My Friend Same

they're all pretty lame but not their fault as Thailand aint the consumer capital of SE Asia. Best bet is Foodland

I received this online banking message from Chase Bank U.S. earlier this week...

Maybe they don't like their customers trying to avoid their hefty international wire transfer fees....

I have had Chase change the rules of a credit card unfairly and I would never trust them again. I used one of their low interest teaser rates. I figured 3.99% for the life of the loan so I paid the minimum monthly and used the money for investments. Chase has decided that they want to get these teaser loans off their books and since they can't unilaterally raise the agreed interest rate they instead raised the minimum monthly payment from 2% of the loan to 5% of the loan on any of these loans in which people were just making minimum payments. That is a pretty shady way of doing business in my opinion. I have no intention of using any service of Chase in the future.

Luckily I have a small regional bank that appreciates my business and they now get all of it.

that's strange, I have 4 chase cards with these transfer balance rates on them and they never upped my minimum payment, still at 2%. maybe they thought you were a long term risk

I went to Penang 2 months ago with a non-o + 2 back to back tourist visas in passport (and a 30 day extension on most recent tourist visa). I also had 6 years consecutive in my prior passport of 30 day stamps + tourist visas in my prior passport. I was warned by NJ Books that I would not get a visa (I had already given passport to hotel guy for TV). I got the TV anyway that time. This time I'm going back without an extension on most recent visa. Don't know what's gonna happen but I'm giving it a shot

Thursday Oct.15: downtown in Georgetown, Penang

Upon my arrival on this latest visa run, my usual agent (N.B. and hotelier) didn't even ask if I wanted to try for a Thai TR Visa, so I just gave the whole thing a miss and kept the agents fee. Why throw good money after bad: I'll get 30 days at Suwannaphoom Airport and take things as they come.

Besides, I may be back here next month: seems you could go down and back on the same plane and miss just the one day away from you-know-what. As it's best to book a few weeks in advance, does anyone have any suggestions as to the current practicalities of doing the same kind of fly out / fly back and get a 30-day TR at the airport on return? I'm wondering if they might ask to see a foreign entry stamp, not just a Thai exit stamp.

RAW.

confusing post. you mean it was a guarantee you would not get the tr visa so you blew it off or what?

Wow, where there an official Thai immigration statement linking this tourist visa crackdown with income tax evasion? I must have missed that if true. Can someone clear that up or is it BS?

I have experience in this regard. It was at airport and I wanted to preserve the 2 entries on a triple entry tourist visa. I requested a 30 days stamp and they had me sign that I didn't want to use an entry. Later I discovered that I signed to negate an entry and got 30 days and only 1 entry left on the tourist. so I'm saying the answer is no

I used the agent at my hotel. this same agent had told me 3-4 weeks earlier that I had zero chance of getting a tourist visa. He seemed pretty confident I'd get it on monday though when I gave him my passport. I was expecting rejection for sure with that extension in there. That day, monday Aug 24, while my passport was at consulate, I stopped by my old agent on Chulia Street (NJ Books) and he told me it was a sure rejection with the extension in there. I went back to the hotel pretty dispondent but much to my surprise there was the shiny visa in passport. Who knows how or why especially when the main chulia guy said no way

I most certainly won't be going back to Penang until there's some confirmation that all is well.

I had plane ticket booked July 21 and learned from this forum on July 24 that tourist visas were not being issued to those with a few in passport this year. Rather than scrap my ticket and head to Laos, I went forward with planned trip anyway. I was pleasantly surprised to be issued a 60 day tourist visa w/o a hassle. I used an agent. In my passport is a single Non-O from Jan 2009 and 2 single touists as well as a 30 day ext. All visas issued in 2009 and in Penang

OP I guess you didn't notice that now in addition to the empty big Heine bottles, the dude has a bottle of red wine in front of him. I've seen him for 4 years also in the same spot. Don't know jack about him

I went there and the dude came out with a printout of all my exits and entries to thailand which at the time were about a year's worth. dont think new passports are gonna help because they just print all you shit out

