KhaoYai

Apart from the restricted time during Covid, I haven't printed a ticket for years, either from an agent or direct, there's no need to.

Has anybody ever got caught out when booking on a comparison site........like missing the 36hr flight duration or the fact that the price doesn't include any baggage? Anyone brave enough to admit that?

Nope, you're missing the bigger picture. Prices went crazy last year when many covid restrictions were lifted. Examples of actual prices that I paid for MAN - BKK: June/July 2022 £459 August 2022 £1677 Yes, August is school holiday time in the UK so there's always an increase but I've never paid anything like that. The overall trend seems to be that they are starting to come down if you book early enough but they are rising again as flights fill up. That's the way it looks to me anyway.

I no longer qualify for - nor need a Multi Entry Non O (MENO) based on marriage - divorced. However, a mate knows that I used to get a MENO most years and has asked me what's required. I can't really help him other than to ask for the latest information on here. As I understand it HCMC are requiring a booking to be made and also now ask for financial evidence. I haven't seen anything on Savannakhet post Covid. I'm not sure that the information is on their websites or that what is there, matches exactly what they want. For example, from memory I don't think HCMC offered a 12 month MENO on their website but it was certainly available pre covid. Does anyone have recent experience of either (or any other if the're easy) consulate, know their requirements and whether or not they offer a 12 month MENO?

Whilst I broadly agree with you, I don't understand why people overstay - especially for short periods. A short extension is very easy in most cases - its just laziness in most cases I guess. In 21 years and around 150 visits, I've only ever overstayed by 1 day and that was a simple mistake.

I agree with your overall message to an extent but as a regular traveller for over 20 years, I do use agents sometimes but I have a rule - if their prices are less than £30 less than the direct price - I go with the airline. I also won't use an agent that doesn't have a phone number or is difficult to contact. Southall Travel and their sister company Travel Trolley often have good deals, have a UK phone number and are open 24/7.

I'm actually finding the opposite Richard - prices starting to come down. Not a lot though and it clearly depends on demand. I'm booked in April at just under a grand - Easter + UK school holiday time so its usually a premuim price time. However, I still check prices regularly and 2 weeks after I booked the price had gone up to £1200. I checked out some prices in October and they were around £700. Although I'm usually against booking early, in the current climate it seems that its the way to go. What is needed is for a 'newcomer' to enter the market and stir it up. A neighbour of mine is a regular flyer and has come across what I guess you could call 'preferential pricing zones'. He looked at 2 business class tickets to the USA which came back at £4500 each! In disbelief he tried the same destination from Dublin and got 2 tickets at £3500 for the pair!!! Once in the states he had some other flights to book and was getting a huge difference depending on how he searched. With his UK registered Laptop the prices were much higher than they were when searching using his USA mobile phone. I used to work in the motor trade and I know that car manufacturers used to class the UK as a 'preferred market' - they could extract higher prices from UK customers so when there were shortages or strikes etc. the UK market was re-supplied first. Looks like the airlines are employing the same tactic. Also not sure that all the regular UK/BKK flyers have re-instated all their daily flights yet. I believe some are still down to 1 per day. Just noticed your comments on air miles. I used mine to get my easter flight down to £600. I'm on Qatar now - after 20 years I've given up on Etihad, their prices at the moment make others look cheap.

One and the same Frank Einstein

I know this will have been said many many times but why do the Thai police (of any flavour) feel the need to show photos of their exploits/victims? Could it be that they are simply not trusted and they think they need proof of their 'success stories'? Seems the Frenchman refused to sit for his 'group photo' and objected when it was obtained surreptitiously. Can't say I blame him.

This makes a total mockery of the points system. It was already ridiculous - I believe you can get caught 3 times for drink driving before losing your licence! We can't have those poor Thai people being prevented from driving simply because they've had a few beers can we? The fact that they might - and often do - cause fatal accidents doesn't seem to matter. Most countries regard drink driving as the most serious driving offence and you lose your licence for a long time if you are caught.........of course Thai drivers are above all that so there's no need to punish them so harshly!!!!

