Getting back into Thailand during Covid-19

My name is Maxwell Meyer and I’m the CEO here at Masii.com. Rarely do I write content on the Masii blog; that task is handled by our much more capable research and content team.

Today however, I wish to share with you my very recent first-hand experience of returning to Thailand amidst the current COVID-19 restrictions. In my journey I encountered a huge amount of missing information and outright misinformation.

Getting back into Thailand during Covid-19

The five (5) documents I needed to obtain a Certificate of Entry and enter the country

Having just successfully returned after 6 weeks of trial and error, I hope to share with you exactly what was needed, what was not, and a few tips to help our readers who might be in similar situations trying to make it back into Thailand. This is not a short tale. Good luck to you!

TL/DR I just made it back into Thailand during Covid-19 and want to help you get back too.

I’m an American holding a Thai work permit. I returned to the US in March to be with my family; two weeks later Thailand stopped all flights. International travel only technically resumed a few weeks ago, but the reopening has been complicated. Based on my conversations with friends of other nationalities, the re-entry process seems to be consistent across most countries. If you or a friend or colleague works in Thailand and wants to return, here’s what I found:

First of all, You cannot enter Thailand without a Certificate of Entry (COE) issued by the Thai Embassy/Consulate in your country. You must apply for a Certificate of Entry through your Thai Embassy/Consulate.

Most challenging: In order to apply for a Certificate of Entry, you must provide three specific items:  (1) a flight booking,  (2) alternative state quarantine hotel booking, and (3) medical insurance cover. Why is that so difficult? Read on.

The three things you ABSOLUTELY need for a Certificate of Entry (COE)

Don’t even bother applying for a certificate of entry without each of the three items below. I tried applying a few times and failed due to a lot of bad information out there. Only when I had these three exact items submitted did I move forward in the process.

1. Flight booking confirmation

You will see many available commercial flight bookings into Thailand for your desired dates. For example, in early July I booked a flight on Qatar Airways through Doha. The airline cancelled the flight a week later. Then I booked on SWISS Air through Zurich. Cancelled. Then I booked on EVA Airways through Taiwan. Cancelled. ALL were cancelled by the airline at various points before departure. Most of these flight legs are still available to book online today – but if you call the airline and actually speak to someone, they will tell you “none of these planes are making it to Bangkok right now.”

Even more importantly: THE THAI AUTHORITIES WILL NOT ISSUE YOU A CERTIFICATE OF ENTRY UNLESS IT IS ON A GOVERNMENT SANCTIONED REPATRIATION FLIGHT!

The embassies give a few options to book these flights, but by far the best one I used was the Hanatour website in the United States: https://ihanatour.com/thai. If you are booking via Europe and Hanatour is available, I suggest using them.

We do not get paid anything for this recommendation – I personally had a fantastic experience with their customer service. Hanatour could even hold my flight booking payment until after I was approved for a Certificate of Entry.

Note: You need to time your flight right. In my experience, the Certificate of Entry arrived more than two weeks after I filled out the application to be processed, so when choosing flights (and quarantine hotels), choose one that is at least 15 days out.

After you submit all the three documents in this section to the Certificate of Entry portal, you will receive a confirmation email from the Embassy saying that they will respond to you within 15 business days. For me, it was 15 days. 

2. Quarantine hotel confirmation

You must quarantine at a state approved “Alternative State Quarantine” hotel for 14 days after arrival. You cannot enter Thailand without proof of confirmation at one of the Alternative State Quarantine hotels.

Here’s the issue: The number of hotels is very limited, and I found it nearly impossible to book a room. Our Thai office manager spent half a day and called more than 20 hotels before finally finding me one that had an open room.

You can try to book it on your own using the list of quarantine hotels (included below), but most of them want to talk on the phone or LINE app, and many of them just don’t have any vacancy. You might end up spending the entire night calling hotels during Bangkok day-time (like I did), and have no luck.

My offer: Drop me an email at [email protected] and we’ll try to help you find what hotels are actually open. We don’t get paid for this, but we’re trying to keep a pulse on what’s available and what’s not.

