Is this just ChatGPT with a wrapper?

No. A generic chatbot answers from training data and happily invents a visa rule. Thaissistant checks a knowledge base we maintain before it speaks, shows you which entries grounded the answer, and hands anything live to the Tour Tiger team. Anyone can rent the model we use. Nobody can rent the corpus — or a licensed operator in Maenam who picks up the booking.

How is the information verified?

Every law-and-life entry is researched from a strict source ladder: the Royal Gazette and the statutes first, then the government bodies that enforce them, then official translations — reputable secondary sources only ever as labelled support, and forums never. Each entry names its legal basis, links its sources, and carries the date we last verified the facts. Anything that moves faster than we can verify — office-level fees, officer discretion — is marked 'verify live' instead of stated as fact. The methodology page spells out the whole discipline.

Is this legal advice?

No — and we're careful about the difference. Thaissistant explains what the law says and how processes work in general, with citations you can check. It doesn't advise on your specific case, predict outcomes, or replace a lawyer. For a decision that matters, the entry's sources tell you exactly which authority to confirm with.

Can it actually book things?

Today it takes your request and hands it to a real person at Tour Tiger — often Alexander himself, on WhatsApp or the phone — who checks availability and confirms with you directly. Payments, PromptPay, and calendar booking are planned for Phase 3. The principle holds throughout: automate the conversation, not the transaction, until we can do the transaction properly.

Can it read a Thai document for me?

Yes — paste the text of a letter, a form, a lease, or a fine, and it translates and explains what it means in plain words. Two honest caveats: the translation is unofficial (only the Thai text has legal force), and if the document is high-stakes, it will tell you to confirm with the authority or a professional rather than pretending a chat is enough.

Alexander Wich — founder, and the person who answers the WhatsApp. He built Thaissistant himself, with Claude Code, on top of the business he already runs: Tour Tiger (Thailand) Co., Ltd., TAT Licence 44/00524, a registered Thai tour operator in Maenam, Koh Samui. When the assistant hands you to a human, that human is usually Alexander or someone on his team. Feel free to test that.

What does it cost to use?

For you, asking Thaissistant is free — and so is the knowledge library. For us, a conversation runs about $0.01, the whole 6-month validation budget is under $2,000, and monthly running cost sits at $50-225. Breakeven is one or two extra bookings a month.

Why did this start on Koh Samui?

Because we wanted to be genuinely excellent somewhere before being vaguely useful everywhere. Samui gave us a licensed operator, real products, and real customers asking real questions — the loop that proved the engine. The life-and-law library is that same engine pointed at the questions every foreigner in Thailand has, not just the ones on holiday.

What happens to my data and my question?

If it's a genuine booking or service request, it becomes a lead the Tour Tiger team follows up on — that's the point. We're not in the business of reselling your inbox. Anything specific, write to hello@thaissistant.com.

Everyday money: PromptPay, QR codes, cash and foreign-card ATM fees

Facts verified · 2026-07-11

PromptPay is the Bank of Thailand-backed instant payment infrastructure, live since 2016. It links a bank account to a proxy — a citizen ID number, a mobile phone number, a corporate registration number or other identifiers — so anyone can pay you without knowing your account number, and QR codes built on it are accepted from street stalls to hospitals. The official fee schedule caps transfers cheaply (free below 5,000 baht, no more than 2 baht up to 30,000, 5 baht up to 100,000, 10 baht above), and in practice most banks dropped digital transfer fees entirely from 2018. Thailand has also linked PromptPay QR to several other countries' systems — among them Singapore (PayNow), Malaysia (DuitNow), Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia and others for cross-border payments.

For foreigners the practical route is registering your Thai mobile number as the proxy through your bank's app, since the citizen-ID proxy requires a Thai national ID; banks handle foreign customers slightly differently, so expect some variation. Do not let QR ubiquity fool you into going cashless: markets, songthaews, small restaurants and much of life outside the cities still run on cash, and foreign cards often cannot pay via Thai QR.

On ATMs: Thai banks levy a flat per-withdrawal surcharge on foreign cards on top of whatever your home bank charges, so fewer, larger withdrawals are cheaper. When any ATM or card terminal offers to charge you in your home currency, decline it — dynamic currency conversion rates are consistently worse than paying in baht.

⚠ Verify live

The flat foreign-card ATM surcharge (commonly around 220 baht per withdrawal in recent years) is set by each bank and changes without notice, as does which banks let foreigners register PromptPay in-app versus at a branch. The foreign-card ATM surcharge (~220 baht/withdrawal), the mobile-number-proxy registration route for foreigners, and the 'pay in baht not your home currency' rule of thumb are bank- and card-network practice, not statute — confirm with your bank. Thai QR generally needs a Thai bank app or a linked wallet from a connected country, not a foreign card.

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General information, not legal advice. Laws and practice change; for a decision that matters, confirm with the authority named in the sources or a licensed professional.