I both agree and disagree. I was never 'sex starved' in the West and to be honest - my experience has, with some notable exceptions, been that whilst they remain interested, Western women are far better at it than Thai's. Many Thai women seem to think that sex is something that is done to them or expected of them, rather than something they take an active part in. The 'starfish' percentage seems to be much higher amongst Thai's. I think the attraction is that a middle aged Western male can easily find a much younger girl than they can in the West. Back home the choice gets less as you get older and the offer is an ever increasing procession of wrinklies who's atttributes are rapidly heading south. Remembering my past, Western girls are far more sexually agressive than Asians. I repeat though, that there are exceptions. But is that 'easy to find' girl genuine? That's the question - for some its more like a business. Many Western guys get ripped off because they fail to ask themselves why their 'young lovely' is interested in a man 10, 20 or 30+ years older than them. Some are heavy drinkers that haven't looked after themselves particularly well - they would struggle to find a woman of any age back home - would they be interested in a woman so much older than themselves? Again I'm generalising, there are some such relationships that are built on love but I'd suggest a good proportion are not. I'm sure most can guess what the motivation for those pairings is. I've heard these women talking at Thai gatherings in the UK, without fail the conversation revolves around what they've got from their husbands, how big their house is and what they plan to get in the future. Many work and send a high percetage of their earnings back home - making little or no contribution to their UK family pot. I also don't have a lot of sympathy for those that get ripped off but whilst many of these women are obvious, some of them are very good at it. I consider myself as an 'old hand' but I've had 2 try to pull the wool over my eyes - they failed but a lot of time was wasted. One even fooled my Thai friends. As I said earlier, I don't understand those guys that jump straight in and start doing things they'd never do back home. I think we've all heard the stories about the 'cousin' or 'brother' and although the internet is full of stories as you suggest - there is and will always be, the 'My girl's different' brigade - the stories I could tell them. I know of one woman now who's Thai ex husband moves back in when her foreign husband goes home - they both drink and gamble the foreigner's money away. I had a friend a few years back who was taken in by a bar girl he met in Pattaya. Of course, she would stop working at the bar and return to her home village in Udon Thani if he 'supported' her. Its a long story but he became suspicious and asked me to help. I told him to tell her the cheap line he was using would no longer work on Thai mobiles so arrange to call her at the village phone box each weekend and let me have the number. A week later I got the number.......+66 38............Pattaya! Need I say more. The older you get, the less likely you are to find a genuine relationship with a Thai 'pretty'. I've written that possibility off now and to be honest, I've never had such a good time. I try not to get involved with women who are looking for a serious relationship but basically, I play them at their own game. Cue the 'my girl's different' brigade.

I'm guessing the OP is asking this question because he does not have a valid visa?

New one on me - I've never showered anyone with gifts. What I will never understand is why Western men shower their THAI wives and girlfriends with gifts. Often they provide 'support' to someone they hardly know. Some spend 2 weeks in Pattaya, fall in love (think they have), dash home, sell everything, return to Thailand and spend the next few months/years losing every penny they've ever had before returning to their homeland broke and homeless. Did they behave that way back home? I don't think so. Well, I can honestly say that I've never 'supported' a UK girlfriend.

We are talking about building a house in Isaan, Thailand.

That's a very 'high and mighty attitude' and I believe, uncalled for. On the presumption that you are including me in those that 'fail to do so'......... 1. I know exactly where the phenomenon of kids accepting unreasonable pressure from their parents come from. The use of 'I don't understand it' is a figure of speech - something that 'high and mighty' souls often don't comprehend in their cocooned, factual world (living far, far up their own r e c t u m). Check out 'everyday speech'. You remind me of one of my University lecturers who told me I needed to upgrade my vocabulary after I'd written the word 'smell' in my disertation. The academic term that I should have used (and I knew it) in context, was 'olfactory'. My reply was something to the effect of, "oh, you mean 'olfactory', I disagree, I write in a manner that all can understand, not just the chosen few". I received a 1st by the way - common language or not. 2. You are correct that people don't study all the customs and traditions of the country they choose to retire in but do they really need to? In this particulat context, what difference would it make? As a victim (used loosely) of such a custom, where my wife was told to rip me off, I would still have married her. I'm pretty sure, had I asked her "darling, you'd never rip me off would you", the answer would have been a resounding "no". Knowing the laws and regulations of a country you choose to live in, yes - but knowing and considering customs such as the topic.........in most cases, I don't see why. 3. I'm not complaining but after receiving a court summons and returning the property she stole from me, I'm pretty sure my (now ex) wife was.

You're in a 'chancy' market in that price range. Most will be Thai owned so not likely to have been well maintained. I can't advise you on where to go other than Facebook Marketplace but what I would say is if you don't know anything about cars, take someone with you who does and be realistic in your expectations. It is possible to find something reasonable within your budget but its unlikely to be a 'one owner, full service history motor' - go for condition rather than age. The old Honda mentioned above might be worth a look - I rented an old Accord last year and I was surprised at how well it drove - they also have a good level of equipment. Remember, that secondhand prices in Thailand are likely to be much higher than your home country. I've seen things that would normally be ready for the breakers in the UK on sale in Thailand for around your budget.

Firstly I have no objection to prostitution - none at all. But secondly, your post illustrates that what most of these girls do is a lifestyle choice. One of my ex 's travelled from her hometown to work in a factory in Bangkok as many do and had a strong dislike of hookers - who she called lazy. However, in some cases I think that's a very simplistic way of thinking. I know of several who were more or less forced to go to work in 'the business' by their demanding families. Some of these families call it what it is, others call it working as a 'cashier' or 'waitress' - they know very well what the girls are doing but maybe it rests easier when called by an alternative name. As I say, I have no problems with prostitution if that is what a girl wants to do but I have a massive problem with people forcing them to do it I have never understood the pressure Thai families are able to bring to bear on their daughters but I have seen it in action so I know its real. Not just regarding prostitution but in many other ways. Quite a lot of the guys here will not realise that if their wife's family told her to leave you and find a richer man - she may well do that. It simply wouldn't happen here in the UK, I know exactly what my daughter would say to me, if I tried to make her do anything against her will.

