Highlandman

Yes they sometimes do that too. If it's a private car they use racial profiling to decide whether an individual who's a passenger inside that vehicle warrants asking them for ID or not. I've experienced this when traveling with business associates and friends of different nationalities over the years. In my experience, Chinese and Vietnamese aren't asked and are waived through. Farang even more likely to be waived through. I certainly always am (although I may be asked where I'm going and or coming from). However, these days sometimes Chinese are asked for their documents due to Chinese running illegal activities/scam cities on the Burmese side and occasional reports of illegal entry from Myanmar to Thailand for shopping by Chinese nationals. One time my Sri Lankan friend joined me and my father on a trip to Yangon, Myanmar via Mae Sot. My Sri Lankan friend was asked for his passport. A quick inspection of the front page of his passport and we were on our way. Interestingly I only remember him being asked as we entered Mae Sot at the last checkpoint before the city but not on the way back to Bangkok one week later. He kinda did look like an Indo-Burmese person. Many Burmese remarked he looked like a local Indian Burmese, while we were in Myanmar.

Why not? That should be enough. Hotels take photocopies or photos of the information page of passports only and seem to manage to get TM30s done using just this information (and of course their address and other details specific to the hotel).

Oh OK. How did she even recognize you were a farang though since you had to wear a mask on board a flight at the time. Difficult to recognize people wearing face coverings. However, quite often you have Asian passengers. Unless they receive a flight manifest, then I can't see how they would be able to tell who's Thai and who isn't if you have Asian foreigners on board and especially back then when everyone was masked up. Easier just to make a bilingual announcement regardless of who's on board since it is the law as she claimed. Now it could be just because it was Covid and the borders were more or less shut (though plenty of foreigners remained in Thailand throughout Covid) that they temporarily changed the rules and didn't make English announcements automatically. I'd say on any given flight in Thailand it's highly unlikely there wouldn't be at least a couple of foreigners on board even to non touristy destinations such as Nakorn Phanom or Khon Kaen. This is because farang expats, especially retirees live all over the place. Again, Covid was different- far fewer foreigners in the country and those that were here probably didn't want to go through all the Covid protocols just to get on a plane unless the trip was absolutely necessary and they didn't have access to a car.

Those are drug checkpoints. Even says so in Thai as you're approaching them.

I already mentioned I carry copies of my passport. Generally you're not going to get asked for your passport at any checkpoint in Thailand as a farang. If you're Chinese or Burmese or something maybe..in any case having all the important copies is good enough. I don't carry the original around unless I'm continuing onto a neighboring country (which I often do, when I travel through Thailand my final destination is often Laos or Cambodia).

140am? Firstly, why aren't they in bed. Secondly, you can't legally purchase beer at that time except in a club or bar. I think they should have called it a night and planned better for the next day.

I'm sure it does in Vietnam and Cambodia. For more information about Cambodia in particular, go to Cambodiaexpatsonline.com

It can. Immigration can use the details on your driver's license including name DOB and passport number and cross reference it with what's in their database, which will show whether a foreigner is in status or not. Physically checking passports is so old school. Besides, HK and Singaporean passport holders using the autogates for entry haven't had passport stamps for years. Thailand will be forced to abandon this old fashioned approach as countries scrap passport stamps and eventually even passports. In fact, they've already begun the process - since December 15 foreigners now get to use the autogates, thus no more passport stamps on exit, only on entry (exit for Thai, HK, Singapore and permanent residency holders using autogates).

Some speed cameras have been removed in the meantime. I also haven't received any speeding fines for at least 5 years as well. It also helps that on many highways leading out of Bangkok, the speed limit has been increased to 120km/h making it much more difficult to speed even if you wanted to as traffic is so heavy and/or you have right lane huggers that it's difficult to maintain a speed much above 100-110km/h anyway.

Something about that story doesn't sound right. If aged 7 and above and your son is Thai and has a national ID card that of course is sufficient to board a domestic flight. How would they even know he has a passport? If you're Thai it doesn't mean you have to have a passport. Only about 1 in 6 Thais actually has one. That's why ID cards are always accepted for domestic flights.

Years ago, unofficially they sometimes did but as of several months ago, I already noticed signs at the airport specifying that only passports/UN travel documents OR Thai issued documents such as a driver's license were acceptable.

Leaving their province without these documents, no big deal lets say someone drives you somewhere. Traveling by air without these documents? No, that would be foolish.

Seems hard to believe a foreigner could board a Thai domestic flight without showing ID prior to that date.

No, it's not unless you're renting a self drive car or need to go to the bank at your destination. For hotel check in you can use a driver's license or photocopies of your passport and relevant visa pages (although hotels generally no longer photocopy anything other than the information page these days from personal observations).

That doesn't make sense. It's Thailand not China. Granted I've never flown Air Asia but years ago I flew domestic routes with few or no other foreigners and they would always make announcements in Thai and English. I thought that was a CAAT rule.

Some of them are even wearing masks....to the beach!

Don't all domestic flights automatically have Thai and English announcements? I've never heard of any airline in Thailand only making Thai language announcements. In China, yes. All announcements on a recent domestic flight were in Chinese only and the pilot never speaks to the passengers, which I don't like. The safety announcement does have an automated version in English but the cabin attendants never speak anything but Chinese (they're probably able to speak English if you address them in English though). For me no problem, my Chinese is good enough to understand most of what was said.

What a rental agency and the police accept are often two different things. While you might be able to rent a vehicle with just a Thai DL,an IDP might be needed for the police or insurance purposes in case of an accident.

