PeterRS

Isn't the rooftop bar historically interesting as it is where many international journalists hung out for drinks during much of the Vietnam War?

Given that Chiang Mai did not have a Pride Parade for almost ten years, the tourist director's comments are something of a joke! He clearly forgets that the 2009 Pride Parade had to be called off due to harrassment from local protest groups and near violence from hundreds of thugs wearing red shirts as the police stood by watching and doing nothing. Through megaphones, one group of citizens shouted that the "Parades destroy our beautiful culture." Parades restarted in 2019 but I am told on a relatively small scale. Add to that general feeling of local hostility towards the LGBT community, many dozens of gay venues have closed in recent years that virtually all Chiang Mai has to offer is local culture. That certainly is worth exploring and enjoying, but gay tourists want something to do in the evenings. Having visited the bars now almost all located on the street across from Le Meridien, I cannot believe most tourists would enjoy them. Hence my view that the local tourist director is talking through a hole in his head. The emphasis here is clearly in "wealthy". I was an occasional patient at Bumrungrad off and on for about 20 years. During that time I have seen what the concentration on medical tourism has done. Bumrungrad can now give you a feeling more like a hospital might be in Saudi Arabia given the influx of medical tourists from Middle Eastern countries. Call me racist but i still feel something is wrong when you see a couple with the woman wearing a full black burka covering even her face and the husband in shorts and a Hawaiian shirt. There is no doubt it is an excellent hospital but prices have risen very dramatically, especially in recent years. BNH (Bangkok Nursing Home) on Soi Convent is another excellent hospital and I find its prices almost half those at Bumrungrad. But even these cannot match those in the best hospitals in India which I believe are around half for equally fine facilities and equally trained doctors. Almost all East Asian countries are after the medical tourism dollar. Thailand may win out on reputation and the enjoyment of recovery from a procedure at a nice beach resort. But have your Platinum card at the ready!

This has been a recurrent theme over the years and it is sometimes derided by some posters. The fact is, as I can well attest, in many Asian countries there are some younger guys who only want an older "daddy" type. Not in the sense of being a sugar daddy (although I am sure there is any number of these guys) - merely because they 'love' being in love with older men. I have a farang friend here in Thailand who is legally married to his partner of 20 years and their age difference is 36 years. Another met his student Thai partner in DJ Station 26 years ago. They too are legally married and the younger Thai has an excellent and well-paid job in London. In the first case the young Thai had left school early but ran a small business. With his partner's help in marketing, especially overseas, that business has been booming for years and his income considerably exceeds the income enjoyed by the farang. Although I do not use the apps in Thailand, they are on my phone for my regular sorties out of the country. Even here, though, I occasionally get guys in their 20s seeking to meet up with much older farang. Overseas, I recently wrote about my experience in a Taipei sauna. A young 22 year old recent graduate recognised me simply from one visit I had made to a hot spring 4 years earlier! We had not spoken at that time as his English was then non-existent. Now it is near perfect. I later noticed his app profile states he is only interested in an ltr with someone 50+.

Thanks for bringing up the point about the devices having to be around 33 ft from an Apple device.

Malaysia just cannot leave an issue alone! The government has now decreed that anyone who owns or sells the rainbow colour Swatch watches will face three years in jail, according to a statement from the law enforcement agency of the Interior Ministry today. Be caught wearing one for whatever reason and you get slapped with an additional 20,000 Ringgit fine (US$4,375). The statement claimed that the watches "may harm . . . the interests of the nation by promoting, supporting and normalising the LGBTQ+ movement that is not accepted by the general public." What is so ridiculous about that statement is that both Hong Kong and Singapore had the same British colonial anti-sodomy law on their statute books and both governments claimed for decades their populations would never accept a change in the law. Yet Hong Kong changed the law when it introduced a Bill of Rights in 1990 and not one of the many dozens of Chinese media outlets even commented negatively on it. After years of saying it needed to retain the law on the grounds of racial harmony within the city state, Singapore finally repealed the law earlier this year. In fact it was left with no grounds for maintaining it since the highest court ruled a year ago that aspects of the law could not in fact be enforced. So, despite the outrage shown by the small but very vocal evangelical Christian movement - but perhaps surprisingly not the far larger Muslim community - the government moved swiftly to change the law. 93 MPs voted for the repeal with only 3 voting against. One therefore wonders why it took Singapore so long to make that change! What is so idotic about Sections 377A and 377B of the Penal Code in Malaysia, just as it was in Hong Kong and Singapore, is that they do not exclusively apply to homosexuality. The interpretation of the law is discriminatory because oral sex and anal sex are totally banned irrespective of whether it is between two men, two women or a man and a woman. Now if the Malaysian government were to adhere to the law, every straight couple who indulged in oral sex would be contravening that law. And if it actually stated that men and women never practise either oral or anal sex, the world would surely laugh at it! https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/10/owners-lgbt-swatch-watches-could-jailed-malaysia

