Orient Express

3 hours ago, ThailandRyan said:

They are quaint, and luxurious, makes you feel like you stepped back in time.  Actually very cool.

Very cool and very expensive ????

10 hours ago, ThaidDown said:

Around three years ago the wife of a friend of ours died after 20+ years of marriage. The husband had been on a marriage extension for all of those years showing a pension in excess of 40K Baht / month but less than 65K.

 

Similar to the OP s friend he was at a loss what to do. Long story short.. after discussing with my wife the powers of a senior Immigration Officer to forego some requirements, friend, wife and myself went to Immigration and spoke to the Boss. Left all the talking to wife who put the case in her normal forceful but polite tone . Eventually, after some discussion, IO agreed and signed off the Retirement extension with the less than 65K/m income.

 

Note...No additional money was suggested, offered ,asked for or given.

I find it gratifying to see that there are some Thai immigration officials who

a) exercise common sense; and

b) have a heart.

Summary of the previous 300+ posts for anyone who has come late to the party:

Corpus Christie posted pics of empty streets, closed businesses and general desolation in the central, tourist area of CM.

It's business as usual in the rest of CM, according to residents.

That's it!

Lots of red herrings being thrown around here.

The number of hotels applying for the ASQ scheme will no doubt increase as the number of customers increases, as it has done over the past few months. At the same time, prices will become more competitive. My price point would be about EUR 1k (so about THB 37k) for the two weeks quarantine period. Currently, there are 15 out of the 68 hotels in Bangkok at or below this price. When I last looked – about 2 months ago - there were probably only about 3 out of a list of 20 hotels at this price.

There are several of international flights currently operating to BKK. I think Qatar Airways, for example, has flown daily throughout. Currently, they are not allowed to fly passengers into Bangkok – they fly freight in and passengers and freight out – but it wouldn’t take much to change that. If, on the other hand, the Thai government insists on the “new tourists” only using the Thai Airways repatriation flights, there will be a problem.

I don’t understand this fixation with the USD 100k insurance policy. Most travel insurance policies (at least ex- Europe) have adjusted to include Covid-19 and cover health expenses for a much larger figure than USD 100k (usually in the millions). The related insurance premiums are still generally at the same level as pre-Covid. I don’t think the Thai government is insisting on a Thai insurance policy for tourists, is it?

These are all technicalities which can be easily sorted. The more important – and difficult – issue to resolve, will be managing public reaction (hysteria?) when – as will happen – one or more of these tourists is found to be infected after release from quarantine. Hopefully, someone in the Thai government is planning for this.

11 hours ago, SVC Porter said:

Thai Airways are advertising seats in Oct and November.  I'd imagine they'll be costly. 

Probably ... but anyone booking anything with Thai Airways at the moment needs their head testing, quite frankly.

On 7/28/2020 at 2:21 PM, clearance said:

Agoda usually showing price for 1 night without taxes and service charges, so you see final price only on last page of booking, before payment.

Booking is much more convenient this way. Strange that Agoda uses different approach because Agoda.com and Booking.com is same company.

You can choose to display the total price on Agoda by clicking on the currency symbol, then the "Total price per night" tab.

6 hours ago, dsf9 said:

 

Why couldn't the contract apply to walk-in and phone rates?

 

It would be unenforceable, apart from anything else.

On 7/27/2020 at 4:17 PM, BritManToo said:

Contract with Booking.com/Agoda usually states no undercutting by the hotel.

On 7/27/2020 at 4:18 PM, Upnotover said:

I've always understood that the hotels agreement with Agoda or whoever says that thay must not match or undercut the Agoda rate hence their reluctance to do so as they probably get many times more bookings through booking sites than directly.

This only applies to rates offered on the hotel's own website. It does not (and could not) apply to rates obtained by direct contact with the hotel (phone, email, walk-in).

Also, hotels (in some other countries, at least) legitimately get round the no-undercutting rule by offering freebies (welcome gift, late check-out etc) if you book on their website.