LIST OF BANGKOK QUARANTINE HOTELS AS OF AUGUST 24, 2020

3. Medical insurance proof

This one was unexpectedly frustrating. Most of us already have medical insurance either personally, through our employers, or through our state health systems. Personally, I have a decent policy in the United States that covers worldwide travel. So that should be fine right? No. I submitted my detailed Cigna plan, and the embassy responded back the following message:

Your health coverage must explicitly state every single one of the following:

• Covers COVID-19
• Covers illnesses in THAILAND 
• Covers for specifically the dates I am in Thailand 
• Covers 100,000 USD of medical expenses (or THB equivalent)

If you’re American, or Swiss, or many other nationalities, you’ll know that our insurance system works differently wherein we pay a deductible (say up to $3,000 USD), and everything after that is covered. That doesn’t work for the re-entry requirement. You must have a policy which covers every penny up to $100,000 USD. So my USA policy which provides  theoretically $10 million of coverage was outright rejected.

So – I went looking for a policy in Thailand that fulfills these criteria. This is where my company was able to help me. Masii.com’s insurance manager, Khun Piyapong, set up a seamless process to issue this exact insurance policy faster than anyone else on the market, and give you a proof letter to show the embassy. It worked for me and has already successfully worked for some of our friends.

For this policy, we are happy to issue it for you (we are, after all, an insurance broker) and send it to your email ASAP. Email me at [email protected] with the topic “Travel Insurance” and I’ll send you our latest and best pricing. If you buy from us, we will quickly issue you the letter you need to upload to the portal.

Note: We do make a small fee off of this service (it’s our expertise area) and would appreciate your business. It’s also personally speaking really hard to find this insurance exactly as the embassy wants it, and I give my word that it works to satisfy the requirement/authorities.

ONCE YOUR HAVE THESE THREE THINGS, AND ONLY WHEN YOU HAVE THEM: 

Go online, fill out your Certificate of Entry application form with your country’s Thai embassy or consulate, and upload 1) the flight booking, 2) alternative state quarantine, and 3) medical insurance. 

WHERE IT GETS CONFUSING: The Certificate of Entry form gives you the option of saying you’re flying in on a normal commercial flight and to just input your details. Don’t make this mistake – from everything I’ve seen personally, you are not getting a Certificate of Entry unless you show that you’re on one of these official repatriation flights. 

After you get your Certificate of Entry: 

Your certificate of entry allows you entry on a specific flight, on a specific day. I’ve attached an image of my COE so you can see what it looks like.

In order to board the airplane in the United States, I needed to prepare five (5) documents printed on paper. I needed three copies of each of these documents because the first set went to the local embassy staff (on the ground at the airport in Los Angeles), the second set went to the health quarantine official at Suvarnabhumi, and the third set went to the immigration officer.

These 5 documents included the three I described above…

1. Copy of my Certificate of Entry
2. Copy of my Alternative State Quarantine Hotel
3. Copy of my Medical Insurance
4. Printed results of a Covid-19 test using RT-PCR methods
5. Fit to fly certificate

4. Printed results of a Covid-19 test using RT-PCR methods

RT-PCR is currently the standard form of test I encountered in the United States. I did a drive-up test where my nose got aggressively swabbed.

IMPORTANT: What about timing? The embassy says the test needs to be taken within 72 hours of departure. This was impossible for me in the United States and the source of the most stress because the hospital takes up to five days to return your test results.

After calling the staff at the embassy, the tentative answer I received was: AS LONG AS THE TEST RESULTS ARE RECEIVED WITHIN 72 HOURS OF DEPARTURE, THAT IS FINE. I was nervous about this, but in the end it was accurate and they allowed me to board and enter the country.

Talk to your hospital so you can time it such that your RESULTS ARE ISSUED WITHIN 72 HOURS of your departure time.

5. Fit to fly certificate

What exact format do they want the Fit to Fly certificate? While there is no official form, I am sharing below the format I and my friend supplied to our medical doctors, and it worked for us. Remember the timing is very very tight on this – your Covid results will come out within a 72-hour window of your departure . Between then and departure, you need to visit a doctor and receive this signed “Fit to Fly” certificate signed.

Attachment: Fit to Fly Certificate_Successful Example_Editable

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After a long 36 hour journey, I finally landed at Suvarnabhumi airport, was greeted with yet another nose swab, and sent directly to the hotel to begin the next two weeks in isolation. But that is a story for another post.

Best of luck for your re-entry to Thailand, and I hope we at Masii.com can help you make it back to the Land of Smiles.

All my best to you from my Alternative State Quarantine hotel room!

Maxwell Meyer, CEO
Masii.com

Apply for Health and Coronavirus Insurance 

DISCLAIMER: This entry is written from the personal experience of the author at the time of publishing, and is not intended to substitute or replace any information from the relevant government agencies. Please confirm your own information independently on your own with your Embassy or Consulate General.

For Thai Blog Translation, please check out the link below.
การเดินทางกลับสู่ประเทศไทยในช่วง โควิด-19