denboy

puck2, on 2012-04-18 00:01:25, said:

You assume correct, I have checked my visa account and it appears that the hospital made the DCC and presented GBP to my visa account. Surely they are onliged to inform you of this practice when settling the bill.  A trip in the lift downstairs to the grounf floor bank would have saved me a 100 GBP.

I'm in Isaan at present but will visit the hospital finance dept on my return to Pattaya and see if I can claim some reimbursement.

astral, on 2012-04-17 18:19:44, said:

I reckon you are correct when you say 'charged interest from day one on a overseas transaction"

Unfortunately my health insurers card was not acceptable so I had no alternative but to pay via mastercard as it was an ermergency situation.

No need to get all confused and complicated.
I have the 12 month retirement visa issued at Pattaya. We also have a house in Maha Sarakham.
if I am in pattaya when my 90 day reporting is due, I report there, vice-versa at Maha Sarakhan I then report to Khon Kean. No need to tell them anything asit only confuses them.
I will continue to renew my retirement visa in Pattaya.

Cheers

Three suggestions to help the trafficc flow.

Half the Bhat buse's on the road each day by using alternative cab numbers, odd ending numbers one day, even the next. porbably benefit both the trafficc and the operators.

Tour bus's should discharge at the Bali Hi pier and all boats should operate from there, I believe that was supposed to happen some years ago.

All motor bike renting should be done from one fixed point such as the vacant area near to Mike shopping mall.

Nothing will ever happen of course but one can live in hope.

A Positive police story,
I travel frequently the route Pattaya to  Sarakhan on route 304 via Korat. On a recent trip I suffered a rear wheel blow out just as I had finished ascdending the mountain road and approaching the first village ( don't know the name). Because of the nature of the single twisting road plus the heavy traffic, for safety's sake I kept driving for a hundred meters to a safe flat spot in the village.
As I stepped out of the car there was a policeman standing across the road, he looked over and I immediatly thought, here we go, he sees a falang and smells the tea money.
To my suprise he came across and asked what is the problem, I pointed to the flat nearside rear wheel. He called on his radio the station house located just over the road and 6 more policemen including a one with pips on his shoulder board came acrros.
They requested my jack and wheelbrace and they would'nt let me touch anything. I was standing there wondering how much tea money is this going to cost.
Being stopped numerous times for tea money on this route I keep a few hundred baht notes above the sun visor for easy access. I offered them three hunded baht for tea money for their help and I was gob smacked when the refused anything at all.
They wished me a good journey, stopped the traffic and waved me out back into the traffic stream.

Quite a refreshing change to the usual demand for so called on the spot fines demaned by the BIB on this route.

So there is hope yet for the BIB,