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ATM surcharges on cards issued by non-Thailand banks (THB150-220 per transaction)

ATM surcharges on cards issued by non-Thailand banks (THB150-220 per transaction)

Old Apr 16, 2009, 7:31 pm
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ATM surcharges on cards issued by non-Thailand banks (THB150-220 per transaction)

FYI: 150 Baht surcharge on ATM withdrawals eff. April 17

All non-Thai credit/debit cards will be subject to 150 Baht surcharge on ATM withdrawals. Press release from the Thai Bankers' Assocation (all of the major Thai banks are members).

We don't agree on much in this forum, but I think we can all agree this blows

Last edited by aBroadAbroad; Apr 8, 2015 at 1:14 pm Reason: Clarification after thread retitle.
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Old Apr 16, 2009, 7:52 pm
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Originally Posted by Sarah DDS
We don't agree on much in this forum, but I think we can all agree this blows
Nope ...

Anyway, my bank will refund the fee, so there's nothing to complain about ... at least for me
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Old Apr 17, 2009, 2:11 am
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I guess I just made my contribution. (posted from Bangkok)
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Old Apr 17, 2009, 9:03 pm
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Originally Posted by olisch
my bank will refund the fee, so there's nothing to complain about ... at least for me
You should add "at least for now". At $4.25 (€3.25) a pop, it may cause banks with uncapped monthly reimbursements and uncapped per transaction reimbursements to not be happy. And eventually their unhappiness gets passed along.
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Old Apr 17, 2009, 11:23 pm
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So unless you withdrawal at more than 5,000thb you might as well use a credit card. Stinks really but not surprising.
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Old Apr 17, 2009, 11:30 pm
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Wow, that's excessive. Anywhere in the world that is even higher? Nothing comes to mind right now.
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Old Apr 18, 2009, 8:31 am
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Thumbs down

So it's back to traveler's checks for me.
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Old Apr 18, 2009, 8:36 am
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Originally Posted by 1kBill
So it's back to traveler's checks for me.
Thailand has been, for quite some time, one of the few places that traveler's cheques really work well.
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Old Apr 18, 2009, 1:09 pm
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Originally Posted by 1kBill
So it's back to traveler's checks for me.
Me too, unfortunately. The banks seem to give quite good rates for exchanging t-cheques. Since I can get them from my bank for basically no fee, it'll be worth it to go back to t-cheques. When you take the bank's 2.5% forex fee and slap on another $4 per transaction, the hit is over 3.5% when withdrawing 10,000 baht. To take the same hit on a t-cheque, the banks would have to shave more than one full baht off the interbank exchange rate, and it's usually more like .3 baht at the most, which equates to a 1% hit. I was willing to pay the extra to my bank for the convenience factor, but this makes it totally uneconomical.

If a lot of people start doing this, we'll see how the Thai Bankers Association likes paying people to deal with the hassle of t-cheques.
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Old Apr 20, 2009, 1:45 pm
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Originally Posted by MegatopLover
Me too, unfortunately. The banks seem to give quite good rates for exchanging t-cheques. Since I can get them from my bank for basically no fee, it'll be worth it to go back to t-cheques. When you take the bank's 2.5% forex fee and slap on another $4 per transaction, the hit is over 3.5% when withdrawing 10,000 baht. To take the same hit on a t-cheque, the banks would have to shave more than one full baht off the interbank exchange rate, and it's usually more like .3 baht at the most, which equates to a 1% hit. I was willing to pay the extra to my bank for the convenience factor, but this makes it totally uneconomical.

If a lot of people start doing this, we'll see how the Thai Bankers Association likes paying people to deal with the hassle of t-cheques.
The downside is that the Thai banks charge transaction fees to cash traveler's cheques which makes their rates a bit worse than $100 USD bills in aggregate as long as you stay away from the conglomerates like Travelex.

Not enough of a difference (~0.4%) compared to the security of traveler's cheques, but still....
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Old Apr 20, 2009, 11:53 pm
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I'm headed home from Bangkok this evening and was shocked as well when a few days ago I suddenly got hit with a 150 baht transaction fee from a Siam Commercial ATM. I'm not clear if the fee applies to all Thai banks, though, as last night I used a Kasikorn ATM and was NOT charged ANY fee. It could be that the ATM simply hadn't been reprogrammed yet, or perhaps only some banks like Siam and Bangkok Bank are charging the exorbitant fee. Prior to the hike I know that some banks were charging a 20 baht fee and others like Kasikorn and Ayudyah (I think) had no fee.

BTW, this morning's Bangkok Post has an irate letter to the editor complaining about the new fee.
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Old Apr 21, 2009, 6:28 pm
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Originally Posted by olisch
Nope ...

Anyway, my bank will refund the fee, so there's nothing to complain about ... at least for me
Not so sure about that unless you complain. When SCB charged 20 THB, it simply showed up as a withdrawal of 5020, 10020 etc on my statement.
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Old Apr 21, 2009, 9:41 pm
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This will get an absolutely huge negative reaction. It's nothing short of monopolistic gouging. Hopefully the government will see the potential harm to tourist spending and intervene. It's out-and-out price-fixing.
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Old Apr 22, 2009, 3:17 am
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Originally Posted by Rampo
I'm headed home from Bangkok this evening and was shocked as well when a few days ago I suddenly got hit with a 150 baht transaction fee from a Siam Commercial ATM. I'm not clear if the fee applies to all Thai banks, though, as last night I used a Kasikorn ATM and was NOT charged ANY fee. It could be that the ATM simply hadn't been reprogrammed yet, or perhaps only some banks like Siam and Bangkok Bank are charging the exorbitant fee. Prior to the hike I know that some banks were charging a 20 baht fee and others like Kasikorn and Ayudyah (I think) had no fee.

BTW, this morning's Bangkok Post has an irate letter to the editor complaining about the new fee.
I've been using K ATMs since I never notice a fee being charged previously. Banks like Siam etc usually have a 10 or 20 Baht fee printed on the receipt.

Haven't had the need to withdraw money since this went into effect, but I might make an attempt with K Bank and see what happens.

Edit: Checked the listing of banks and Kasikorn is one of them.

Last edited by dsquared37; Apr 22, 2009 at 6:36 am Reason: further info
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Old Apr 22, 2009, 10:15 pm
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Any info on best bank/exchange to cash travellers cheques? Anybody know what is the largest AMEX sterling cheque denomination?
thanks, SF
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