Booking ASQ for entry to Thailand
Many forum members are curious about travel to Thailand. At this time, it involves ASQ (Alternative State Quarantine) for non-Thai nationals. The scheme is ongoing and does allow people of other nationalities to enter Thailand, but involves a quarantine period. There's talk of shortening the quarantine period, but as ever, take such pronouncements unseriously and do your due diligence before planning a trip.
Here's a first-person account from a would-be traveler published Friday, March 26, 2021:
https://thethaiger.com/coronavir ... out-april-1-changes
The potential visitor complains:
"This link is to official policy changes from the Royal Thai consulate. Can you please investigate why the changes are not being implemented into the local quarantine hotels who are still selling 15 day packages when it clearly states as of April 1 that this is the new policy. I am not sure what official word they are waiting for or why it has not been documented to the hotel owners but I am very curious as to why it is listed as official government policy from the Royal Thai consulate?
There seems to be a complete failure of information being filtered down to the standard SOP (Standard Operating Procedures) booklet given to the ASQ hotel managers. I am currently checked into ALQ in Pattaya and my hotel manager refuses to implement any changes to the ALQ until “official word” has been given. I feel the updated policy changes listed from the Royal Thai embassy should be more than sufficient to implement change.
Who is the official source of the info? Is it the Thai health ministry? Or is it provincial managers or officials? Who is the man?"
I understand his frustration. I had to look up ALQ as I hadn't heard that acronym before, and found this:
"Alternative Local State Quarantine (ALQ) is the process of two-week quarantine (it actually takes 16 days / 15 nights) at government-approved hotels in various provinces of Thailand at the traveler’s own expense."
However, some hotels are now taking "10-day" bookings as per something someone announced awhile back. You can check here:
https://asq.in.th/
https://www.agoda.com/quarantineTH
Or whatever site you use to book hotels in Thailand.
So back to our potential visitor, who the Thaiger describes as "A gentleman from Sacramento, California, 43 years old, wanted to come to Thailand for Songkran, and then some further exploration." I'm assuming he booked a standard ASQ package and now wants to shorten his pre-arranged stay. Fair enough, but the hotel refuses to allow changes to the pre-existing booking. I don't know the details of his booking, but challenging the hotel manager with "official" statements is not the strategy I'd employ in this situation. Things are in a state of flux here.
I guess we can make an ASQ-in-Thailand thread? Not sure how the mods feel, but this forum has hosted many intriguing and informative reports from Thailand over the years--it's a popular destination among Hong Kongers. Right now we have COVID restrictions but that is expected to change over the next two-three quarters of 2021.
JtB | |
