khunjeff

Most of the masks people buy come from street vendors and are unbranded (aside from a small Chinese insert showing the name of a factory), so I'm not sure how this would even work unless they actively ban the sale of those cheap masks - which won't happen.

Both hotels and the government are telling people to upload the results in Mor Chana, yet that app obviously has no upload functionality. Some people have been sending the result back to their Test & Go hotel by email or Line, while others have just been doing nothing. It's pretty clear that no one in charge knows or cares how the day 7 ATK is actually supposed to work.

About a year and a half late.

Because the Governor of Bangkok can't make decisions or issue decrees regarding any other parts of Thailand?

Every year there's yet another "gift" which consists of nothing other than government officials just doing their jobs...

Correct. Australia and New Zealand are both on Singapore's Category II list, but only Australia is on the VTL list. You didn't qualify to board a VTL flight because you had been in a non-VTL country within the previous 14 days. If the airline could have changed you to a non-VTL flight, that wouldn't have been an issue. (VTL rules are set by the Singapore government.) That was two weeks ago. At that time, many travelers complained that health and Immigration officials were examining documents far outside the "QR code and PCR result only" that were supposedly the only requirements for entry under Thailand Pass, and that long queues were building up as a result. MFA denied that this was true, but also said they would stop it from happening further ???? I haven't heard of it reoccurring lately. Thailand Pass requirements are a separate issue from normal immigration requirements. If you're entering under a category like visa exempt that normally requires an onward ticket, then that still applies. If you're on a long term visa or reentry permit that doesn't require one, that also still applies. Thailand Pass doesn't have anything to do with it. Initially we were told that insurance was required for the entire period of authorized stay, no matter how long that might be. MFA then told Richard Barrow that 30 days insurance would be fine for everyone, but of course that has never appeared in writing. Since Richard's discussion, people have posted that they were indeed approved for TP with a 30 day policy and a long term reentry permit, but whether that was due to official policy or just dumb luck is anyone's guess.

You're taking about Mor Prom, the OP is asking about Mor Chana. They're two totally different apps with different functions.

That was government policy for the original ASQ quarantine, but it wasn't for the Sandbox and it isn't for Test & Go. Friends of mine - unmarried - literally arrived yesterday and had no problem booking only one room. Just ask a different hotel if that one is giving you difficulty. As others have pointed out, though, adding an extra person to a room usually increases the price by about 3000 baht or so due to the cost of an extra PCR test and meals for the additional guest.

I have also had very good experiences with Pro Corner.

Supposedly Thailand Pass was going to ask for all of the info needed for those two forms so that you wouldn't need to fill them out and submit them on arrival, but it's not clear to me whether that really happened or not.

Yes, some people have had test results come back to their hotels quite quickly. But the OP is talking about getting tested at the airport and then taking an onward domestic flight, without ever using a hotel (and he's also going into Suvarnabhumi, not Phuket). So unless he's using Samui Plus, it doesn't seem that his plan is realistic.

The rules say that you're supposed to use the ATK if you have any symptoms, or use it on day 6 even if you don't have any symptoms; you then report the result on the Mor Chana app. They also talk about reporting the result to your place of accommodation, but that doesn't seem to take into account that many people would no longer be in a hotel at that point. Given that this seems to be somewhat on the honor system, I'm not sure what the point is, but I suppose it doesn't hurt for travelers to have the test in hand just in case. Even if they lie about the result to avoid being forced into a hospital, they can at least know to self-isolate at home. (Now let's see what the hotels charge for the ATK that costs 50 baht on Shopee or 99 baht at 7-11.)

And I am "set to" win the lottery.

My experience entering in May. At Swampy everything was checked before you even got to the immigration counter. This included insurance, C of E, negative PCR test even my lease agreement. Not a lot of fun after a long flight stocking up on free booze before quarantine! In theory, one of the great advantages of Thailand Pass over the COE (other than the "1-3 day" processing time, which has already ballooned to 7 days before it even started) was that it would simplify everything that you went through. Those things you mentioned would all be checked prior to issuing the Pass, and then you would only have to show the QR code and Covid test result at the departure and arrival airports - no one would check the underlying documents. Now, will the folks in charge really have the fortitude to be able to stop low-level officials from asking to see all of those documents "just to be sure"? I guess we'll find out once Thailand Pass goes live.

...which was never an issue for anyone, since those two forms took a total of about five minutes (combined) to fill out on the plane. Vaccinated Thai passengers coming for the Sandbox or Test-and-Go schemes require pre-flight tests, but unvaccinated Thais planning to enter ASQ do not. Go figure. ...and the Thai insurers don't ask for vaccination status, but instead charge the same premium to both vaccinated and unvaccinated travelers, despite vaccinated passengers having a far, far lower chance of requiring hospitalization.

The ID number is assigned at the time of your first shot, as I know since I only had one before leaving the country. My 13-digit number (beginning with 600000) was on the Ministry of Public Health "COVID-19 Vaccine Appointment Card" that gave the details of that injection and the appointment date for the second one.

The "specific categories of passengers" now include virtually all humans on earth, but they've continued to use that wording for the last year and a half - just as they continue to pretend that requiring a COE somehow constitutes a "ban on international flights", and referring to regularly scheduled flights as "semi-commercial" somehow means that commercial flights aren't landing every hour. People in Thailand mostly understand what's going on, but average folks elsewhere (including journalists) take the statements literally and think that Thailand is sealed off from the outside world.

If you're arriving Nov 6 under the vaccinated traveler "Test & Go" (no quarantine [sic]) program, both you and your Thai wife require pre-departure PCR tests, period. That isn't rumor or speculation, it's been published in the Royal Gazette. The only circumstance in which a Thai doesn't require the test is if she is unvaccinated and plans to do the 10-day quarantine upon arrival. (And no, it doesn't make much sense that a vaccinated traveler is tested but an unvaccinated one isn't, but that's what the rules are.)

That's Thailand Plus, the app that was required of arrivals for the last year or more, never worked, was never looked at by any Thai official, and has now been completely abandoned. So yes, it's garbage, but we've seen it already and it's now irrelevant.

The Royal Gazette uses the phrase "ผู้ที่พำนักอยู่ในราชอาณาจักร", which roughly means "people who stay (or lodge, or sojourn, or dwell) in the Kingdom". It seems to refer to being in Thailand as a matter of actual, physical fact, rather than to having any particular status.

He is beyond confused - the information he gave is absolutely untrue, as anyone who lives in Thailand would recognize immediately. I have no idea why the press accepts and prints statements like his so unquestioningly.

They have actually been claiming that getting the Thailand Pass QR code will take only 1-3 days, but it's anyone's guess as to whether that's at all realistic. In any case, not implementing the Pass until Nov 1 when it's applicable to arrivals from Nov 1 onwards seems like pretty poor timing.

It's technically accurate, since "quarantine" means you're isolated to see whether you develop symptoms, whereas this is just holding you aside until your test results come back (which they could easily do inside the airport if they wanted to). But yes, that's a distinction without a difference. For the Phuket Sandbox, people living in Thailand who flew to an approved country for a brief visit and returned directly to Thailand were not subject to any minimum stay requirement in order to participate in the program, since Thailand was presumed to be cleaner than any other nation. I will be surprised if the same rule doesn't apply to this new scheme.

That bureau doesn't actually decide what conditions travelers will have to meet, but sure, why waste an opportunity to have your 15 minutes of fame...

As usual, it's completely unclear what arresting a romance scammer has to do with the Tourist Police mission of protecting and assisting Thai and foreign tourists...every part of the Thai Police seems to do whatever it wants these days (or whatever will get its leaders into the news).