khunjeff

"Booking Holdings" owns Booking.com, Agoda, Priceline, Kayak, Momondo, and a number of others.

That sounds an awful lot like gobbledygook, considering that this is a brand new airport that has yet to see a single commercial flight...

I can't speak for Lazada, but I've ordered "seller's own fleet" items from Shopee where I received the merchandise just fine, but not from the seller's own (non-existent) fleet - the seller just listed it that way in order to offer free shipping without a code. Apparently if they do the shipping through the Shopee system, a shipping charge of at least 23 baht is automatically applied. Paying sight unseen would seem to negate the whole reason for using COD in the first place, but I guess she has her reasons ????

Not based on anything I have read. Once you have the QR code, you are good to go. This is where the government's awful message discipline is causing problems. As of now, you're quite right that the only official announcement has been that yes, QR codes that were already issued remain valid for entry under the program for which they were approved. But various officials from the Ministry of Public Health - from the boss on down - have been making statements to the press over the last several days to the effect that no one can enter under Test & Go after January 10, even though they have zero authority to make that decision. It creates a huge amount of confusion and uncertainty for everyone, especially the travelers who are scheduled to enter the country next week.

I didn't mention the Barclays transaction charge because I don't use their cards and know nothing about their fees or policies. But you knew that already. There are plenty of US-issued debit and credit cards that have no foreign transaction fees, and several US debit cards that also refund all ATM fees. (Interest is irrelevant - it doesn't apply to debit cards at all, and only applies to credit cards if you choose to run a balance, which I don't.) As for your comment "I doubt very much if there is any foreign debit card that will let you change money free of charge", I'm not sure what you're referring to. Each time you use any foreign debit card in an ATM here, you're effectively changing money from the currency of the original account to THB. (In that respect, Visa and Mastercard run some of the largest money transfer systems in the world, far larger than Wise.) As noted elsewhere, Charles Schwab and Fidelity in the US both issue cards that allow you to do that "exchange" with no fees whatsoever, other than the approximately 0.33% markup over the midrate incorporated into the Visa exchange rate. (And no, Wise does not give the midrate either once fees have been accounted for.)

The OP's income and funds are all in the US. He previously paid Lazada in Thailand using a US credit card that gave him a 2% cash rebate on purchases, plus converted the baht purchase to USD using the Visa exchange rate, which is virtually always more favorable than the rates given by Thai banks or by Wise (the actual Wise rate net of fees, not the headline rate). To pay via a Thai debit card instead, he needs to transfer USD to Thailand somehow, pay the couple of hundred baht for the local debit card, and then forego the cash rebate from each purchase. Saying that he'll lose 4% is probably an exaggeration, but he'll certainly lose money compared to his prior way of paying. Since he apparently has no baht income stream in Thailand, all local purchases that he makes here will somehow have to involve a conversion between USD and THB, which will always involve a cost. There's just no way around that.

From the article: "A good case in point is DOA’s Nakhon Ratchasima Airport, which cost two billion baht and opened in 1997. Over time, airlines like Thai Airways International, Thai AirAsia and several now-defunct carriers such as Air Andaman, Happy Air, Thai Regional Airline, Kan Air and NexGen Airways tried serving Nakhon Ratchasima Airport but found it unviable."

Apparently it picks up all coronaviruses The PCR test should be positive for people infected with omicron, yes, but I think what @Puccini was asking was whether the PCR test would also identify the specific variant when it gives a positive result, and to that the answer is no - additional tests need to be run on the sample. "Fewer than half of UK labs have the required technology to detect suspected Omicron cases. This means that in some areas, it may be detected more quickly than in others. Confirming that a suspected case is Omicron requires a full genetic analysis, which takes between four and five days." https://www.bbc.com/news/health-59460252

That's correct - all you need for entry into the US (and for transit in Singapore) is a professionally administered rapid antigen test with a written report - these usually take less than half an hour and cost under 1000 baht, so they're much cheaper and quicker than PCR. (Of course, a PCR result is also perfectly acceptable if you need it for some other purpose and want to kill two birds with one stone.) Also, the test doesn't have to be within 24 hours of the departure time, but just within a day of the departure date. So, if your flight leaves (for example) any time on Friday, you can do the test at any time of the day on Thursday.