There is always a tendency when considering what a country is doing today to forget its relatively recent history. Less than 50 years ago Thailand was a low income economy. I'd hardly call it third world, but it was pretty close. In the intervening years and in little more than a generation it has risen to become an upper-middle income country. I can remember being encouraged to invest a very small amount in a Thai mutual fund in the 1980s. The returns were very impressive but then the these were boom years with the economy growing at an average rate of 7.5%. Much of that income ended up in the hands of the elite, especially a smallish group of families - but then is that not very much the worldwide trend with developing countries? On the other hand, according World Bank statistics, Thailand has an impressive record in poverty reduction - from 58% of the population in 1990 to just 6.8% in 2020. (And we still question why the Thai boys have largely disappeared from the Bangkok gay bars!) We should also never forget the effect on the psyche of the elite of the Asian Economic Crisis of 1997. As the economy nose-dived, all Thais suffered, many greatly, but it was many in the upper levels of society who came off worst, relatively speaking. Former Chief Executives were even reduced to work similar to one individual who ended up going around offices selling home-made sandwiches to survive. That the crisis was entirely man-made within Thailand with an over-heated economy, a much over-valued currency, sky high interest rates to avoid currency outflows, lax government oversight and a host of dodgy financial companies is nowadays all but forgotten! With proper economic management between 1993 and 1996, the crisis could have probably been avoided - if not, its effect certainly lessened. But due to dreadful governance, the country was bankrupt, all its foreign exchange reserves wiped out. The strictures imposed by the IMF in return for loans of almost US$18 billion and the reluctance of some in government to take the necessary steps delayed recovery by some years and paved the way to Thaksin to find his way to power. During those post 1997 years, anyone was welcome in Thailand. The country needed money - any money - and fast. I believe this was the main reason for the expat retirement scheme and welcoming all manner of toursts, even those primarily interested in sex. On the other hand, having been so severely affected, the elite in particular never wanted to see a similar sitation arise in future. That meant once the country's finances had been stabilised, changing the face of tourism. But what Thailand could not control were external factors. The SARS epidemic in 2003 had a major short-term impact on tourism. The world financial crisis of 2008 had a worse effect on much of the economy. Then the disaster of the covid years. Every time there has been an external crisis, though, Thailand has bounced back. And at the core of its view from the top virtually since the first Thaksin government, rightly or wrongly, is that high-end tourism and the luxury market is what will ensure greater sustainability in future. Is it any surprise that all five new hotels in the massive One Bangkok development on Rama 4 will be in the luxury category? Many would assume that Bangkok already has more 5-star hotels than necessary! (Incidentally, I had drinks and snacks with a friend from Shanghai yesterday evening in one of the city's top hotels, the Sukhothai on Sathorn. Over 4 hours, the bar was totally empty apart from the two of us. And we saw virtually no guests either entering or leaving the hotel. It was more 'dead' than I have ever seen it in more than 20 years!) Generally though, when you look into a crystal ball, you see, as I now tend to, a country where, as @reader points out in his earlier post, cash will be king and those visiting and/or intending to retire had better have plenty of it! Other crystal balls may reveal a different scenario. After all, the next economic or covid disaster could be just around the corner. Perhaps, though, that is sufficient reason for the elite to make as much cash as they can before than happens.

As has been stated quite a few times in this forum over the years, there is plenty of free sex in Thailand. The problem for tourists is they want/need almost instant gratification. So either they pay or they take precious time out of their vacations to find the guys that want to meet up without any issue of cash involved (apart perhaps from for transport as, in a large city like Bangkok with hotels in the centre, many of the students and young guys live and spend their time relatively far out). Many willing gay Thais study and work and so instant hook-ups are less common.

