Thailand Elite price increase jan 1 2021

[BlueT84]

Good day, i am a member of thailand elite. My membership expires in 4 months. I just received an email. Stating they will discount me 2%, if i purchase before dec 31, 2020. As on January they will increase the price from 500k baht to 600k baht. 
 

Anyone else get an email like this? 

[ukrules]

They gave me a 15k discount when I renewed late last year many months after it had expired and during the 6th year ????

 

[alianware]

Even thai elite program cannot help their member to come to Thailand withouth STB procedures. Is that all worth after paying much money ?? 

[Maestro]

1 hour ago, alianware said:

Even thai elite program cannot help their member to come to Thailand withouth STB procedures. Is that all worth after paying much money ?? 

 

What are the STB procedures?

[gentlemanjackdarby]

Talk about being tone deaf!

Although THB 100K isn't all that much as an amount by itself, as a percentage, that's 20%

A bit cheeky for an outfit that can't do anything to gets its members back into the country to ask for a tip when they forgot to deliver dinner

 

[at15]

absolutely insane, the price should be going down 

[alianware]

5 hours ago, Maestro said:

 

What are the STB procedures?

I mean STV . It was typo.

[ubonjoe]

2 hours ago, alianware said:

I mean STV . It was typo.

Look on the Thai embassy website in your home country. Many countries do not qualify due to not being a covid 19 low risk country,

Links are here. https://www.thaiembassy.org/

[simon43]

12 hours ago, connda said:

Looks as though the nationalistic nation-of-xenophobia is going to double-down and make entry more and more difficult until perhaps they have purged most of the dirty foreign undesirables out of the country.

Once the vaccine is released and normal travel between countries resumes, it's past time to consider a Plan-B.

I previously paid 500,000 baht for a 5-year Elite visa, no work permit (working not allowed with that visa).  So that's 100,000 baht a year.

 

Now I pay the equivalent of 22,000 baht each year for a one-year business visa, including all fees for my work permit and local ID card ...,, and no 90 day reporting etc.

 

How?  I moved from Thailand to live and work in Laos. Less stress!!  My plan B worked out just great ????

[vandeventer]

3 hours ago, simon43 said:

I previously paid 500,000 baht for a 5-year Elite visa, no work permit (working not allowed with that visa).  So that's 100,000 baht a year.

 

Now I pay the equivalent of 22,000 baht each year for a one-year business visa, including all fees for my work permit and local ID card ...,, and no 90 day reporting etc.

 

How?  I moved from Thailand to live and work in Laos. Less stress!!  My plan B worked out just great ????

This is money we lose buying this elite visa, and now with a 100,000 baht increase who is kidding who. Times are bad in Thailand with covid-19 and the rest of the world. So a 50% discount would be responsible. Think with your head not with are wallet!

 

[digger70]

13 hours ago, at15 said:

absolutely insane, the price should be going down 

Yea, they don't get too many takers so they have to put up the Fee to make more money.

[Benmart]

For a country which places so much importance on reputation,  this latest ill conceived move paints a distressed portrait of a terminally ill patient.

[thaitero]

If there are a lot of people thinking ( Are there, i do not think anyone here knows the real answer ?)  Thailand is safe haven as far of covid and Elite is one way to live there so of cource price goes up rather than down,,

[alianware]

9 hours ago, ubonjoe said:

Look on the Thai embassy website in your home country. Many countries do not qualify due to not being a covid 19 low risk country,

Links are here. https://www.thaiembassy.org/

thai Embasy website has no lists of risk countries. It's the list of other country. So people is confused. 

[Zikomat]

A Thai business model: in times of trouble raise the prices. Nothing is new here. 

[ubonjoe]

6 minutes ago, alianware said:

thai Embasy website has no lists of risk countries. It's the list of other country. So people is confused. 

The site I posted only has a list of embassies and official consulate.

If you go to your home country embassy website and don't see any mention of the the new single entry tourist visa or the Special Tourist Visa it is a likely a high risk country.

 

[kevin612]

The company should attract people with discounts instead of raise the fee, especially during the pandemic.

[Dart12]

Why bother with an Elite if having it won't even get their members back into the country?

[itsallmine68]

Whats that a 20% increase?? The only people I know that charge that much are loansharks

[Destiny1990]

What happened with that TAT Expat card ?

[StayinThailand2much]

7 hours ago, vandeventer said:

This is money we lose buying this elite visa, and now with a 100,000 baht increase who is kidding who. Times are bad in Thailand with covid-19 and the rest of the world. So a 50% discount would be responsible. Think with your head not with are wallet!

 

Unfortunately, Thai logic is to raise prices when business is down. You're so desperate to buy the product, you'll be punished by having to cover the shortfall of lost customers.

[Kelsall]

20 hours ago, simon43 said:

I previously paid 500,000 baht for a 5-year Elite visa, no work permit (working not allowed with that visa).  So that's 100,000 baht a year.

