khunjeff

When that's happened to me, it's because the courier ran out of time before getting to my address, and wanted to pretend that it wasn't his fault. Another way they do that is to say "recipient asked to reschedule the delivery", even though no such thing ever happened. In the past, they forced you to get Shopee Pay in order to receive refunds. After they "banned" (their word) all foreigners from that system, though - without notice or explanation - they now will just return the money to the bank account that you paid from. I had this happen a couple of weeks ago, and the refund was made immediately after the seller failed to ship my order on time. Almost all of the free shipping vouchers are valid for up to three orders at a time - you can see the details for each one by clicking on the "T&C" for that voucher. (It can be very confusing as to which items qualify for each voucher, since it's not clear what the "Xtra Shops" and "Participated Products" are.) There are a few products for which the seller routinely provides free shipping, but not many.

I'm pretty sure that @PDP11 (cool name, I remember that machine from the early 80s) is correct here. Even without the US security aspect, I remember having to deplane at HKG and go through security before getting back on the same plane when flying on TG to Seoul a few years back. But I guess we'll see.

I'm all in favor of skywalks, but this seems like an odd choice to prioritize, since it was already very easy to go from the BTS station to Bangkok Christian. Unless I'm missing something, all this really does is eliminate the need for people to cross the soi at ground level 🤷

So the TM-30 and 90 day reporting requirements didn't catch him? I'm shocked, I thought those were foolproof

😅😂🤣😆 It's good to see that comedy isn't dead 🤡

Indeed, but it's hard to see how that applies in this case. It would have been trivially easy (and arguably more effective in terms of the investigation) for officers to watch the hotel and be ready to act if he tried to leave with the drugs, or if anyone came to his room.

If revenue went up with the 20 baht fare cap, how will cancelling the cap save money for the government? 🤔

I suspect that's exactly why they publish these rather fantastical statistics on how much money LTR holders are bringing into the country - it helps justify the idea that the program is attracting "investment". I believe that legally only Immigration or MFA can "approve" a visa application, so they came up with the word "endorsed" instead. Since 100% of "endorsed" applications end up being "approved", though - given that immigration already signed off on them during the endorsement process - it turns out to be a distinction without a difference.

Thailand does not have "resident" and "non-resident" prices, it has "Thai" and "Foreign" prices, which in practice means "Asian face" and "non-Asian face" prices. As pointed out earlier, any Thai person living in California will get the price for residents there.

CAAT does not have an Air Chief Marshal. Manat is the organization's Director General, and happens to have retired from the Air Force with the rank of Air Chief Marshal - which, like almost all Thais, he continues to use in his personal life.

They don't even know what will happen at the five year point, so there's no way they'll be able to say what will happen after ten years. Assuming the visa category still exists, though, there's no reason to think that we couldn't just apply for it again.

I think that's what he's referring to when he says: The OA never required a real medical exam, just the silly form confirming that you don't have leprosy, elephantiasis, etc. Some people have had trouble getting the form signed without actually being tested for all the conditions, but my doctor just signed it with a laugh, as he noted that all of the listed conditions were not only extremely rare, but also had physical symptoms that would be very obvious. But you're right, the form can be a problem if your physician is a stickler.

So they managed to unlock 2% of the accounts for which complaints were received? Forgive me if that statistic makes me doubt that "innocent" accounts will be unlocked within half a day going forward.

Oh, please. "Enforcement" during Songkran consists of setting up static checkpoints in every village, where a dozen local officials sit under a tent drinking coffee, eating snacks, and playing with their phones. At most of those checkpoints, no one even bothers to pretend to pay attention to the vehicles going past - they just set up some traffic cones and then go back to Candy Crush. It's actually something of a wonder to me that anyone is ever arrested for drunk driving at all, and my suspicion is that most of those arrests take place when police show up to a crash site and find a driver too inebriated to flee the scene.

So he has no health issues, but is being kept in the hospital anyway. Sounds familiar! And I must admit that I personally have never had to wait for the "results" from a lung x-ray - a skilled radiologist can generally tell at a glance whether there are any anomalies requiring further study.

So this is a "proposal" that "suggests" fee increases, but they already know that it will take effect in (*checks calendar*) - 12 days? Once again, they have cherry-picked the example of Changi, which has the highest PSC in the area (and is also a far better airport than any in Thailand). Thailand's charges are already equal to or higher than those in just about all other regional hub airports, which mostly have much better facilities and services than what we find at Thai airports as well.

It's actually a 14 hour ban, but who's counting? So it sounds as though there are no restrictions in effect from now until November? Except that the powers-that-be will say - as they did for weed - "but that's not what we meant!" Because of course the country should be governed by what the authorities "meant", not by what any law actually says 🙄

My understanding was that previously anyone buying in what were considered "wholesale quantities" was permitted to purchase during the forbidden hours, but that after the change you could only do so if you bought a large amount AND you had some kind of wholesale license - it sounds like your registered restaurant license allowed you to meet that standard. (I have no idea whether that's still the rule that's being applied, or if it's changed yet again.)

Vietnam and China both have visa regimes that are much stricter than Thailand's, even after their liberalizations.

My interpretation of what they're implying is that huge amounts of foreign currency are being converted into baht to pay for these enormous gold purchases, but I could be wrong.

You're correct. You have to use the first ride within seven days of purchase, and the rest within 30 days after that. Before you buy, though, look at the helpful post from @kingstonkid above. These packages are only valid on the legacy BTS stations (plus Krung Thonburi and Wongwian Yai), not for travel to any of the dozens of stations beyond. Kind of ridiculous, but I guess the program will save a few baht for commuters whose travel happens to be of exactly the "right" length and location.

The packages are available to anyone, but, as you point out, they're only of value to daily commuters with longer rides. If your rides are short, or vary in length, or you don't travel regularly, they'll be useless to you. (They used to market these as "30 day tickets", which was highly misleading, since they're valid for a set number of rides, not a set period of time. Use up all the rides in the first week, and the ticket is dead.)

You're correct, it was changed at least ten years ago. https://huahintoday.com/sports/restricted-alcohol-sale-times-throughout-thailand/

All they did was pass an audit that virtually every other country on earth gets through routinely and with no drama. I'm glad they've finally emerged from the aviation doghouse, but let's not pretend that simply having a proper regulatory framework in place is some kind of amazing accomplishment that no nation but Thailand could have achieved.

100k plus probation - just the cost of doing business, not a deterrent at all.