A follow-on documentary to Oppenheimer has just been released in cinemas in the UK. A Compassionate Spy is the tale of Ted Hall, the 19 year old and youngest scientist who was part of the Los Alamos team (how on earth did they permit someone so young, I wonder?). Like more than at least one other scientist at Los Alamos, including Klaus Fuchs who is mentioned in the Oppenheimer movie, Hall became a spy for the Soviet Union. Steve James, the director of the documentary, states that what people later accused Oppenheimer of doing was mostly Ted Hall's work. "Unsettled by the US government’s refusal to share atomic intelligence with its allies and the prospect of a US monopoly on the bomb, Hall shared aspects of the project at Los Alamos with Soviet intelligence – a secret that went largely unknown for nearly 50 years, and is left out of the hit movie." Historian Joseph Albright, the co-author on a book about Hall, estimates that his spying accelerated Soviet progress on their own weapons by about 5 years. https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/aug/07/compassionate-spy-documentary-ted-hall

There’s an interesting story on the CNN website. A passenger travelling from Baltimore to her home in Denver via Chicago had her one checked bag fail to turn up. She had had the sense (have any of us done this, I wonder?) to purchase an AirTag, Apple’s tracking device for luggage. Although United Airlines kept advising that the bag would turn up, she knew that the bag was actually at O’Hare. She also saw it was eventually moved 50 yards. After days United still denied any knowledge of the bag suggesting instead she just register a claim for financial compensation. But the content of the bag was very important to her. So she finally spent 30,000 air miles and flew herself to Chicago where she quickly found her bag! United eventually refunded her 30,000 miles. As air travel has increased dramatically, so have the number of lost bags. In this case, the problem had occurred because the bag had been wrongly tagged. To me the moral is pretty simple. Always check that your bag has been correctly tagged (which I do) and attach it to an Air Tag (which I am now about to buy). These can be purchased in Thailand and from amazon and are cheap. I’m not sure how effective those for US$10 are, but the first pair of waterproof ones developed by Elevation Lab for Apple for $30 get almost exclusively extremely good reviews. https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/airtag-lost-luggage-flight/index.html https://www.amazon.com/TagVault-Waterproof-Keychain-Ultra-Durable-Elevation/dp/B09CC4T49N/ref=sxin_16_pa_sp_search_thematic_sspa?adgrpid=82658710798&content-id=amzn1.sym.1c86ab1a-a73c-4131-85f1-15bd92ae152d%3Aamzn1.sym.1c86ab1a-a73c-4131-85f1-15bd92ae152d&cv_ct_cx=airtags%2B2%2Bpack&hvadid=585475089740&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=1012728&hvnetw=g&hvqmt=b&hvrand=16817201679711258651&hvtargid=kwd-1263104292419&hydadcr=744_1014988874&keywords=airtags%2B2%2Bpack&pd_rd_i=B09CC4T49N&pd_rd_r=3a526715-a932-4320-a600-297acbd5160b&pd_rd_w=nfTLA&pd_rd_wg=kRa0D&pf_rd_p=1c86ab1a-a73c-4131-85f1-15bd92ae152d&pf_rd_r=XYMH5CFTRWQE1RGX3J97&qid=1691386006&sbo=RZvfv%2F%2FHxDF%2BO5021pAnSA%3D%3D&sr=1-3-364cf978-ce2a-480a-9bb0-bdb96faa0f61-spons&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9zZWFyY2hfdGhlbWF0aWM&th=1

Other than checking with insurance companies both in Thaland and overseas, I just don't know. The cut off date for most medical insurance seems to be 65 but there are travel companies that offer short-term insurance for travellers into their 80s. I found this company on the internet which implies it offers insurance for older people. I know nothing about it, though. Checking any policy is obviously important as many add additional restrictions for over-65's and if you need a policy that is in effect also outside Thailand. https://sbc-insurance.live/zurich_coris?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc_poisk&utm_campaign=TRAVELES_CORIS_Search&utm_adgroupid=Traveles_Coris_Zurich&utm_content=ob'avlenie_1&utm_placement=&utm_term=senior citizen travel insurance&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI3rrWqOvJgAMVHtMWBR0A0gUrEAAYASAAEgInZ_D_BwE

Sorry can't help with tailors and agree about the lack of a gay scene. But as soon as my flight had arrived at Danang in early 2020, getting into my car to Hoi An I had several hits on one of the apps (sorry cannot remember which). This resulted in two days with a really lovely Vietnamese guy.