Do chargebacks happen in Thailand?

Absolutely right. It is about choice. Or it damned well should be. One thing that a lot of people don't seem to realise though - sometimes you need to contact a company urgently. Many companies that rely on conducting sales and after sales through their App also don't have a phone number that you can call. Why? Because the accountants and spreadsheet brigade have told them that 90% of customers that are trying to contact them are wasting their time. They can save £$£$??? by stripping their customer service department to the bone and making it difficult for customers to contact them. Contact can now take hours and hours - and now its your time that's taken, not theirs! I had a perfect example of that last week when I tried to contact a company I'd bought something from and falied to check out their customer service dept first. I must have spent 4 hours in total, trying to find ways of contact them and writing e-mails - all that when a 10 minute phone call would have sorted it. But of course, that 4 hours was at my cost - not the company's. Looking at it logically, the problem was relating to an article costing £30 - if I factored my time in to that commercialy, I lost a lot more than £30. In my experience, most companies that rely on Apps are exactly as described above - that's progress??? I'll stick with the dinosaurs.

And you'll live forever I suppose? Believe it or not, there is a growing number of people who are rejecting technology for various reasons, granted they are very much in the minority but the numbers are growing. My objections are the imposition of tech and environmental. Imposition: Where there is no alternative or any alternative puts a person at a disadvantage. Environmental: Have you any idea just how much electricity the internet and its various servers use? Its on of the main reasons that despite significant improvements in efficiency, cleaner vehicles and regulations limiting industrial emissions etc. etc........the world is actually emmiting more harmful gases than it was 20 years ago. I'm an internet user and I embraced technology to a point but now its just gone ridiculous, bigger faster better......so we are told. Even my 33 year old daughter commented to me a few months ago that she thought tech has gone too far. On a subject that I have some knowledge of that sort of explains/supports what she said. I can remember a time when cars were unreliable and difficult to start in cold weather. Slowy things got better and in more recent times cars and their components are computer controlled - for want of a better word. In my opinion the pinnacle of that was around 2000. Since then it seems that tech has been added for tech's sake. Not only that but some of this high tech stuff costs a fortune when it fails. Take for example the proliference of cars that are fitted with an electronically operated handbrake. I'm an ex mechanic and a driver - in my working life in the business, I can't ever remember having problems with the operating system of a handbrake - the lever. The electronic equivalent of a handbrake lever by contrast is proving very unreliable and can cost a small fortune to replace. The OP doesn't wish to install an app on his phone for security reasons, he may, like me have environmental objections too. It seems that he was not required to have this 'app' when he made a purchase but is now having it imposed on him in order to obtain a refund. My bank is slowly reducing the number of things I can do on online banking and transferring them over to its app based banking system. Apart from continually having to buy bigger, better phones with ever increasing amounts of memory, I'd suggest that walking around with a device that virtually controls your life, may not be the best idea. The damage that could be done should your 'loaded' smartphone fall into the wrongs hands doesn't bear thinking about. The OP and the rest of us that don't want 'apps' on our phones should still be able complete transactions and obtain refunds etc. via more traditional routes. Here endeth the rant ????

Happy to be a 'dinosaur' - the reliance on technology will backfire before too long - mark my words.

Exactly the same world as you. I check out companies I deal with and if their customer service doesn't suit me, I don't deal with them. But more and more we either accept these 'Apps' or are put at a disadvantage. You may be happy for all your banking and other personal stuff to be on a small device that you carry around everywhere, with the associated risks that carries - some of us are not.

Errrm freedom of choice???

Whatever happened to 'choice'? Why should anyone be forced to dowload something on to their phone to simply access goods or services? Don't tell me Apps are secure. How many databases have been 'hacked' in recent years when people had been told their data was secure? For me, my phone is my phone and I use it for communication only. There's also the fact that so many companies want you to have their 'App' these days that you often have to buy a new phone with a bigger memory - that happened to me, I was perfectly happy with my old A17 - nice and compact but low on memory. However, as a phone and communication tool (the reason I have a phone) it was fine. I was forced to buy a new one - much bigger of course, won't fit in my pocket and now my new that's filling up fast. Where does it end?

Further to my previous post and on Apps in general - fight as we might, we are all being forced into having these damned Apps for just about everything we do. Kaskikorn for example, are busy making regular changes to their electronic banking offer - I would not be at all surpised if they end 'normal' online banking before long and transfer all their services to their App. Likewise, I don't want a contactless debit card on my UK bank account and so far have done OK without one - I'm happy with Chip & Pin. However, I visited my local Asda supermarket in the UK last week and tried to purchase a coffee from their new vending machine - cannot, contactless payments only! Could this be the start of being forced to use contactless?