There have been a few comments suggesting that one can use the Pink ID Card to register in hotels. I literally finished a driving tour of both the NNW (CM, CR and Sukhothai) and the NE/E (Khon Kaen, Nong Khai, Bueng Kan, and Nakon Phathom) yesterday (26 03 26) and just drove home after getting him get on a bus to go to Bangkok before flying home Sunday. We stayed in seven different hotels. With the exception of the first hotel I stayed in Chiang Mai, all the hotels had similar signage saying that they will no longer accept Pink Cards or Drivers Licences as ID and will only accept a foreigner's passport to check-in. I assume - obviously I don't know for sure - this is due to people overstaying visas or entering illegally. My TDL, not due to expire until mid-2027 has my old passport number on it which I had to replace in 2023. I'm fairly sure I'm not the only one with that issue. For those that were here: "some time ago" some Immigration Minister decided to rabidly enforce the law that every time you left your house for more than 24 hours and you stayed at a hotel or someone else's house, you had to get re-registered as an alien (TM30) when you got back to your rental accommodation. [I think even foreigners returning to their own owned condos had to fill in an equivalent form, not the TM30] This caused so much backlash, it didn't last long. It smothered domestic tourism, and made lessors ropable - especially if they didn't live near the rental accommodation, or didn't use the online system, necessitating them (the lessor) to queue up at Immigration to register their long-term lessee after each and every time they came home from a holiday - and it also increased in the workload experienced by IOs incredibly, especially in big districts like Chon Buri, Phuket, CW, and CM). Some rental property owners, of course, don't even live in the same province, let alone the same city. Around that time, I overheard men (hundreds of miles from where I live) discussing how they got counterfeit Pink IDs made so they can't be tracked when the TM30 is uploaded by the hotel, thereby skirting the requirement for their landlord/partner/whomever from then also having to do a TM30 when they got home. Still, some places will allow the Pink ID to give you the "Thai Price" at dual-priced national parks.
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