Famous Singer Tik Shiro Involved in Fatal Bangkok Car Accident, Two Dead

[Chao Lao Beach]

Any of these left in Thailand ?

[i claudius]

Don't think so ,oh for the days of Aeon and the Metro bank,

[CharlieH]

Moved to correct forum

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

AFAIK, for a typical expat using a foreign VISA or MC debit card, all the available Thai bank ATMs are going to charge the 180 baht fee these days.

There are a couple of odd-ball kind of exceptions:

--Some Citibank customers who have Citi accounts in certain countries, including some others in Asia, may be able to use their Citi cards in the Citibank ATMs here without drawing the fee. That doesn't, however, apply to Citi cards/accounts based in the U.S. Those get the fee.

--Walmart in the U.S. and AMEX have a prepaid card called Bluebird whereby you can withdraw money here only from BKK Bank ATMs for a lesser fee, I wanna say 50 baht per withdrawal. But that's not a traditional bank account, and has various limits and restrictions, including how much can be withdrawn per month.

https://www.bluebird.com/

The advantage of that card is it has a lower Thai bank ATM fee, although it can only be used at BKK Bank ATMs for the time being. The downside is, AMEX/Walmart have no ATM fee reimbursement benefit for the card, unlike some other home country banks that will refund the 180 baht fee the Thai banks charge when you use their VISA or MC logo cards.

PS - I should have added though re the various Thai banks, while they all charge the 180 baht fee against foreign cards now, they DO have different per withdrawal limits on how much money you can get per withdrawal/per fee.

So, Thai Military Bank, Bank of Ayudhya and CIMB, last time I checked, all will allow up to 30,000b per withdrawal, assuming your home country card has a daily limit that high. Other banks have per withdrawal limits in the 20-25K range. In general, of course, it pays to get the most money you can for the fee you have to pay. But again, your home country card has to have its own daily limit high enough to support those kinds of per withdrawal amounts.

PPS - the other alternatives are:

1. to try a Thai bank counter withdrawal using your home country debit card. Unlike ATM withdrawals, the Thai banks generally don't charge the 180b fee for counter withdrawals. But sometimes, they won't do them either, and instead send you to use their ATMs.

2. some people have no-cash advance fee credit cards which also can be used for bank counter withdrawals. The Thai banks seem more willing to do credit card cash advances than they are debit card cash advances, based on member reports here. But just make sure your credit card really doesn't have a cash advance fee, since most do. And be aware that interest charges typically begin accruing immediately, so you'd typically want to pay off the advance immediately, and not wait for a monthly statement.

Edited April 30, 2015 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[siam2007]

I still continue to use the AEON ATMs whenever possible even though they only dispense 1.000 Baht bills, as they only charge 150 Baht, and I am pretty sure they have actually been FORCED by the Thai Banking Mafia to impose a withdrawal fee, as the greedy Thai Banks could probably sense that more and more preople only used AEON.....

Malaysian and Indonesian Banks still until today to not engage in this kind of robbery

[JMWPACIFIC]

I have a Citibank ATM and there's never a fee whether in Thailand or out of country. Probably related to my balances though.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Citibank has some types of accounts, involving high balances, called things like CitiGold and similar, where they waive fees. I think the minimum relationship amount required for those kinds of accounts is $500,000 in deposit and/or loan balances. Usually a higher amount than most people here are likely to keep in a single bank like Citi.

[JDGRUEN]

AFAIK, for a typical expat using a foreign VISA or MC debit card, all the available Thai bank ATMs are going to charge the 180 baht fee these days.

There are a couple of odd-ball kind of exceptions:

--Some Citibank customers who have Citi accounts in certain countries, including some others in Asia, may be able to use their Citi cards in the Citibank ATMs here without drawing the fee. That doesn't, however, apply to Citi cards/accounts based in the U.S. Those get the fee.

--Walmart in the U.S. and AMEX have a prepaid card called Bluebird whereby you can withdraw money here only from BKK Bank ATMs for a lesser fee, I wanna say 50 baht per withdrawal. But that's not a traditional bank account, and has various limits and restrictions, including how much can be withdrawn per month.

https://www.bluebird.com/

The advantage of that card is it has a lower Thai bank ATM fee, although it can only be used at BKK Bank ATMs for the time being. The downside is, AMEX/Walmart have no ATM fee reimbursement benefit for the card, unlike some other home country banks that will refund the 180 baht fee the Thai banks charge when you use their VISA or MC logo cards.

PS - I should have added though re the various Thai banks, while they all charge the 180 baht fee against foreign cards now, they DO have different per withdrawal limits on how much money you can get per withdrawal/per fee.

