News Forum - Thailand’s Public Health Ministry plans to request new entry rules

[Lawyers_Guns_and_Money]

15 hours ago, Nathan said:

I am due to arrive in Thailand in 5 weeks time on May 8th and I have absolutely no idea what to do.Should I apply for the Thailand pass and book the first night SHA hotel or wait to find out if this will be removed from May 1st.Would anyone here please know how long it typically takes to apply for and receive the Thailand pass? 

Make your decision based on what is known to be true right now, not what may be true in the future. Book a hotel that allows for a refund. Get your Thailand Pass qr code now. If test and sha changes, you will still need the QR code regardless. 

[Marc26]

9 hours ago, TheDirtyDurian said:

I've done the TP a couple of times. 1st time was 2 hours, 2nd time was 4 hours. My tips would be to:

1) book the hotel through Agoda that includes the PCR and airport pick up, and this shows on the booking.

2) buy the insurance off a Thai company, as they will give you a receipt/cert that shows the specific information that the government wants to see. 

3) if possible, upload a QR code for your vac cert as well as the certificate itself. 

4) make everything you upload a JPEG file. 

It worked for me anyways. Allow at least a week for it all. You've got plenty of time to wait yet. 

It is amazing how streamlined Agoda is with Thai Pass

 

It confirms your booking with Agoda immediately by booking  #

[Benroon]

16 hours ago, Nathan said:

I am due to arrive in Thailand in 5 weeks time on May 8th and I have absolutely no idea what to do.Should I apply for the Thailand pass and book the first night SHA hotel or wait to find out if this will be removed from May 1st.Would anyone here please know how long it typically takes to apply for and receive the Thailand pass? 

My first application took 5 days, my second one about 30 seconds. 

[Benroon]

1 hour ago, Mandy said:

They just won't give up the extra money to quarantine all the false positives. I truly give up, I haven't seen relatives or friends for so long now because they don't want to take the chance of false positives. I'm so over it, when my lease is up its hello mexico. 

I’ve read a lot about ‘false positives’ yet the funny thing is I don’t know anyone that has suffered this and nor do you. Strange eh? 

[drkenchao]

seems 60000 new case daily is a scary figure; perhaps need to reduce much.going out activities then

[Dialemco]

Before pandemic regular tourists to Thailand during high season used to book accomodation at least 12 months in advance. The sooner all entry restrictions lifted the better but important to bear in mind many potential tourists will not be able to travel for financial reasons and Thailand is one of the most expensive countries in the region so certainty of unrestricted entry and incentives  required including extension of visa exemption to 45/60 days etc

[ace035]

2 hours ago, Benroon said:

I’ve read a lot about ‘false positives’ yet the funny thing is I don’t know anyone that has suffered this and nor do you. Strange eh? 

Many incoming tourists always keep on saying "false positive" every single time because they are scare mongering on arriving in Thailand for Day 1 Test & Go, been reading that but they have no evidence to back up their claim.

[Dialemco]

1 hour ago, ace035 said:

Many incoming tourists always keep on saying "false positive" every single time because they are scare mongering on arriving in Thailand for Day 1 Test & Go, been reading that but they have no evidence to back up their claim.

The problem is that hotels have to have a contract with a hospital for any one testing positive. Hospitals are businesses which maybe tempted to take advantage of some customers who get a  positive result for many reasons but are otherwise asytomatic especially if they have previously had Covid several months ago.

[DWC]

Excellent article, apparently well researched with interesting info and stats.

[Samtrio]

I think , with the high infection rate in thailand , they should reward whoever visitors risk their health to travel to covid-hot-spot, i-e thailand...they should not quarantine the healthy travelers and make it hard for them to visit.. well , now with phillipines ,indonesia, cambodia and vietnam opening with a just a pre travel pcr requirment,  which travellers would love to do willingly b4 boarding a plane so they would not mingle with sick ppl,  who would want to go to thailand?????? Any ideas?

[Marc26]

8 hours ago, Dialemco said:

The problem is that hotels have to have a contract with a hospital for any one testing positive. Hospitals are businesses which maybe tempted to take advantage of some customers who get a  positive result for many reasons but are otherwise asytomatic especially if they have previously had Covid several months ago.

