My Swampy experience

[Patanawet]

7 hours ago, thaiophilus said:

Literal translation of Nong Ngu Hao "cobra swamp", which is what the airport site was called before its current name ("Golden Land") was bestowed.

True, but still never heard it.

 

[TMax]

18 hours ago, Londoner said:

Are there good and bad times to arrive? I always thought that late afternoon was a busy period.

The flights I used to take pre covid from Perth arrived at swampy about 3:15pm and it was a race to immigration, sometimes I would get there just before another plane (or 2) load of passengers descended on immigration. If the flight was late by as little as 15 or 20 minutes immigration queues would be quite long.

[PeterRS]

Mid-afternoon certainly used to be a ghastly time to arrive. I was once in the west Immigration area when the crowds spilled back as far as the small Duty Free area. It got so bad some a couple of drunk passengers got into a fist fight over queue jumping.

But any indication of good and bad times can only be just that - and indication. It just needs an A380 and a 777 to be late arriving at the same time for that indication of a good time to be very wrong. 

For years I was able to travel on many flights in business class and thereafter had an APEC Business Travel Card. Both give access to the Fast Track lanes. Now if I'm travelling economy I'll just pay for fast track.

[TMax]

My planned trip for next year looks like it will be via Singapore and the flight I'm looking at will arrive about 11am so I'm hoping immigration won't be too crowded. I will be looking on Flightradar24 in the days before to judge what it could be like. I am also looking at possibly using the airport link so I'm hoping the BTS isn't overly crowded when I leave the airport.  

[vinapu]

20 minutes ago, TMax said:

My planned trip for next year looks like it will be via Singapore and the flight I'm looking at will arrive about 11am so I'm hoping immigration won't be too crowded. I will be looking on Flightradar24 in the days before to judge what it could be like. I am also looking at possibly using the airport link so I'm hoping the BTS isn't overly crowded when I leave the airport.  

you worry too much, just pack and go

[BiggusDikkus]

On 11/25/2022 at 7:36 AM, gayinpattaya said:

Did you hear about BOLT?

I did end up downloading Bolt. That first weekend, while I was still in Bangkok, I'd open both apps and type in my destination to compare rates. Sometimes Grab was cheaper, sometimes Bolt was. But it would take Grab drivers a long time to show up. For my ride to Pattaya, I gave up waiting for a Grab driver and went with a Bolt economy car that was about the same price as a maybe bigger and more comfortable Grab. From then on, I exclusively used Bolt. For my return trip to Bangkok, Bolt options were much less expensive than Grab's offerings. Once back in Bangkok, I did more comparison shopping and Bolt motorbikes were always cheaper. When I checked out of my hotel and told the hotel receptionist how I had planned to get to the airport, he suggested sticking with Bolt because Grab's fares could be outrageously expensive. So Bolt appears to be taking away market share from Grab. I wonder if it's subsidizing its drivers?

[BiggusDikkus]

On 12/3/2022 at 10:42 PM, ChristianPFC said:

How did Transferwise steal 500 from you?

I forgot to include my TransferWise ID number when transferring funds from my bank. I didn't even realize this as it was the second time I had transferred money to TransferWise and had set things up so my bank's website would remember TransferWise. As it turned out, there wasn't even a space for me to type in that ID number.

 

When I realized there was a snafu, I called transferWise and asked them to check for the transfer. I gave them the day, time of day, my bank account number, what bank the transfer had come from and everything else they would need to look for the transfer. They refused to look and instead gave me a list of information that I had to give them so they could check for the transfer -- and said the information has to come directly from my bank. So I had to go down to my bank, give them this list of information -- it was exactly the same information I had already given TransferWise -- and asked my bank to produce a document on bank letterhead that I could send to TransferWise. My bank was not happy but did this anyway. I sent the document to TransferWise and they said it wasn't good enough, that I would also need to include additional information. So I went back to my bank, and this time the teller thought TransferWise was being absolutely ridiculous and that if she could talk to them in Japanese she would be able to convince them to just check their accounts for the transfer. She called TransferWise and stayed on the line for more than a half hour and still TransferWise refused to look for the transfer. So the teller hand-wrote all the information TransferWise had requested, gave me the document and again I sent it to TransferWise. But again they refused to look for the transfer and requested that  I come up with another document from my bank with even more information.

 

This process had already gone on for three months as in between trips to my bank I called every TransferWise number I could find and begged, actually begged, for them to look for the transfer. All they had to do was open their bank's website and zero in on that specific day and time and they would see my name and the deposit amount. But they refused. I sent more emails than I could count, telling them the money is in their account and they would see that it is in their account if they would please just bother to look. But they steadfastly refused, and eventually I gave up.

I hate corporations.

 

[gerefan]

A SWAMPY RECORD!!

Landed yesterday at Swampy at 1615. The aircraft parked right next to Immigration and there was nobody there. The total elapsed time from disembarking, walking to immigration and doing the visa stuff was, in total, less than 5 minutes! 

It didn’t do me any good though as I had to wait about 40 minutes for my bags to arrive. Added to which the Eva Air flight from London was 30 minutes late…. as it always is.

 

 

[10tazione]

I have the suspicion they switch between the 2 immigration areas in some chaotic way. When i arrived last time, one was closed and they sent everyone to the other one, which  was completely overfilled. So maybe you were lucky and arrived in the moment they reopened the closed one?

[gerefan]

59 minutes ago, 10tazione said:

I have the suspicion they switch between the 2 immigration areas in some chaotic way. When i arrived last time, one was closed and they sent everyone to the other one, which  was completely overfilled. So maybe you were lucky and arrived in the moment they reopened the closed one?

Not sure. I go through the fast track (seniority!) but didn’t see anyone waiting. Maybe. I couldn’t see them from where I was.

[vinapu]

9 hours ago, BiggusDikkus said:

 For my ride to Pattaya,.... went with a Bolt economy car.......t. For my return trip to Bangkok, Bolt options were much less expensive than Grab's offerings.

out of curiosity - how much did you pay Bolt to and from Pattaya ?

[vinapu]

9 hours ago, BiggusDikkus said:

This process had already gone on for three months as in between trips to my bank I called every TransferWise number I could find and begged, actually begged, for them to look for the transfer.

that's the problem with technology, it's brilliant when everything is going smoothly which happens in 99 % cases, but when snafu happens , often there's no help coming timely and often not even place where turn for help like in your case.

Credit Union  our condo corporation is dealing with since June can't correct simple mistake THEY made in address where statements should be sent. I even went as far as telling them I will call police for help, still noting. 

[vinapu]

6 hours ago, gerefan said:

A SWAMPY RECORD!!

Landed yesterday at Swampy at 1615. The aircraft parked right next to Immigration and there was nobody there. The total elapsed time from disembarking, walking to immigration and doing the visa stuff was, in total, less than 5 minutes! 

It didn’t do me any good though as I had to wait about 40 minutes for my bags to arrive. Added to which the Eva Air flight from London was 30 minutes late…. as it always is.

 

 

welcome to a heavenly gates anyways

[floridarob]

49 minutes ago, vinapu said:

often there's no help coming timely and often not even place where turn for help like in your case.

The US has the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that helps with issues like these....