Polar Bear

Yes, recovered not less than 14 days, not infected for 14 days. Have you applied for a Thai Pass with a short dated recovery certificate? Did they accept it?

Yes, I saw the same thing on the London Embassy site, and it's repeated in the English translations on other Thai Embassy sites as well. But it's not what the rules actually say, and it won't be the London Embassy who decide what happens once you are here. For what it's worth, a relative just came back with a recovery certificate issued on Day 7, and he was 17 days post infection. He sent the certificate to the hotel, who sent it to the hospital, and no-one queried the date. As it was, he tested negative, so it didn't matter. He did have a printout of the Embassy page to argue if necessary. However, my general experience so far has been that having evidence that you are right counts for very little where Thai bureaucracy is concerned. We figured they would be unlikely to force him into hospitel quarantine under the circumstances, so the worst case was probably having to quarantine a few days at home until he was 14 days after the certificate was issued. But as I said, he tested negative, so we don't know for sure what would have happened otherwise.

This is what I thought initially as well, and the Thai Embassy UK site says 'infected more than 14 days'. But the rules actually say 14 days after the recovery certificate was issued. https://consular.mfa.go.th/th/content/thailand-pass-faqs-2 "you must present a valid medical certificate certifying the full recovery (within 3 months but no less than 14 days before travelling)" Recovery certificates can be issued at different times depending on the country. (In the UK, the earliest seems to be 7 days.)

Having had to make multiple applications, I've had very much the same experience. I've applications disappear from the system. Applications rejected, and then accepted with the exact same documents. Huge variation in how long it takes to get approval. And then others that have just gone through quickly and without a hitch. They have all had near identical documentation, only the dates changed. The actual process is not that complicated, but the random nature of the processing is extremely frustrating.

Lots of poor decisions from Qatar there, but there were huge queues on Friday and Saturday as well with no apparent tech issued. Qatar have started opening check in desks 4 hours before the flight, and calling passengers individually to ask them to check in early. That's about all they can do. A passenger isn't going to know whether the baggage fiasco was Qatar's fault or the baggage services, or most likely some combination of the two. (There have also been multiple other instances of passengers being left on the tarmac for hours because the airport doesn't have enough ground staff to get them off the plane.) For the record, IM(NS)HO everything happening at the Thai end is just theatre for dramatic effect, so I don't see any point trying to look for logic in it any more.

The problems at Manchester Airport are out of Qatar's control. The only reason they appear to be worse affected is because their flights are busier, and they are still a full service airline, so there are more checked bags (compared with the LCC). Manchester Airport laid off a lot of staff during the pandemic and then completely failed to plan for reopening. Now people are flying again, and they've got no baggage handlers. It takes 6-8 weeks to get them trained up, and they are still actively recruiting, so it's going to be months before they are fully staffed again. When the baggage handling area gets overwhelmed, they stop accepting bags. The check in desks can't send anything down until it's cleared, so everything grinds to a halt. When that's a technical/engineering issue, they send handlers up to check in to stack bags anywhere they can behind the desks to keep things moving. When it's a staffing issue, there is no-one to send, so everyone just has to sit and wait. It's a mess, and it was completely predictable and preventable if Manchester Airport management had done their job.

Did you upload your recovery certificate when you applied for the Thai Pass? If not, you need to reapply and add it. You can also email it to the hotel and ask them to forward your certificate to the hospital. When you arrive, double check that they have definitely informed the hospital, and insist they do it then if they haven't.

You are supposed to upload your recovery certificate when you apply for the Thai Pass. There is a section for it in the same part as for vaccinations. About 80% of people start testing negative on PCR about 2 weeks after any symptoms pass (except the cough which can linger), or 2 weeks in general if they are asymptomatic, but for some people it can take a couple of months. Even if you have repeatedly tested negative, anyone can occasionally still be positive for up to 3 months post-infection, and for some people up to 6 months. Thailand accepts recovery certificates from 14-90 days after they were issued. Most countries issue recovery certificates 7-14 days after infection.