My stepson recently had covid

And when he went to do his PCR, it was like the hospital was offering to take care of him for 2k baht/nt

Like selling him on it

But he said he didn't have insurance (he does at school)

 

My wife has 2 different insurances

My firms health insurance that covers travel and we bought the FWD That one as well

 

But I told her if she gets covid and has ro go to the hospital to test, get medication, to not even mention she has insurance until it comes time to actually pay

 

This way you don't have a hospital  forcing a quarantine knowing she has insurance 

[ace035]

50 minutes ago, Samtrio said:

I think , with the high infection rate in thailand , they should reward whoever visitors risk their health to travel to covid-hot-spot, i-e thailand...they should not quarantine the healthy travelers and make it hard for them to visit.. well , now with phillipines ,indonesia, cambodia and vietnam opening with a just a pre travel pcr requirment,  which travellers would love to do willingly b4 boarding a plane so they would not mingle with sick ppl,  who would want to go to thailand?????? Any ideas?

Anybody can go to Thailand with a long term visa between 60-90 days and that's what they been doing the last 2 years, who cares about quarantining for at least 14 days and managed to survive it at all, no question about it...enough leeway time for it.

But, for regular tourists, they go only for 2 weeks or maybe a month if they lucky enough, forget it. That's why they scared to go.

[Ksmui]

On 4/2/2022 at 1:30 AM, Soidog said:

From the numerous posts and comments here and in other publications, I’m afraid the answer to that question is the same as the answer to “how long is a piece of string?”  Some people have had the TP approved in hours, while others have had multiple rejections and it’s taken many many days. My own personal experience of the TP was that it took 3 days for approval and that was back in January. More recently the 2-4 days seems to be about the average. 
 

I booked a hotel with PCR test as part of the Test & Go through booking.com. This allowed me to pay nothing until my day of arrival and I could cancel the hotel free of charge up to 5 days prior to arrival. I would suggest you do the same thing and come May 1st if things change and you don’t need the one night in the hotel, you can cancel without any financial penalty. 

 

13 hours ago, Samtrio said:

I think , with the high infection rate in thailand , they should reward whoever visitors risk their health to travel to covid-hot-spot, i-e thailand...they should not quarantine the healthy travelers and make it hard for them to visit.. well , now with phillipines ,indonesia, cambodia and vietnam opening with a just a pre travel pcr requirment,  which travellers would love to do willingly b4 boarding a plane so they would not mingle with sick ppl,  who would want to go to thailand?????? Any ideas?

Agreed, if you have not had Covid recently it is more likely that you would get it in Thailand than bring it with you. By the way, Philippines just amended  the pre-departure test. Visitors now have a choice to either take a PCR test within 48 hours of travel or an antigen test within 24 hours of travel. 

[artray]

Doesnt make much difference to travellers over 74 years  , every Thai government site tells you to take AXA insurance if travelling to Thailand , but AXA will not sell cover to anyone over 74 years

[Koen]

I assume you are not bound to AXA. A regular travel insurance stating the required "sickness including covid insured for XXX USD" will suffice. If not stated you could ask your insurance to add a note in english. Anyway, I won't travel to Thailand till all the requirements besides vaccination cetificate are gone. By June I see.. That's our summer then..They will loose more months again. Too late for many. Shame. Just back from Kenya, PCR test requirements before and after arrival etc is also gone.

[Zorba_the_Geek]

On 4/2/2022 at 10:16 PM, Grumpish said:

The desk jockeys won't go down without a fight, not with all the empire building opportunities that covid-19 has given them. Just look at how adept they have been at piling layer upon layer of bureaucracy onto the visa processes - twenty years ago I had to get a multi-entry tourist visa transferred to a new passport and I was in and out of the Bangkok Immigration office in less than 30 minutes with just one form to be filled in (and that was done at the desk with the help of the immigration officer).

Well 20 years later the Thai rugrats grew up, meanwhile the backward looking kingdom had created no new jobs, or taught the working class kids to do anything other than tug their forelocks and yell "how high?" So the brightest ones learned English, joined the gubbermint, and now shuffle obsolete paper that almost every other country has digitised.

It takes the same time to renew a kiwi passport, assuming you have taken your own photo beforehand,  as it does to do the pointless 90 day report -online. 

Fact.

[Zorba_the_Geek]

On 4/3/2022 at 2:52 PM, Lawyers_Guns_and_Money said:

Make your decision based on what is known to be true right now, not what may be true in the future. Book a hotel that allows for a refund. Get your Thailand Pass qr code now. If test and sha changes, you will still need the QR code regardless. 

Really?

Because he may not get a room, or even a seat in the plane if he books in May right?

LoL please bruh!

OP. Chill, wait and see.

You can book as close to the date as the goons and their pointless rules will allow. There's NO-ONE tripping over themselves to get here as things stand.