From the report, it sounds as though these items were used by people who tested negative for Covid and thus were allowed to attend events. So in what way are they "hazardous", and how would they cause "further infections"?

I think you may be thinking about the requirement too literally. All that's required is that an American citizen depart the US with a US passport in his or her possession, ready to show to any official who might ask to see it (which they are very, very unlikely to ever do). There's no prohibition against carrying another passport or presenting one at check-in. The applicable regulation is the following: 22 CFR § 53.1 Passport requirement; definitions. (a) It is unlawful for a citizen of the United States, unless excepted under 22 CFR 53.2, to enter or depart, or attempt to enter or depart, the United States, without a valid U.S. passport. The Thailand Pass is just part of the entry documentation for Thailand that needs to be presented to the airline; it's not considered any sort of exit documentation for the US. As I mentioned above, using an American passport "to exit the US" under US law really only means having it in your possession - documents for entering other countries are a separate issue. There's no problem from the US perspective to using a TP reflecting the data in the Thai passport.

You are looking at the wrong section of that guide - you clicked "KBank Service" (which is their system for doing banking transactions at Thai Post offices, for an additional fee) rather than "K ATM". Please see the attached screenshot.

Correct. I was thinking specifically about ATM withdrawals, since that's the method I use personally, but the Visa/Mastercard rates also apply when doing counter withdrawals. Like many others on this forum, I use a Charles Schwab Visa debit card for most of my daily THB cash needs, and - since Schwab refunds all ATM fees - the effective rate (what ends up in my pocket, not the teaser rate) is almost always better than Wise. I say "almost", because Visa and Mastercard update their rates daily based on the previous day's FX rates, while Wise updates continuously as rates change - that can lead to a disconnect (in either direction) if rates happen to be fluctuating a lot.

It's still the same - 72 hours before the scheduled departure time of the first flight on your itinerary, even if that's a short hop domestic flight.

You still had to jump through the same hoops (i.e., applying for Thailand Pass and satisfying all of its requirements), but that provision allowed you to meet the Test & Go requirement of having been in qualifying countries for at least 21 days even if you were only taking a brief trip abroad. Since Test & Go is currently on hiatus, I don't think that the rule provides any benefit at the moment.

The fees are very much part of the equation, especially with Wise, whose fees increase proportionally with the amount transferred (unlike SWIFT, which generally has fixed fees). Although Wise's headline USD rate today is 33.21, the actual effective rate that you get after fees is about 32.98 (plus or minus a couple of satang depending how you send the funds) - which compares unfavorably to today's Visa rate of 33.12. I occasionally use Wise because I can send larger amounts than I can get from an ATM, and it's simpler than SWIFT, but users shouldn't be fooled by the exciting rates that you can't actually get. In fairness to Wise, they're clear that they list rates and fees the way they do in the name of transparency, so you know exactly how much they're taking from each transfer. For most end users, though, the only thing that really matters is the final bottom line number. That's actually not totally surprising. Even in other countries, bank credit cards are usually issued and maintained either by a separate bank subsidiary or an outside contractor, and branch staff may have very limited access to the inner workings of the system. Of course, that doesn't alter the fact that the employee should have made the call on your behalf. True. At least with Kasikorn, however, you can avoid the fee by using the "cardless transaction" option on their app to get money from ATMs in other provinces. I don't know whether that helps with cash deposits, though. (I was rather astounded when I learned that they sometimes charge a fee for DEPOSITING money!) Absolutely right. The $10k reporting requirement exists, but it applies to the bank, not the customer - there's no reason to alter transfer amounts because of it. And sending 9k many times could also draw the attention of authorities, who might suspect the customer of "structuring" the transfers to avoid reporting. I've heard that such banks exist elsewhere, but no banks in Thailand have any such policy. Thailand signed a bilateral agreement with the US to enforce those reporting requirements, so all Thai banks must do the appropriate reports, whether they like it or not. They are also all required to have every new account holder - including Thais - fill out a questionnaire to determine whether they are a "US person", since that term includes many categories of people and entities besides US citizens. The reporting itself is automated, so adding a new US account holder doesn't increase anyone's workload - but not all bank staff understand that, of course. Immigration is generally fine with joint accounts, but they do require - as you discovered - that such accounts contain double the balance normally needed, so for most people they're not a very attractive option. The rules in that flyer are the policy of one bank, not of Thailand as a whole. It is not against Thai law or Bank of Thailand regulations to open a bank account as a tourist, and there aren't any "risks associated with that", other than the ordinary risks of having a bank account in Thailand.