Depite the doom and gloom in my earlier post, I do think Hong Kong is still worth visiting for stopovers or short trips, the more so as there are fewer tourists and crowds. The sights are still well worth seeing, shopping remains competitive with most Asian cities due to the absence of any sales tax (except on perfumes, liquor and tobacco products), the gay bars and saunas are especially busy at the week-ends and some of the guys are stunning. Historically It also remains a fascinating city. As for Cathay Pacific, it opted out of the mega aircraft market by not replacing any of its 747 fleet with A380s. Consequently, for example, pre-coved it ran 5 services daily to London and 4 to New York. Whereas many airlines dependant on long-haul services have brought their once thought of as obsolete A380s back into service (Singapore Airlines has 12 of which 10 are now operating again), CX depends on ageing and smaller A330s and 777s complemented by the newer A350s as its long haul fleet. Stil, wth an average age of 11 years, its fleet is still relatively young compared to some of the behemoths of the sky.

I'd love to see Lhasa, Luxor and take the dawn balloon trip over Bagan. But we're all different and I have never had an interest in Easter Island, Jerusalem, the Pyramds and Tikal. Machu Picchu was amazing. Were I ever to return to South America I would love to base myself in Cusco and explore more of the surrounding valleys. I found Cusco fascinating/

With respect to @Boy69's view, I believe the real dissatisfaction was pronounced after the Elite programme had been running for about a dozen years. The first Thaksin government's Ministry of Tourism set it up specifically to attract more of the rich and famous to visit Thailand more regularly and for longer stays with less hassle. It was never intended as a replacement for a retirement visa. But that policy rarely worked and its membership remained massively behind projections. The government did consider abandoning it at that time but then decided to keep it going with some enhanced benefits. Too much loss of face would have resulted from cancellation! I believe the programme was rescued by covid. Since it was easier to get back to Thailand with an Elite visa, the number of applications mushroomed. This started just after the idiotic Immigration Director changed the rules and insisted on the 800,000/400,000 bank deposit route for those seeking retirement visas on an annual basis rather than transferring monthly payments. As a result, the Elite programme seemed a more ideal retirement route, even though it was cash out and not returned. Now, though, building on what i believe was a temporary house of cards, the management gurus have decided demand is there for them to make much more profit from the Elite programme. It's my view that they want to remove it as a retirement option and go back to the original plan of regular cash rich tourists. After all, who'd pay 900,000 baht cash with no cash return for a 5-years visa when the 800,000 route involves less outlay and money back on departure from Thailand - or death! Mind you, that presumes that the 800,000/400,000 route remains unchanged, and that is something I would never assume. As far as I can find out on the internet, the "retirement" visa programme in Thailand was introduced in 1998 after the hugely damaging effects of the Asian Economic Crisis. I do not know if the monthly incoming transfer had then to be 65K baht. If so, then I fear someone in Immigration will also be looking at ways to increase that amount. And then wait for the mandatory medical insurance! The land of smiles is certainly becoming less appealing.

It's hard to find statistics but I expect Cathay Pacific will have to continue to depend more on international transit passengers in the short- to medium-term. Heving twice visited this year, it is noticeable that tourism remains way down on pre-covid levels. Part of this is a result of the severity of the covid restrictions which led some expatriates to leave Hong Kong altogether. Another is the draconian Chinese national security law imposed a couple of years ago which makes criticism of China and its policies a jailable offence. Many Hong Kong Chinese have left for good to take up residency in other countries, especially the UK which has opened its doors to hundreds of thousands of Hong Kong citizens (albeit several decades too late). Just last month the Hong Kong government which is basically appointed by Beijing enacted the extraordinary and in my view disastrous policy of placing a bounty of HK$1 million (US$128,000) per head for the return of several of those who had been student activists. Not even after Tiananmen Square in 1989 did the Beijing government adopt such a policy. Hong Kong has become a different city. Its total population has declined for the third consecutive year. In my view it will continue to depend to an even greater extent on short-haul tourists from China which will do little for Cathay Pacific's bottom line. So the long-haul market will probably concentrate on transit passengers from Canada and the USA - and perhaps some from Europe if fares are competitive - with Thailand and other countries as their final destination.

I don't think for a list like this it matters at all what the location is. It's a destination - not a place for a two-week holiday. I adored Esfahan but three or four days is plenty of time to see it. Petra, as @hojacat points out is not more than a 2-day destination. But there are tons of other things to see if you happen to be going to Jordan. Similarly the Torres del Paine National Park is purely nature at its most stunning. You won't find any of the comforts of sights of a big city anywhere near there. But that is no reason not to visit the more so as there are many other sights within a reasonanble distance - as for example the huge Perito Moreno Glacier, one of the few actually advancing in a time of global warming.