The only thing that might have changed is they definitely no longer accept foreign national ID cards or drivers licenses. They must now be Thai issued or if foreign issued, only a passport is recognized. That being said I thought that had already been the case for a while now.

Correct. This works even if the drivers license has an old passport number on it. A few years back I went to a New Years event at government house in Bangkok. This was on New Years Eve I think. Everyone but small children had to present some sort of ID. Foreigners had the option of showing a passport, pink ID or driver's license. I showed my drivers license. They were able to check my immigration status using the old passport number, linking it to the new one just from my Thai driver's license alone. I was then cleared for entry. No issues whatsoever.

Banks have been checking visa stuff for years at least in my experience. They simply want a photocopy of your latest entry stamp to show you're in the country legally.

The first source I read reporting on this was Malaysia's The Star. Curious, I read the article, but came back more confused than ever. They seemed to claim that Thai passengers had the option of presenting student ID cards and national ID cards for international flights, which is sheer nonsense. Foreign authorities neither accept, nor are they interested in any documents, which isn't a passport. Therefore, a passport (or an equivalent such as a UN certificate of identity) are the only acceptable documents for international travel for both Thai and non-Thai passengers. A part of me couldn't help but think this was another attempt by the Thais to try and separate foreigners and Thais, but all it likely was a very poor translation from the original Thai language article and thus a misunderstanding. Personally, I no longer fly domestic, since I purchased my car several years back. Thailand is a small country and with almost all flights operated on a hub and spoke system through Bangkok, flying domestically isn't practical unless you are a tourist from overseas or a Bangkok resident wishing to fly to a major tourist destination with flights from Bangkok such as Phuket, Krabi, Samui, Chiang Mai or Chiang Rai. Most of the few so called "cross-country" flights that don't involve flying into Bangkok first are operated by low cost Air Asia or Vietjet Air. The only full service carrier to operate a small number of cross country flights such as Samui-Chiang Mai is Bangkok Airways. As such, domestic air travel is of no interest to me. My main domestic destination is rarely one where I can fly into and even when I do head to one, I'd need a car to get around. Flying and then renting a car comes out to be much more expensive and inconvenient than just doing the driving myself from start to finish, not to mention I usually don't limit myself to just one destination which happens to have an airport. Quite often I'm doing a triangular route and forget about flying when I'm traveling with family or business associates. Too expensive, too impractical and frankly unnecessary. That's why this change (if it is indeed a change) doesn't affect me. However, I can't help but think IF they really no longer accept Thai driver's licenses or pink ID cards unless your passport is lost (again, this may be a misunderstanding and it could be they still accept them unequivocally) not to mention a lot of workers from Lao, Cambodia and Myanmar don't have passports or full passports but do have non-Thai ID cards, it's not a good sign of things to come. I can't see airline check in agents NOT accepting pink ID cards from this large cohort of workers who generally don't travel around with a passport. I know that in Myanmar and China, I'm in a police state, as in those countries they've always required foreigners to present passports for train and air travel (although in China some other equivalents may now be accepted too) but thought Thailand was a little more free. Now it seems like that claim can no longer be made. Besides, in China, there is definitely no check of your visa status made for a domestic train or flight. In fact, even on the international train to Laos, they're not checking your visa or stamps as you board in Kunming. That's done only at the border itself and is thus the travelers responsibility. In Myanmar though, on domestic flights they do check your passport and entry stamps/visa both upon check in and when arriving at a domestic airport. This is also done at certain checkpoints within the country if traveling by land, especially in border areas. Of course things are even tighter now with the civil war having expanded since the coup and some of these areas are inaccessible. Foreigners are no longer allowed to fly to Lashio or Tachilek unless they present a difficult to obtain permit.

Ok. Hopefully it is, and not only for those who've lost their passports with a police report. The problem with news stories like this in Thailand is they rarely present the facts concisely or explain, like in this case, what, if anything is being done differently to previously? I remember seeing the signs at Suvarnabhumi airport on the types of documents acceptable for domestic flights for both Thai and non-Thai passengers when I last walked past there a few months ago (I don't fly domestic, which I'll get into, in a separate post). The sign said, for non-Thai passengers, a passport or equivalent document, Thai driver's license or non-Thai ID were acceptable documents. In the past, one could sometimes get away with showing a foreign driver's license or national ID card as well. I guess that boastful guy on the Thai visa Facebook forums, Steve Smythe from Australia, who has lived in Thailand for more than 23 years and refuses to apply for a Thai driver's license, boasting he can show his Australian state issued license instead, will either have to show his passport from now on or if he has it in him to apply for a Thai driver's license, finally get that done.

Because he's under 7 and therefore has no other ID except for a birth certificate. A Thai passport is easier to carry around than a birth certificate.

Air Asia isn't going to transform Bangkok into a hub that rivals Dubai. Yes, Bangkok is a better positioned airport for onward flights to Laos (from Dubai there aren't any), Myanmar, Cambodia and Vietnam, but overall, Bangkok isn't what it used to be. Vietnam Airlines is now a solid competitor of THAI, currently operating to 3 Australian cities and 1 US city, while THAI only flies to 2 Australian cities, though Perth will be back online by late March. THAI still dominates in Europe, but Vietnam Airlines connects IndoChina better with triangular flights and is it 5th freedom flights? (one of them anyway) such as Siem Reap-Luang Prabang and Hanoi-Vientiane-Phnom Penh-Ho Chi Minh. You can thus take Vietnam Airlines for a journey connecting two World Heritage cities or between the capitals of these two Indochinese cities without having to route through their hubs in Vietnam. THAI for its part, with its Bangkok obsession is losing a lot of regional traffic. Not everyone needs or wants to go through Bangkok.