So, Thai Military Bank, Bank of Ayudhya and CIMB, last time I checked, all will allow up to 30,000b per withdrawal, assuming your home country card has a daily limit that high. Other banks have per withdrawal limits in the 20-25K range. In general, of course, it pays to get the most money you can for the fee you have to pay. But again, your home country card has to have its own daily limit high enough to support those kinds of per withdrawal amounts.

PPS - the other alternatives are:

1. to try a Thai bank counter withdrawal using your home country debit card. Unlike ATM withdrawals, the Thai banks generally don't charge the 180b fee for counter withdrawals. But sometimes, they won't do them either, and instead send you to use their ATMs.

2. some people have no-cash advance fee credit cards which also can be used for bank counter withdrawals. The Thai banks seem more willing to do credit card cash advances than they are debit card cash advances, based on member reports here. But just make sure your credit card really doesn't have a cash advance fee, since most do. And be aware that interest charges typically begin accruing immediately, so you'd typically want to pay off the advance immediately, and not wait for a monthly statement.

I have used the AMEX/Walmart Bluebird card at Bangkok Bank ... if other bank ATMs display the American Express logo symbol they will process the card too. The Bangkok Bank ATM only charged 50 baht ,,, on 6k and 9k Baht withdraws... I did not go higher - so do not know about higher withdraws... The Bluebird card fee is $2.50 per ATM withdraw... However ... my Mastercard ATM card from another bank - while it reimburses my 180 Baht ATM fees each month as totaled under $15.00 each account ... the exchange rate is lower than what the Bluebird card gets. Example ... a few months ago -- my Bluebird card at Bangkok ATMs was getting 32.5 or so Baht per USD while the Master Card - same Bkk Bank - same day -- same amount got only 31.5 or so Baht per USD ... Nearly a full baht difference every time. But with Bluebird ... only 2000 USD can be process through it in one month. The Bluebird card is quite good --it is actually a full checking account... go to bluebird.com and read thoroughly about it ... (speaking to the group).... Only Americans can get one ... you can get one on line with an American street address for mailing and one must have a Social Security Number... You can get Family cards which you control ... and you can transfer money either direction from anyone's bluebird card to any other persons Bluebird card - not just within family cards.

Edited April 30, 2015 by JDGRUEN

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

I still continue to use the AEON ATMs whenever possible even though they only dispense 1.000 Baht bills, as they only charge 150 Baht, and I am pretty sure they have actually been FORCED by the Thai Banking Mafia to impose a withdrawal fee, as the greedy Thai Banks could probably sense that more and more preople only used AEON.....

Malaysian and Indonesian Banks still until today to not engage in this kind of robbery

Thanks for reminding about AEON, which is, according to their website, still charging the 150b fee against foreign bank cards.

http://www.aeon.co.th/aeon/en/fee-payment/aeon-atm-fee

However, the downside of the formerly no-fee AEON outlets is they all are limited to 20,000 baht per withdrawal.

So it kind of comes down to this:

--get up to 20,000 baht for a 150 baht fee to AEON.

or

--get up to 30,000 for the 180 baht fee from TMB, BAY or CIMB.

From a value perspective, getting the larger amount (50% more cash) for an only slightly higher fee is a better value. But some people may only need the smaller amount for their ATM withdrawal.

These days, I try hard to limit my Thai bank ATM withdrawals to one per month for the maximum 30,000 amount, and thus only incur one 180 baht fee, which is reimbursed each month by the home country banks whose debit cards I use. But even if I have to do two withdrawals per month, those are still reimbursed and I end up paying no ATM fees, period.

I no longer have any Thai ATM choice available that allows me to avoid being charged the withdrawal fee in the first place. But I still do have the choice to manage my finances so the Thai banks collect as little fee revenue from me and my card-issuing banks as possible.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

I have used the AMEX/Walmart Bluebird card at Bangkok Bank ... if other bank ATMs display the American Express logo symbol they will process the card too. The Bangkok Bank ATM only charged 50 baht ,,, on 6k and 9k Baht withdraws... I did not go higher - so do not know about higher withdraws... The Bluebird card fee is $2.50 per ATM withdraw...

JD, thanks for reminding about Bluebird's $2.50 U.S. fee for using non-MoneyPass network ATMs (there are no MoneyPass ATMs in Thailand).

Are there MoneyPass ATMs located outside of the United States?

At this time, MoneyPass surcharge-free ATMs can be found only within the United States. As the MoneyPass network grows, we plan to add international locations in the future. For now, contact your financial institution for more information about withdrawing cash internationally.

I seem to recall you and Pib covered this previously in the other thread where we spent a lot of time on Bluebird.

But, for new readers here, from a fee standpoint, you'd be paying the $2.50 per withdrawal ATM fee from Bluebird plus the 50 baht BKK Bank ATM withdrawal fee, which is about $1.54 U.S. right now. So that ends up totaling about $4+ per withdrawal, instead of the normal 180 baht Thai bank withdrawal fee, which right now equals about $5.54.

