Thai Sim Cards - Phoning Home and other Phuket, Thailand General Tips

Favorite Thing: We use a Thai Happy Sim Card which is issued by Dtac and you can buy them at most 7/11's or phone shops.

The card cost us 49baht but there are different prices as some come with credit etc, you can buy refills from 20baht up to 800baht. We bought ours through a 7/11 and they will also set it up for you if you want.

In the Users manual that comes with the kit it tells you exactly what to do and how to make the cheapest International calls e.g. put in 008 or 009 then country code, area code and phone number.

You can choose 001 or 007 instead of the numbers I have mentioned above, these are for a supposedly high quality signal and have higher call rates, but we never had a problem with the signal using the 009 number.

To send messages is different to ringing, first put in + then country code, area code, and phone number.

So for each person here in Australia I would have 2 numbers for them, one for phoning, one for messages.

If you want to take your own phone and its locked there are phone shops that will unlock it for you at a small cost.

So some examples for phoning Australia to make use of the cheapest rates are:

If the Aussie landline number is 08 12345678
To ring drop the 0 and dial 009 61 8 12345678
For Aussie Mobile numbers e.g. 0412 345 678
To ring drop the 0 and dial 009 61 412 345 678
Messages - drop the 0 and dial +61 412 345 678

For someone ringing you in Thailand

Your new Thai mobile number will start with 08, so for anyone calling you from home they would drop the 0 and add in +66 then your new number (that’s when they are calling you from a mobile)

From a landline at home they would call you on 0011 - 66 - 76 - then the local number.

It’s extremely cheap to phone home using a Thai Sim Card, much better than using your own sim with International Roaming. Some examples of prices for mobile calls I made to Australia were 150baht for 20 minutes and messages 5 baht per message.

Hope this helps - just read your manual thoroughly as it tells you how to make the cheapest calls.

The link below will give you all the world calling codes etc:
http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/dialing.html?p2=1230


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Favorite Thing: Australians (and many other countries - see link below) going to Thailand do not need to apply for a Visa if they are not staying longer than 30 days.

You will be granted a Transit Visa upon arrival by the immigration officer.

We stayed for 2 months so we applied for a Tourist Visa which is for a stay of up to 60 days.
You can have this arranged through your travel agent or do it yourself at the Thai Embassy.
We did ours through the Embassy, it took 2 days and cost $45.

Our next trip to Thailand will be for 3 months, so we will do the exact same as above then just before 2 months is up we will go into Phuket town and have our visa extended for a further 30 days at a cost of 1900baht each.

All the information for each country re visa's etc can be found on the link below:

The information and rules change quite regularly

MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS - KINGDOM OF THAILAND,

ROYAL THAI CONSULATE-GENERAL - OFFICE'S IN AUSTRALIA,

AUSTRALIAN EMBASSY THAILAND,


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Favorite Thing: You will not have a problem finding an ATM in Phuket, they are everywhere, (including the airport) and also in most 7/11 shops.

All the ATM'S have instructions in English and the maximum withdrawal per day is 20,000 baht.
Look for stickers displaying Maestro, Cirrus or Plus on the machines and if it's on your card you will not have a problem.

We use Westpac and National Bank and have not found a machine yet that we cannot draw money from.
We use to take travelers cheques with us but now we just use the atm's.
Much more convenient, you will need to take your passport with you to cash cheques.

If you want to go into an actual bank to make a cash withdrawal from a credit card instead of using an atm there is a link below with the addresses of some banks.

http://www.phuket.com/info/banks.htm

CREDIT CARDS

Be extremely careful when using credit cards in Phuket.

Five weeks after we returned home my sister had a call from her bank saying her credit card was used in Malaysia on the weekend.

She only used her card twice in Phuket, once at the duty free shop at Phuket airport and also on checking out of Andaman Beach Suites. She also used it once at the duty free shop in Kuala Lumpur airport.

The card never left her sight each time.
I would recommend not using credit cards at all.
Credit card fraud seems to be on the rise in Phuket.

A little update on this tip, friends who was also with us on this holiday has just found out their credit card has also been used. They also only used their credit card at the same places listed above.

So just be aware that these things can happen and be very careful.

Nowadays it doesn't even matter if the card does not leave your sight as the fraud happens via the telephone line when the card is swiped in front of you.


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Favorite Thing: The link below is for bits of info and links etc that didn't seem to fit in on any of my other pages, so just scroll down and you might see something that might help you with your holiday. I will always be adding to this page, so keep coming back.

Lots More Tips Here

Cathy and Garys Travel Pages


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Favorite Thing: There are so many different opinions on which is the better site for predicting what the weather will be like and the majority of them are incorrect.

We have found the one in the link below to be the most reliable and accurate, using the latest technology. The best part is you can use it for any area of the world you may be traveling to!

The Most Accurate Weather Forecast


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