No More 20 Baht Notes?

[snapper]

http://www.bangkokpost.com/busines....nknotes


Looks like the days of having a wad of 20's to tip with are nearly over. This will mean tipping a 50 baht note or carrying a pocket full of coins

[SamplerDoc]

Relax your panties............
" Treasury Department is currently studying the possibility of producing new 20-baht coins" is what it says in the first line.
TIT  

[Bumpa STIKKA]

Coins it is then!

(50 baht notes are damn near impossible to come by anyway!)

[Chinaman]

they might become more frequent if the 20 Baht notes disappear
at least it is not going to be like Italy when they still had the lira where you got coins for public telephones or even candy as 50 and 100 Lira coins they were always short of - 1,000 Lira used to be somewhere between 50 US-cents or a dollar if I remember correctly

coins last much much longer once in circulation but bills look better for tips

China is still producing 1 Yuan bills - equals 10 Euro-cents more or less - besides 1 Yuan coins and bills still seem to be the preferred choice - but some look like they had been on many sewer-trips - in comparison the 20-Baht bills are in mint condition here

I hope it's not to lure falangs into tipping more which I even think might work in many cases ...

once a report says they are looking into sth, it is almost a sure thing, but it takes some prep work to keep the people of protesting later

so, it might be a good idea to start collecting :-)

[pacman]

(Chinaman @ Feb. 16 2010,14:12) coins last much much longer once in circulation but bills look better for tips

I doubt the recipient of the tip cares about what looks better. And if the tipper wants to impress by offering a note, he has 50 or 100 baht options instead.

Once a note is diminished to the status of a coin, it loses value in the eyes of the local population. It helps make small denomination purchases be seen as inconsequential.

We saw it here in Oz first when the Govt bought in a $1 coin, then later with the $2 coin. In LOS many rely on the lose change we casually leave on the tray as a tip.

I expect this will boost the value of tips, probably an important reason why the 20 baht note is being phased out in the first place.

[Snick]

Its just not the same, sticking a 20 Baht coin down a girls panties



lets just hope they don't make the 20s the same size and color as the 10s (which is what they did with the first batch of 2 baht coins !)

[Ivor Biggun]

Just flick yer Bic and warm it up a bit, she'll soon be hopping around

[azza33]

(Snick @ Feb. 16 2010,14:44) Its just not the same, sticking a 20 Baht coin down a girls panties

I'm not sure I agree snick - the coin just needs to be placed in any available slot.

[jadeite]

There's something wrong with those treasury people. What is the biggest complaint? Get rid of the .25 and .5 coins. What did they do instead? Make the ridiculous 2 baht coin. I am totally against adding new coins. They need to get rid of the .25, .5 and 2 before they do anything else.

[iceberg]

Really is the decline of the 20 baht note really a big deal I mean can people really live with themselves tipping only 20 baht? I mean if you had to tip 50 or 100 baht would it really kill you? I mean if I only tipped 20 baht I would want to I would feel like such a cheap asshole. I know I've never been to LOS but is tipping this small really the norm? We're talking less than a dollar here I don't even tip bartenders or to go places this small, I guess this is why I'll never be rich, oh well. No Cheap Charlie here.

[Snick]

We cheap charlies can still tip 20 Baht, it will just be a coin instead of a bill.

BTW the THAI custom is 20 baht per person, when eating at a restaurant and the service its good. i.e Its optional.

[Chinaman]

(iceberg @ Feb. 28 2010,15:39) Really is the decline of the 20 baht note really a big deal I mean can people really live with themselves tipping only 20 baht? I mean if you had to tip 50 or 100 baht would it really kill you? I mean if I only tipped 20 baht I would want to I would feel like such a cheap asshole. I know I've never been to LOS but is tipping this small really the norm? We're talking less than a dollar here I don't even tip bartenders or to go places this small, I guess this is why I'll never be rich, oh well. No Cheap Charlie here.

As always, it all depends. If someone comes here for a holiday and stays at a nice hotel or eats at upper-scale restaurants, 20 Baht indeed would be cheap.

Foreigners living here or coming frequently but not earning a Western salary or being retired but on a budget, have to stretch the Baht.

A few personal examples:

When eating at small family-run restaurants which often are not more than a stall, and my total is some 30 to 50 Baht, I usually do not tip - not necessary and even not expected at such places.