As you mentioned, the Bluebird card has a $2,000 U.S. per month withdrawal limit, and also a $750 per day limit, which actually is higher than a lot of the normal U.S. debit card limits, which often are $350 to $500 per day.

Of course, apart from the usually minor limitation of only being able to use the Bluebird card at BKK Bank ATMs in Thailand, the only thing that makes Bluebird's $4+ per withdrawal ATM fees unattractive is if the person has other bank cards that fully reimburse other banks' fees, including foreign banks like the Thai ones, in which case the person's out of pocket cost is zero.

PS - Another good thing to say about Bluebird is that card doesn't charge any foreign currency conversion/transaction fee, unlike most home country banks.

Edited April 30, 2015 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[JDGRUEN]

In my opinion the Bluebird card (BB Card) is a good deal - for the purposes and reasons I describe above - AND ...

For an American person in Thailand of modest pension or other monthly income... the BB Card is actually a full checking account with the ability to had Direct Deposit of one's Social Security Benefits, or other monthly income. Money can be transferred on line via ACH or by using another bank's Debit /ATM card. ACH transfers take about 4 days... Debit Card transfers take only a half hour or so... but the money is not available for 24-30 hours for withdraw.

For an American person in Thailand of greater financial means... who has a satisfactory Debit/ATM - money transfer setup - but would like a 'backup' card in case of loss of their regular bank Debit/ATM card and should have to suspend or cancel that card. Keep money in the BB Card and you still have liquid money available ... pending getting a new card... It is also good for purchases of airline tickets while over seas - because of no International Transaction fee. Some Airlines take the AMEX cards for on line purchases.

For any American in Thailand: Because of the full features of this card: Card to Card money transfers, Family cards, Set Aside sub accounts (out of sight - out of mind), on line Bill Pay... Paper Checks should you want them... No international transaction fees, and many more features. The BB Card can be funded by any person in the U.S. by depositing cash into the card -- their BB Card -- and transferring it to your card ... or via a Family member card to which you have control and vice versa - by transferring money to other cards by on line transfers. Fees: either no fee or low fees.

Many American Expats do not want or need any other card or financial service -- they are Set and Satisfied ... But for others then Investigate: bluebird.com

[Pib]

For those U.S. citizens drawing social security (SS) and for whatever reason decided to have their monthly SS pension direct deposited to a DirectExpress card account and then in-turn they use that DirectExpress debit card to access their SS money in Thailand, they really should consider switching to a AmEx BlueBird card account due to the fee savings....you can direct deposit your SS pension to a Bluebird card account.

When using the DirectExpress card a foreign trasnaciton/withdrawal costs $3 (approx Bt98) plus 3% plus the Thai bank ATM fee of Bt180 which say on a Bt20K ATM withdrawal totals up to Bt878 ($26.80) in fees---a big, big ouch!!

But for a BlueBird card there is no foreign transaction fee....on that same Bt20K withdrawal you would have the $2.50 (approx Bt82) Bluebird ATM fee when not using one of their ATMs plus the Bt50 (approx $1.50) fee at Bangkok Bank ATMs which totals up to approx Bt132 ($4).

Yeap, if I was using a DirectExpress card in Thailand to receive and access my SS pension, I would be changing to the AmEx BlueBird card to receive and access my SS pension in a heartbeat if I could...like having a U.S. address I could use to get the Bluebird card and receive replacements periodically.

Now I don't draw SS yet or have a Bluebird card but just looking at the fees associated with each card it seems to be a no-brainier as to which one would be cheaper to use fee-wise. Also, I'm assuming the AmEx exchange rate is plus or minus a few stang the Mastercard/Visa exchange rate (DirectExpress is a Mastercard) which earlier crossfeed in another thread talking the Bluebird card exchange rate seems to bear out....but it would be nice to see a few more examples of what exchange rate the Bluebird card provided on a specific date so that could be compared to Visa/Mastercard on the same date...AmEx does not provide a webpage for its card exchange rate instead they only quote a forex rate per the fine print. I above examples I used a Bt32.75/USD exchange rate.

Edited May 1, 2015 by Pib

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Pib... I also don't get SS yet.

But I'm assuming, another option would be to have the SS direct deposit done into one's Schwab High Yield Checking, State Farm Bank or other similar no FCF/Thai bank fee reimbursing accounts in the U.S. And then use those debit cards to access the money here... paying no fees whatsoever.

Edited May 1, 2015 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[Pib]

Yeah, that's the route I will use but for those who don't have such accounts/cards and happen to be using the DirectExpress card only they should think about switching possibly to the Bluebird card.