Agree with the OP 100%. Some people live in a world of illusion and think it's cheap here but not a chance and I aint just talking nutella. You get what you pay for and sure you can get cheap dumpy Apts. Electricity is outrageous so if you want AC you pay more than the rent for the dump, lol. Only things I see cheap here is street food, water and mass transit/taxis. beyond that, I can buy anything much cheaper in the US

Ouch

this is a much better alternative than the counting days crappola.

some people have absolutely nothing better to do. Feel for these people my friend

how's it going Bouchan. I still have a bunch left from my last US trip if you would like any. I brought back a bunch of Skoal and Husky mainly, still have a lot in fridge. PM me if you are interested. cheers, Jack

PS: I am in BKK

I always get a kick out of people suggesting simply not paying last month's rent, LOL. I've rented 5 condos in Bangkok and each and every contract stated that NO SECURITY DEPOSIT SHALL BE USED TO PAY RENT. Seemed pretty standard on all contracts I saw. well anyway I did try that on my 1st place and was met with a padlock on the door and all my belongings inside after I DIDN'T PAY MY LAST MONTH'S RENT. So I say lmao to advising this insane approach to trying to outsmart the landlord, as if he aint ready for mfers to pull that crap

there will be one less guy in line clogging things up at the consulate. Yeah I'm done with it. did it twice and I'm thru. I love vientiane but cant stomach the whole consulate experience anymore or the crossing of the border afterwards. I'll go anywhere, pay anything to avoid that insanity again. I'll take my single entry wherever I can get it.

Hey John

a friend of mine had a dvd player that would no longer read discs so he came to this very forum requesting advice. You post reminds me of his plea for help. At first he got no responses, then when he did he had one wiseass tell him to trash the year old player and other responses which didn't help solve his situation. He then just went to google until he found the answer which was so simple, just take the top off the player and swap an alcohol soaked q-tip on the eye reader and the thing then worked perfect. my advice is to google away as he did till you find your answer. you aint gonna find it here but I dont blame you for trying. I bet you will find a similarly simple solution to at least getting your data back

no surprise here. this is not new rule just being enforced now. 5 years ago siam told me and my stack of cash to take a hike while bkk bank opened the account. no shocker here at all

my god jing thing, what's the big deal about activating visa and mastercard from thailand? I've activated at least 20 cards in 5 years. aint exactly rocket science to answer a few security questions. talk about making a mountain out of a mole hill. who needs a US phone number. obviously you have been to chicken to even try to activate a card, dont fcking sweat it. as for using visa/mastercard in atms here (credit cards not bank atms), they dont work and the card co locks up your card so you have to call them and answer security questions to unlock. they said if i want cash advance to go into a bank instead. I never have taken one though

somebody mentioned Munsters and I've been looking for that in Thailand for 6 years! where can I find? I do understand that Cannon is coming on dvd this summer so hoping to find that around soon. no word on barnaby jones though

oh and like the belgian chocolate guy says above, there is that supermarket in the basement of the mall. I wouldnt get overly excited about that dump because it aint that great. foodland is better

most people arrive penang and race over to NJ Books on chulia street and submit passport b4 noon. some others go to parvez book store next to that and a few hand it in to banana guest house. probably half of the runners shack up in some flea bag bed bug ridden chulia st guest house while others choose the musty 1.5 star hotels nearby. then you have the upscale runners who shell out the 1800 baht for the 3 star nothing special hotels in the area like cititel

I havent been to penang since Sept 6 2007 after learning of warning stamps on tourist visas. I was lucky that I missed the stamps by a week or 2 late last year. At any rate, I had a lot of shit going on and have been in and out of the country since last dec, no time for tourist visa nonsense in my home country; too much chit to do!!!!!! I have 6 years of exempts and mainly tourist visas from Penang over that time (mostly triples from Penang!!). I thought I'd take a chance after hearing that penang had lightened up recently via this forum. my time was up so I gave it a shot. I am delighted to report that I grabbed my single entry with no problemos and no stampos. I went directly to my nearest penang beer store and slammed to bottles of guinness in celebration. the last thing i wanted was a nitemare trip to Laos to get this shit done. So I say party hearty bretheren, Penang is a GOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Good to hear. I used to send 25K baht every month for a few years to my ex gf in Bangkok. Never a problem