Bringing money into Thailand using Visa debit or credit card

[alleykat]

I wonder if anyone here has used either their Visa debit card or credit card to bring larger amounts of money into Thailand? I'm talking 200,000-300,000 baht.

I asked at K-Bank and they can only do max 20,000 baht per day.

I go two different answers at two different branches of SCB, one branch said 250,000 baht would be okay, fee 250 baht, the other said maximum 100.000 baht per day, no fee.

It's similar to using an ATM to get the cash but instead its done inside inside the branch, and then d that cash deposited into your account here. I wonder how different this is from doing a bank transfer from back home, and if it's more expensive or cheaper?

BTW my home country is NZ.

[hollister]

I don´t understand what you really want. You can transfer any amount of money from abroad to Thailand bank-to-bank. To make sure you get the best exchange rate transfer foreign currency and have the receiving Thai bank exchange it into thb.

However if you want to send it back to your home country at a later date you will need some investor forms. But if you intend to spend it in Thailand for living no need for any forms.

[chopsticks]

Using an overseas credit or debit card is not the best way as the exchange rate is usually worse and there can be additional fees and surcharges added.

[Korkenzieher]

Debit cards generally are most efficient if you are bringing in small amounts - holiday money basically, and not much more. The rate from credit cards should be about the same (roughly 120 ticks away from the spot rate on the day), but you are crushed by paying interest on cash equivalents from day 1. Probably still better than using 'Travelex' and the like.

The sort of amount you are talking about - $10,000 there isn't too much doubt that a cash transfer into an account if you have one, (and it sounds like you do) is the most efficient - but transfer it in your native currency and let the conversion be done in Thailand. That way you should avoid the rip-off tourist currency rates that most western banks charge. I usually transfer blocks of about €5000 and it costs me €17 to do the transfer and again, approx 120 ticks off spot.

[Korkenzieher]

Checked up on the figures:

Value date was 29 July. Spot rate (Yahoo!) was 42.88 baht to the Euro.
Transfer was €5000, which cost me €17.
Received into my Thai account 211628.75
Which is about 129 ticks off spot for that day.
Total cost approx €82.50, or 1.65% for an effective rate of 42.3265*


(*Note, I have done some minimal rounding - this is the actual figure and effective true rate)

[brianks]

I recently made the 16 + daily trips to the local ATM machine at MV to get 500,000 baht in my account (PM me if you want to know which machine I used). Yes, it involved $80 in ATM fees from U.S. bank but stupidly had not yet been motivated enough to figure out how I could set up Bank to Bank transfers through my U.S. bank and Bangkok Bank in New York. Would have been worth the time to do it but too impatient. Bank to Bank transfer is now set up so won't happen again.