Successes and failures in the Thailand Pass programme

Now that the Thailand Pass has been open for about a week, some successes and failures of the revised system replacing the Certificate of Entry are noticeable. The government has issued a warning against a fake registration site, Hotmail accounts not working, and why you might not receive your confirmation, while at the same time applauding more than 50,000 Thailand Pass applicants approved out of 92,000 submitted.

The most recent figures show that 92,240 people have registered online for the Thailand Pass. Of those, a total of 50,231 applications had been approved, with 16,798 of them being automatically approved. Statistics also show that in the first 5 days of the reopening from the beginning of this month, 16,595 foreigners had arrived internationally into Thailand.

That said, a lot of complaints have been shared by people desperately struggling to get approved before travel and hampered delays in the process, as about 42,000 people are currently waiting for approval. A spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs suggested that the process takes time and those who are travelling urgently should contact the Thai Embassy or Consulate in their country.

Add to that compatibility issues, some resolved and some still pending, and a picture of slow triumph and maddening failure emerges.

Most importantly, authorities are warning against scammers who registered and created a website at thailandpass.org (one wonders why the government didn’t spend the few hundred baht to make sure that all related domain names were purchased and secured). They advise people that the website is not at all affiliated with the Thailand Pass programme and may steal your personal information. The site currently appears to be advertising hotels for those arriving after getting their Pass approved, aiming to make commissions on hotel bookings and insurance sales through the portal.

While an API issue that meant that the Thailand Pass website was only accessible through Google Chrome and required a plug-in to be installed originally seems to be resolved, the system still does not accept Microsoft email addresses like the popular Hotmail domain, and those who submit with an email address from there will not receive confirmation. Microsoft is said to be working on resolving the problem now.

The Foreign Ministry offered the following suggestions for possible reasons the people are not receiving their QR code after submitting all their information at the Thailand Pass website:

• Your email address is incorrect or the account’s storage is full
• You have entered the same information or attempted to apply for the Thailand Pass several times
• You did not upload a clear and valid Covid-19 vaccination passport
• The documents that you submitted do not meet the requirements, like a hotel that doesn’t have RT-PCR testing available, etc.

SOURCE: Nation Thailand