sjaak327

Yeah, that will work, antibodies seem to be pretty useless know several people who got infected with the same variant twice in a few months. The natural immunity crowd still haven't gotten the message.

That is obvious, we seem to be going in circles, by not booking any onward travel until you are sure you test negative. Why is everything so difficult these days ?

You keep missing the point that travel as existed pre-covid is not back, there are currently additional hurdles, one of which is a one day quarantine in a sha hotel awaiting the test results. Waiting a bit longer is not the end of the world, what happens if the test is positive could potentially be financially devastating and this is what prevent travellers from going to Thailand. It is not the test, nor waiting time, which is easily handled by anyone with half a brain. It is the potential of being sent to some hospital that is what keeps people away. And in typical Thai fashion, even the touted change to ATK in May does not addtess this issue. Your complaint about test turnout time is laugable compared to the potential consequences of testing positive.

Booking onward travel on the fly has always worked just fine for me, even around Songkran. To me booling ahead makes no sense and loses flexibility. This is Thailand, yes test results MIGHT come back within 6 hours (mine within 4.5 hours) and sometimes take considerably longer. Do not travel to Thailand if you expect them to adhere to a promise, go elsewhere.

It relates to your remark about timely test turnout time and booking onward travel. If the test is positive you won't travel anywhere but the hospital or a quarantine hotel. Surely this was obvious...

Those are condos, not geared towards tourists.

Whilst I do agree with some of the points you are making, tourists making advance bookings, without knowing the test results aren't very bright. There is still some chance that your advance booking will not be enjoyed because you test positive. People should adapt and not whinge about being unable to make advanced bookings, that's a fact of life under test and go, because you won't be released so to speak if the test does not return negative. An easily understood concept.

We can always hope that service levels increase over time. Was it a surprise they haven't gone up in the 2,5 years i couldn't or wouldn't go, no. But if Thailand wants to succesfully re-open for mass tourism, this Test and Go program needs to be vastly improved. The most shocking wss the low number of people waiting for processing at immigration at 12.15 pm almost no people where there. Not a good sign to say the least.

They did pick me up solo, but went from Bkk airport to Rama 4 and back to lat krabang to test and back to bkk just because of sheer incompetence of the driver, nothing to do with pandemic, some things actually never change here..

Blame the messenger, not the country ! This whole thing is an utter mess, too convoluted so naturally prone to fail massively. I went through the whole charade, uploading vaccine certificates, insurance, hotel booking for the first night + test nonsense, received a QR code after about 7 days. Got a test before departure (I arrive 31-3, so it was still required). Got to the airport, voila Thailand pass QR code does not work, so lady had to manually enter all my data. Got through immigration, took ages to process me, and in the 15 or so minutes it took the lady to process me, forgot to leave the departure part of the TM6, so I don't have it. Once stateside, pick up wasn't there, showed up 30 minutes later, drove me to a place on Phra Ram 4, turned to to be test center the hotel I got does no business with. Confused taxi driver, stopped to make a call along the road, after 15 minutes started to drive to... Lat Krabang for me to have the test with the actual test center the hotel does business with. Anyway, after a full 3 hours, I finally arrived at my hotel, which is a brand new apartment complex, no mention at all about the required self test, they did make a fuss about the TM6, which I am dead sure, wasn't returned to me by immigration. Anyway, 4,5 hours later test result came back, detected ! So I go downstairs, ask reception, guy makes a call, then shows me the PDF, which says NOT detected, and tells me I am free to go. Now, the Morchana app does not accept my Thailand pass QR code, either scanned or manual entry, I haven't received my self test from the hotel either. Do you mind if I ignore the whole thing now ? This is not how a holiday should be. Thailand is doing everything to prevent people from coming. Nothing more and nothing less. It has nothing to do with beging a cheap charlie, in Thailand service does not exist, not even in the highest price places. A third world country, let's not kid ourselves here.