If you paid for it, you received a full dose whether it was your primary or booster. MedPark only gave half doses by special appointment. Full dose was the standard. (I asked them when I got mine). I don't know if that was also the case for the free ones.

He doesn't need a pre-flight test (unless the transit country requires it), but he needs to apply for a Thai Pass. There are a few options depending on where he arrives and if he's vaccinated. The fastest one is test & go, which is one night quarantine and PCR on arrival. Check the Thai Pass site to see what his options are. https://tp.consular.go.th/

Mor Chana is the official procedure. It is working better than it was, but it's still not great. You should get the notification to upload your test results around day 7/8. If you don't see the pop up, check the notification tab in the app, and it might be there. Some people have been able to get their status updated by emailing their results to the first hotel if the notification doesn't come through. FWIW since they added the notification/link to Mor Chana, it's always worked for me, but it is mostly just luck.

From what I can tell, the status/colour change is directly linked to the results upload, so there's no obvious way to do that on more than one device, unless you still have the notification on the second device and you are able to upload it again.

For test & go, you need the Mor Chana app to upload your Day 5 ATK result. You connect it to your Thai Pass when you arrive, and then you get a notification in the app with a link for the upload around day 7/8. (At least you are supposed to get a notification.) Although so far, nothing seems to happen if you don't do it, but that's what the rules say. Mor Prom, for your vaccination record, is an entirely separate app.

Thanks for that internationalism. Antibody tests made some sense when reinfections were rare, but they aren't much use anymore. As the gap between potential infections keeps closing, there are going to be more and more issues with it. You can already be reinfected with another variant while still testing positive on PCR from your previous infection, which makes ATK more use than PCRs now, even though they are less reliable overall.

What blood test can you have to 'prove' you are not infectious?

Lots of people are saying you 'may' need a test for 'certain' airlines. Maybe you do, but as of yet, no-one has been able to name one. Is the Thaiger specifying which airlines they are referring to?

But if you have the Thai yellow book, you should also have (or be able to get) a Thai vaccination certificate, and access to your vaccination record in Mor Prom. Both of which have QR codes.

This is not the case at all. An RT-PCR test is somewhat similar to a DNA test. Post-infection, your body is a COVID graveyard, full of fragments of dead virus, so you can continue testing positive on PCR for months, long after you are no longer infectious. That's why recovery certificates are valid for at least 3 months.

The potential flood is dissipating rapidly. Yes, there are people who specifically want to visit Thailand because they have family here or whatever, but a lot of the people who just wanted a vacation are already finding alternatives with less ridiculous entry requirements. Maybe they will come back to Thailand eventually, or maybe they'll decide the new destinations work just as well for them and they won't bother. The longer this goes on, the less people will be waiting when they do finally relax the rules.

Thai Airways have updated their site to say it's not needed after the 1st. https://www.thaiairways.com/en_TH/news/news_announcement/news_detail/covid_info_th.page?country=thailand_en.jpg

Everything at MAN is ridiculously slow at the moment, arrivals and departures. If you would usually allow 3 hours, allow at least 4 now. Bags alone are taking a lifetime to come out, and then they seem to have as few staff as possible available at passport control. For departures, airlines have started opening check-in 4 hours in advance now, so passengers have a fighting chance of getting through security before their flight leaves.

The Thai Pass is nothing to do with visas. Many of us are already in Thailand, but we want to leave and then return. So it's not at all unusual to apply while you are still in Thailand. Even if you couldn't figure that out yourself, there was no need to be rude about it.

I've had to apply for way too many of these things over the past few months. I've mostly applied while still in Thailand, but sometimes had to reapply when still in the UK. It's almost exactly the same information every time, same flights, same insurance, same vax record, all the changes is the date. The fastest I've had it approved is 24 hours, most of them have taken around 5/6 working days, a couple have been 8/9 working days. Highlander, I'm not a visa agent or anything like that. But if it would help, I can run through your paperwork with you and check you've got everything you need, just drop me a message.

You still have to take the test. If you have the recovery certificate, it doesn't matter if the test is positive. Yes, that makes the test completely pointless. Yes, they still make you do it.

https://consular.mfa.go.th/th/content/thailand-pass-faqs-2