There is a website for Thailand Elite Visa Members. Today it states that Siam Legal (presumably one of the law firms permitted to offer the visas) has confirmed that the lowest package from October 1 will be 900,000 baht for 5 years - a 50% increase. But then it says the highest one will be 5 million baht for 20 years (up 150%). I cannot work out why anyone would go for 20 years if they could purchase 4 x 5 years at 3.6 million. Presumably there will be some reason - like not possible toget back to back visas. The site also states these prices were confirmed today by two Thailand Elite staff. So I was lied to yesterday when the membership services manager said nothing had been agreed re the new pricing! Should I have expected anything else! But as @TMax pointed out, it has become a lot more expensive.

I realise few here are members of Thailand Elite. These few might be interested to know I visited the Service Centre yesterday afternoon and insisted on meeting a senior manager. Eventually I met with the Member Service Manager. I made it plain - politely - that withdrawing a key benefit from a membership which was one of the inducements to joining as a member was morally disgraceful if not technically illegal. The way it should have been done is that existing members should have had their benefits kept intact until the end of their individual membership period - not unilaterally withdrawn midway. That is what any reasonable and responsible membership organisation would do. I know of at least one lawyer who is talking about a class action suit against Thailand Elite. Such action is unlikely to have any success, but I pointed out that any legal action will inevitably find its way into major travel and international news outlets. That will put Thailand Elite very much on the PR back foot. I know from bitter experience that this can take many weeks if not months to overturn. It may also make at least some of those considering the new Thailand Elite programmes think twice before joining. All this was met with a weak smile and no response! What I did find out is that the revamping of the organisation is, as most believed, a way to raise more cash. From 8 programmes presently on offer, these will be reduced to 4. I believe these will be for 5, 10, 15 and 20 years respectively. Each will be allocated a certain number of points which can then be redeemed for a variety of lifestyle choices, like limos to/from BKK and cinema tickets. Cinema tickets? Who spends millions to get free cinema tickets? It all seems a classic case of a Board of management that just gave in to the preferences of each individual member without the Chairman saying "Stop"! And where is the Chairman at this time of major change? On holiday in Switzerland! At least I know the 5 year membership will certainly be more expensive than the present 600,000 baht. All she would say was that it would be less than 1 million. So anyone considering membership not only for 5 years but to take advantage of the longer periods still on offer should perhaps bring forward their plans.

I would not agree that apps etc. have ruined sex. But they have taken some of the enjoyment from a hoped-for sexual encounter. Times inevitably change and the experience for guys nowadays is different from what it was for those of us of an older generation. In my youth, despite my concern about appearing to be gay, I loved the 'hunt' - seeing someone in a bar or at a party whom I found aggressively attractive in the hope that we mght get together. This was never immediate but could often take weeks if not in some cases months! And not always successful! Also I love to see and know a little about who I am about to have sex with. Like many readers here, I know nothing that beat the Bangkok go-go bar experience in much earlier years. And it was not just the boys parading around in short pants or naked. My Way was a haven of cute young guys doing incredible pole dancing.

Travel & Leisure is indeed a publlication aimed primarily at the North American market, although it has been making inroads into Europe. Interestingly, I was not aware there is an Asian edition covering Southeast Asia, Hong Kong and Macau. In the blurb at the start of its website it makes very clear that the Travel and Leisure readership is the luxury market. It therefore probably is of little interest to readers of gaythailand - apart ftom our @vinapu whose love of 7-star Michelin cuisine is well known "Travel + Leisure Southeast Asia, Hong Kong and Macau is the Asian edition of the American luxury travel and lifestyle magazine and your go-to source of travel inspiration. Published by BurdaLuxury, a Hubert Burda Media company, the magazine comprises an audience of luxury travellers, high net worth individuals, CEOs, entrepreneurs . . . Travel + Leisure Southeast Asia, Hong Kong and Macau explores destinations, ideas, and trends and celebrates people who create authentic luxury experiences. Travel + Leisure globally and in Asia enjoys a remarkable history of credibility and is the bible of luxury travel in Asia and abroad." Given that readers here are almost all residents of Thailand or visitors, I wonder what their list of top 10 destinations have been/would be on their existing budgets (excluding Thailand)? I find it incredibly difficult to limit my list to 10 but I'll start the ball rolling in no particular order (have visited all but Santorini). Tokyo, Istanbul, Petra, Paris, Torres del Paine National Park in Chilean Patagonia, Madrid, Florence, Isfahan, Sydney, Santorini.