 

Now I pay the equivalent of 22,000 baht each year for a one-year business visa, including all fees for my work permit and local ID card ...,, and no 90 day reporting etc.

 

How?  I moved from Thailand to live and work in Laos. Less stress!!  My plan B worked out just great ????

How's the medical care in Laos compared to Thailand?  I mean serious stuff like cardiac bypass, cancer treatment, etc.

[simon43]

13 minutes ago, Kelsall said:

How's the medical care in Laos compared to Thailand?  I mean serious stuff like cardiac bypass, cancer treatment, etc.

In a nutshell - terrible!!  Don't move here if you are in ill-health or expect to need urgent hospital care after a cardiac arrest, stroke or serious car/bike accident etc.  For urgent medical cases, you need to be evacuated to Thailand, so medivac insurance is highly recommended.

 

While I can't avoid the unforseen accidents, I try to stay fit and healthy, to minimise the likelyhood of an urgent medical event....

 

 

[Dmitry2222]

TE works bad in my opinion because they can not provide easy access for members. Their motto: Low service, higth price...

[natway09]

Please tell me why they should let Thai Eite visa holders in without proper protocols ?

The virus is not a dog,,, you cannot train it not to go where you don't want it

[KoreaElte]

2 hours ago, natway09 said:

Please tell me why they should let Thai Eite visa holders in without proper protocols ?

The virus is not a dog,,, you cannot train it not to go where you don't want it

Nobody asked to bypass protocols. Thailand Elite Visa holders need COVID Health Insurance and 2 weeks ASQ and a negative COVID test pre-departure just like everyone else. Nothing is being bypassed. The issue Dmitry2222 is referring to is that despite being eligible to return to Thailand since August less than 50 Thailand Elite members were issued a Certificate of Entry as of October 1. Over 400 applied.

[Dmitry2222]

2 hours ago, natway09 said:

Please tell me why they should let Thai Eite visa holders in without proper protocols ?

The virus is not a dog,,, you cannot train it not to go where you don't want it

Problem is not with the existing entrance protocol (i.e. quarantine, insurance and so on). TE members wait entry approval for few months. I am not sure that it is an elite service.

[DrJack54]

14 minutes ago, Dmitry2222 said:

Problem is not with the existing entrance protocol (i.e. quarantine, insurance and so on). TE members wait entry approval for few months. I am not sure that it is an elite service.

Do not be confused by the poor choice of the word Elite. It's a tourist visa. 

[DavisH]

On 10/10/2020 at 2:48 AM, at15 said:

absolutely insane, the price should be going down 

Thai economics 101 works in reverse. Just watch how hotel/food prices increase when tourists do eventually come pack. They will be scrambling to make up for all the lost income. 

[thaiclan]

There is a fair amount of ill-will towards Elite visa from many members here, and so I'll throw in another view.

Firstly I think the name itself just rubs people up the wrong way, but the visa itself is a brilliant problem-solver for people under 50 who do not want to marry or work in Thailand.  It has been brilliant for my own family, even my (at the time) 7 year old had one because she was home-schooled and therefore not eligible to stay in the country without an education visa.

As for the current problem with returning home, it isn't Elite's fault. The hold up is with MFA.  Like someone here posted, it isn't really a visa for 'Elite' it is just another tourist visa albeit for 5 years and some other things.  Retirement visa holders also cannot return at the moment which is ridiculous.  

 

As for the recent increase in price, whilst I'm not going to enjoy shelling out more money when mine expires I still think its great value and I can also understand why they have put prices up.  The demand HAS increased -especially from the Chinese (and Hong Kongers).  One of the things Covid-19 has done is encourage people to look at other places to live.  Many people for the first time have seen that Thailand offers EV's and makes it hassle free to live here or hop in and out of here.
I know several people in Singapore (where I work) who have heard via Covid-19 articles about the Thai Elite visa and they are keen to get one because their lives are changing and no need to work at an office or maybe just take early retirement or a few years out.  Many reasons.  If you are earning in HK, Singapore and other expensive places then 100k a year for a hassle-free visa is not such a stretch.

Whilst from inside Thailand we have all peaked behind the veneer and have our various gripes, it is still a wonderful place to live and Elite will have no shortage of new members, however like most of the tourists to Thailand they are now more Asian faces than Caucasian.

Don't forget too that when Elite first came out it was 1 million baht and stayed that price for a few years, they then launched the 500k Easy Access Elite which removes the trappings but still provides a hassle-free visa.

 

So all in all I do understand Elite raising their prices. It makes sense from a business perspective as they have no competition in the under 50 bracket, demand has increased and in general people have more money than ever before (especially the Chinese). Thailand still holds a good image from the view of those looking in from the outside - especially the Chinese.

 

Maybe they should re-name it to a Chinese word though ????