over in a couple of months like most things the Thai make a fuss about enforcing but let go due to short attention span

The shop I use is in Pattaya, called 'Spec Center Tire 'on the northbound road beside the railroad track, enter via Sukhumvit 21 north of Naklua, they don't have much range in tyre but are really knowledgeable.

Strange that many of the mag and tyre shops around do not have alignment rig. 

The Bosch Service Centre in Esso station Naklua also has the rig, but I only use them for oil change/service, some dealership and big service place like B-Quick probably has them as well, but I doubt they are as well trained on them as specialist guy who only does tyre.

In the interim, the way to get by is probably only advertise monthly price, and keep receipt for official that guest were booked for whole/couple of months but leave early, and refunded them the difference and having a lease agreement with every guest/'tenant' 

If he's coming in using visa-exemption, there's the 'adequate finance' requirement, if you're paying, maybe have him carry a letter from you stating that and show your proof, eg. bank statement