Currently I am in Hua Hin and usually have some breakfast or dinner at the same place. My bill is somewhere between 80 and 120 Baht in which case I round it off to 100 or 140.
(In Europe tip is usually 10% but I know that in the US considerably more is expected at times).

When taking the Bell bus, I usually tip the driver who drops me off at the hotel 20 Baht and I noticed that few people do.

Last year I stayed at a serviced apartment in Pattaya for a month and daily cleaning was included. I left 20 Baht per day which came up to 600 Baht a month on a rental fee of 9,500. Again, I am sure that not all tenants tip this but some might have given more.

At these 100 Baht per 1 hour foot massage places in Pattaya, I tip 50 Baht and again heard that many leave 20 which considering that the woman works on you for an hour I would consider too little from my perspective.

When I stayed at the PBR, I tipped about 40 to 50 Baht a day to the cleaning lady and left 100 to 200 Baht for the desk depending on how much work they had with me when calling that my guests have arrived or were leaving.

I recently had a talk with a buddy, and different nationalities grow up with different concepts on tipping. Chinese do not tip at all. Neither is it customary, I was told, in Australia but as I say, I was told. Back home we tip roughly 10 percent.

However, the worst I think in all this is, that employers often base the rather low salaries of their employees on the fact that they will get tips - this then puts pressure on the customer to make up for the difference.

Personally, I think tipping should be a reward for really good service and not sth that is expected under any circumstances.

At this point I would hate to see the 20-Baht bill go, as psychologically a bill represents more value than a coin, but I know that all this can be argued and contradicted. In the end, I expect the 20-Baht bill to disappear as such news are to prep the population. In any case, life continues and we all will adapt to it.

And last note on this: Personally, I also believe that whatever we do, we do it for ourselves as we are a highly egoistic species. If we tip well, it makes us feel good and if we tip little, it might as well. I know that this opens Pandora's box :-)

[pacman]

You are correct - tipping isn't customary in Australia. Not these days at least but restaurant staff have never been so well off. Award rates today are around $50 per hour for Saturday night.

I remember well when tipping was very popular here, I owned a busy restaurant & my best girls made a fortune. Then I paid them $5 per hour but I had girls earning up to $500 a night in tips. (Basic wage was about $150 per week.)

About the time of the Black Friday crash on Wall Street in 1987 was when the custom literally stopped. I may be wrong with the timing but by the 90's, tipping was considered optional. American friends were horrified until it was pointed out to them the wages that wait staff were entitled to under law made restaurant staff very well paid indeed.

As for LOS, many who have never been to Thailand don't appreciate just how valuable 20 baht is considered. It is irrelevant to convert 20 baht to your own currency, that amount can buy several meals in LOS i.e. enough food to last a few days.

I once wondered why there were older, less attractive women sitting in noisy bars all night when they only had a single voucher for a lady drink that they had cadged from one of the younger girls. It was pointed out to me that their single drink voucher, while worth nothing to us was their sole income & that 30 baht commission was enough for them to live on till they managed to score another drink voucher.

And the vouchers were only paid out at closing time so these poor women had to sit all night till 3am to cash it in. It is another world for those who are no longer pretty enough to get their own customers.

And this idea that we look cheap because we will give them a coin & not a note is absolute nonsense. When you wait in a noisy crowded bar just to get 30 baht, I am quite sure they don't care what form the money takes.

As for Iceberg not wanting to look like a cheap charlie, he is in for a surprise when he sees how often every day he finds himself in a tipping situation. It will get very expensive very quickly. He could spend 1000's per day.

My advice is 20 baht is appreciated for a small service but keep the 100 baht notes for those who deserve it.

[Tralala777]

A 20bht tip for service staff is fine....it buys them a meal. It is a level suggested by all my Thai business contacts over the last few years,and is always appreciated,never scorned.

It is not a question of what you can afford....that would be a crazy pissing up the wall contest....its what makes sense.

Assuming that people who tip waiting staff 20bht are CCs is well wide of the mark.

[iceberg]

I didn't mean to ruffle any feathers or make waves, being from the usa and having worked in the service industry I tend to tip a lot more than average.If 20 is the average then I guess I'll have to carry a pocket full of coins BTW how many people do you typically have to tip on a daily basis? Any advice on this would be greatly appreciated, as I'll be making my 1st trip to LOS on october 1 thru october 20,2010. This forum keeps me informed and it is well worth the price of admission.