The two options being entertained here are: - Government: companies may go bankrupt, in which case some policy holders may not be paid - Companies: we cancel the policies that we regret issuing, and some policy holders are not paid Neither of these works out great for the insured persons who bought policies in good faith. In a well-regulated insurance system, the companies should have had reinsurance and/or emergency funds to help cover losses in case of unexpected (or, in this case, fully expected...) large payouts, but clearly that didn't work the way it should have here.

The poster was correctly describing the terms of the policies that were issued, and that are currently at issue - they pay a set amount if you test positive, regardless of whether you incur any costs. The fact that many asymptomatic people DO occur costs of some kind doesn't alter those conditions.

Several people have posted similar messages. Note that the OP is asking about the timing for a booster after two shots of Pfizer, not AZ. The Thai government's current policy/rule/recommendation is for a booster three months after AZ, or six months after an mRNA vaccine (Pfizer or Moderna). Different timing for different vaccines. But yes, I do know people who managed to convince a private hospital to provide a (paid) booster only three months after a full course of Pfizer or Moderna, despite the stated policy.

He's only doing this as a requirement to return to work, not because he suspects he might have Covid, so there's no reason to go to that trouble and expense when his office will accept the result from a 50 baht ATK.

That was actually a "confused" face, and I've added several more - my post above may explain why. Thank you for the (accurate) comment about my username. Your advice on Thai culture is nearly as valuable to me as your insights on finance ????

The same could be said of many Ponzi schemes and other scams - there's a reason that potential investors are always warned that "past performance is no guarantee of future results." Buying anything just because its price has been going up is just FOMO, which is the force that's motivating most new crypto speculators. "Bitcoin now has started to grab the attention of the average punter — the Wall Street Journal is running articles about grandmas and grandpas looking for ways to buy in and students debating bitcoin over their Thanksgiving turkey. That’s another red flag that speculation may be getting out of hand." https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-bitcoin-bubble-20171201-story.html The problem with Bitcoin isn't its volatility or newness, it's that it isn't based on anything other than its own self-created rarity. Crypto fanboys usually start yelling "But Blockchain!!" at this point, and I agree that Blockchain is a very promising technology with a lot of practical uses. But Blockchain and Bitcoin are NOT the same thing - it's entirely possible, if not probable, that the former will succeed spectacularly and the latter will crash and burn. Are established financial institutions getting into crypto? Yes, in amounts that are tiny compared to their overall assets. Why? Partially as an asymmetrical bet with a small amount of money, just in case, and partially because their customers want it, and there's money to be made making customers happy even if what you're selling them is trash.

The OP is in quarantine, not Sandbox, so it's against the law for him to leave his room, let alone go swimming.

Yes, the last few times I entered Thailand the TM6 wasn't stapled into the passport, but then CW stapled it when I went in for my extension ????

What they want to see is an update to the bankbook on the day of application to show that you haven't emptied your account. For most banks that requires a transaction of some kind, but I understand that Bangkok Bank will add a new line in the book with the current date even if there's been no change, and that seems to be fine with most immigration officers (at least at CW). As others have noted, CW will accept a bank letter issued within seven days prior to the application, and the amount shown on that letter does not have to agree with the final figure from the same-day bankbook update - mine generally doesn't, and I've never had any problem with that. It's pretty obvious that that figure is equal to the balance from the letter, plus or minus the new deposit/withdrawal. And yes, I understand that the requirement for the bankbook update is ludicrous. Apparently their fear is that you withdrew all your money as soon as you got the letter, but they don't seem to "get" that you could just as easily withdraw it all immediately after updating your book, or right after getting your extension. They'll never have absolute "proof" of anything, only "evidence".