As with all polls, who votes and how the votes are collated are important in deciding whether the poll results are suitable for each individual. I have never purchased Travel and Leisure magazine but used to read it when magazines were available on aircraft. I know I visited two destinations simply because I had read about them in the magazine. After all its writing is principally about travel destinations. To that end, readership of Travel & Leisure has a median age of 54, 77% own their own home with a median value of US$345,809, a median household income of US$110,478 and a female to male ratio of 59/41. Clearly it is the wives who make many of the travel decisions! That said, over my many years of travelling i have visited 17 of the 25 listed cities. At the time I visited, I could not argue with any of the findings. But then I could also add several dozen more! https://meredithdirectmedia.com/magazines/travel-leisure

Who, I wonder? I have met @ChristianPFC on several occasions. He worked in Thailand for about a year but that must have been close to a decade ago. Since then he travels extensively within Thailand and within the region as all can read both in the chat forums and on his own blog. He also returns to stay in his home country of Germany. As is farily obvious from his comments on visas, he is not a resident in Thailand.

Respectfully I have to disagree. I would hardly call it a framing device although it appears throughout. We perhaps tend to forget nowadays that in the 1930s there were communists just anout everywhere. It was an appealing ideology for many who hated the Great Depression in the USA, the slaying of so many of the sons of the ruling classes in England in WWI and the rise of fascism. Then later with China falling to Mao and Stalin getting the bomb so quickly (won't say how!), the USA was paranoid with McCarthy leading his horrific witch-hunts. Not even heroes were immune.

i just returned from Taipei and learned officiallythis evening that the upgrade to 20 years with be withdrawn as reported on August 15. This is some kind of Immigration madness - but then Immigration in this country has hardly ever been considered barely sensible. When you take out a membership, it is usual in most service organisations I know of for the benefits of that membership to remain for the period of the membership - unless fees are not paid, the member commits a crime and other understanable causes. I can think of no instances where the terms of the membership are unilateraly changed during its currency. Not so Thailand Elite. I suppose its managers fail to understand that the primary reason for the spike in memberships was an understanding on behalf of a lot of people that it would be easier to enter the country during covid. No doubt they will now jack up the price and be astonished in due course when membership falls again! After all, it was such a turkey for so many years there was talk of it being cancelled altogether. And given the minuscule two-week notice of changes given by the mandarins at Thailand Elite, do not be surprised if new retirement financial regulations come in with a minimum of notice. That, if I recall correctly, is that happened when the 800,000 baht in an account for three months prior to application for a new annual visa was thrown out and it suddenly became 800,000 baht unspent in an account for 5 months reducing to 400,000 upspent for the rest of the year. Ironically we were informed in the media that this would be one way of stopping crook agents and crook Immigration officers. DId that work? Perhaps in some cases, but I suspect not many. But internet sites still talk about foreigners living on 30,000 or 40,000 baht per month! It's really all very well for those on nice pensions or good social security benefits from the USA who can pay the 65,000 per month. Many retirees and potential retirees, however, do not fall into those categories and depend on pension pots and other sources of income. Lots of cops spout all manner of silly jargon from time to time. But we were told some time ago that there is a Committee looking into long term retirement fees. Nothing has been heard from it as far as I know. Will the Thailand Elite changes herald more? No idea! But where fees have remained constant for more than a few years, I'll bet someone, somewhere is trying to work out if they ought to be raised!

A note for all Thailand Elite holders. Although there has been absolutely no notification from the Elite office, one of the legal firms authorized to handle Elite requests let the cat out of the bag last week when it stated the Elite programme is being revamped on Oct 1. The only info it contains is that the family visa is being dropped. Worse for those on the basic programme costing 600,000 baht for 5 years expecting a renewal for 15 years at 400,000 baht, it seems certain that renewal is either also being dropped or substantially modified. Try getting the Elite Visa hotline to confirm annything over the long holiday weekend and the operators were clueless. They had not even been briefed on changes. Then a number of blog sites have all written in recent days that the last date for applying and paying for existing Elite card programmes and extensions will in fact be August 15! With so many unknowns and the almost certainty of only 2 weeks formal notice of what seem to be very major changes, I have already heard from a number of furious Elite members - and I am presently in Taipei! Clearly something is about to change and it may happen very quickly. My only advice to those planning to apply for an Elite card or holding the basic 5 year card and hoping to renew is to get cash ready and stand by for a quick 15 year upgrade. I’ll post more info when Thai Elite finally get round to informing existing members.