Thailands Privilege Card May Go Private

[george]

Privilege card may go private

BANGKOK: -- Thailand Privilege Card's board will decide on January 26 how the company should be transformed, either to retain state enterprise status or be changed into a private firm.

Tourism and Sports Minister Suvit Yodmani said yesterday that there could be discussions on the card-holding period as well as whether the price should be increased.

Earlier, Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister MR Pridiyathorn Devakula said TPC should be dissolved as it had sold 1,900 cards but accumulated losses of over Bt800 million. However, after a review Suvit said that dissolution was out of question as Thailand risked lawsuits from the members which could incur over Bt10 billion in compensation.

-- The Nation 2007-01-20

[otherstuff1957]

OK, here's some rough math: 1,900 x one million = 1.9 billion baht, so, to have 800 million in loses, they have to have spent 2.7 billion baht....

[sriracha john]

Privilege card may go private

BANGKOK: -- Thailand Privilege Card's board will decide on January 26 how the company should be transformed, either to retain state enterprise status or be changed into a private firm.

Tourism and Sports Minister Suvit Yodmani said yesterday that there could be discussions on the card-holding period as well as whether the price should be increased.

Earlier, Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister MR Pridiyathorn Devakula said TPC should be dissolved as it had sold 1,900 cards but accumulated losses of over Bt800 million. However, after a review Suvit said that dissolution was out of question as Thailand risked lawsuits from the members which could incur over Bt10 billion in compensation.

-- The Nation 2007-01-20

Have they completely dropped the highly successful word, "Elite", from the card?? :D

[johnnyk]

Privatization, that's the answer!

555

[LindsayBKK]

I heard they were going to cancel the card soon.

[Morty]

I heard they were going to cancel the card soon.

First they privatize it, with no govt. involvment/responsibillity. Then they run it in the red for a while (a year or two), and get bankrupted by their debtors no money left all members lost their money.

TiT

[Dupont]

So close and yet so far.

Target was 1,000,000 stupid farangs drooling to stay in LOS. 1,900 sold (was this sold or does this include the large amount they gave away?).

998,100 short of the original target over a period of nearly 6 years now. Shows we foreigners, were nowhere near as stupid as the Thais thought!

This is a shortfall of 998,100,000,000 baht ($27,725,000,000 US) and would have covered the amount they lost when they crashed the stock market and the (relative) pittance that Taxin got away with. Surely a record... isn't it?

Asuming this was some part of a master plan, budgets and all (sure there wasn't, it was just the dollar signs flashing before their eyes) this must have left a pretty big hole in some of the service providers budgets as well. Just where ws this money destined to end up?

[iang]

Privilege card may go private

BANGKOK: -- Thailand Privilege Card's board will decide on January 26 how the company should be transformed, either to retain state enterprise status or be changed into a private firm.

Tourism and Sports Minister Suvit Yodmani said yesterday that there could be discussions on the card-holding period as well as whether the price should be increased.

Earlier, Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister MR Pridiyathorn Devakula said TPC should be dissolved as it had sold 1,900 cards but accumulated losses of over Bt800 million. However, after a review Suvit said that dissolution was out of question as Thailand risked lawsuits from the members which could incur over Bt10 billion in compensation.

-- The Nation 2007-01-20

And I wonder just how many of these 1,900 cards were given away FOC as 'promotion' to so called VIP's??????

To make the card work, all they need to do is give the owner of the card the ability, as a foreigner, to own one or two domestic pieces of land (to a maximum size perhaps) in their own name & along with the visa privilages, the card would sell, no doubt!

[flyer]

The big problem with the Elite card is the lack of guarantee that comes with it. Government owned or private owned does not make any difference to it. If it is govment owned they can end it or change it at will any time and you are done. If it is private owned they can go in (arranged) bakruptcy any time and you are done also. The problem is that it is a very expensive card, that can only have value if you consider the 'life time' or at least a long enough time membership. For myself i estimated that this memebrship could make sense if i had a guarantee that it would last at least 15 years. If such a card was issued in some (western) country with tight financial product rules the requirement would be that the company issuing the card would keep a bank guarantee for the amount of years to go after your subscription. So, if the guarntee would be of, say, at least 10 years membership, they should have a bank reserve of 900,000 B the first year of your subscritpion, 800,000 B the second year , etc... in case of bankrupcy or closure of the company then you are guaranteed payment back to you of the unused years and you have not really lost much. Because the issuers of this card could not give me any proper guarantee i did not subscribe and i guess this is also the main reason why the project failed dramatically. Supposedly a farang wanting to spend a lazy 1 mio B on a membership card of some type is someone who has accumulated more wealth and cannot be deemed stupid and inexperienced. What surprises me most is that they could still find 1,900 people who obviously are incredibly silly/confident.... For those i am not too concerned if they are the loosers... that is the hard way for them to learn to think better next time

[libya 115]

Is it true that the Essex celebrity fashion model and metrosexual 'David Beckham' was presented with a Thai Elite Card? If so why?

[Dupont]

Is it true that the Essex celebrity fashion model and metrosexual 'David Beckham' was presented with a Thai Elite Card? If so why?

Well, if it is true, its because this is they new type of long stay resident that Thailand is trying to entice.

Mr and Mrs Beckam showed what people of this calibre think of Thailand by their next move.... From Spain to the USA!

Word of the day for Thai planners wanting to attract "quality"Tourists. Exclusivity. You have to empty the place FIRST. Then clean it up, then, and only then can you begin to think about developing along these lines

Edited January 21, 2007 by Dupont

[cutter007]

I know two people that bought it, both were asian (not farangs) and both had enough money

that they wouldn't loss any sleep if the company went bankrupt.

These are the only people that are going to buy this, people who don't consider 1 mil baht

a lot of money, and are interested in coming to Thailand often.

Sorry to tell you TPC what you should have already figured out, there are not 1 million people in the

world in that catagory.

It will go bankrupt in a couple of years, fingers will be pointed, but in the end no one will

be punished, and it will be on to the next idiot tourism marketing idea.

Here's one for you Thailand, try clean beaches, less pollution, honest transportation,

and some decent infrastructure, for a marketing promotion.

Naaa never mind, tourists aren't interested in those things.............

[LivinLOS]

Look its a system where you pay a lump sum and then get lifetime product.. After a period of time this is a pure ponzi.. They need new members to pay for the old members services.

When in the history of the world has a service like that ever been successfull over the longer term ??

[Sunbelt Asia]

Mr and Mrs Beckam showed what people of this calibre think of Thailand by their next move.... From Spain to the USA!

The Beckhams' had 250 million reasons to pick the USA over Thailand.

www.sunbeltasiagroup.com

[Briggsy]

If I recall correctly, there was a "privilege" allowing members to purchase property on a 99-year lease and the property was held by Elite Card Ltd Co. If anyone has taken advantage of this and the company is privatised and then goes bankrupt, would the property also be repossessed?

[midas]

If I recall correctly, there was a "privilege" allowing members to purchase property on a 99-year lease and the property was held by Elite Card Ltd Co. If anyone has taken advantage of this and the company is privatised and then goes bankrupt, would the property also be repossessed?

Ah yes i remember that !! Another can of worms to sort out

[ZZZ]

If I recall correctly, there was a "privilege" allowing members to purchase property on a 99-year lease and the property was held by Elite Card Ltd Co. If anyone has taken advantage of this and the company is privatised and then goes bankrupt, would the property also be repossessed?

Ah yes i remember that !! Another can of worms to sort out

That part was scrapped even before the first card was issued.