The machine at the Suvarnabhumi taxi queue printed me a slip with a number on it, what is it for and is the extra 50 baht on the meter real?

Bringing my sister over in a couple of weeks, her first time in Asia, and I want to get the airport bit right so she does not spend the whole holiday convinced everything is a con. I have been through Suvarnabhumi plenty but honestly I have always just done what the person in front did and never really understood the mechanics.

So last time. Went down to level 1, pressed a button on a machine, it spat out a little paper slip with a big number on it, some Thai text and a smaller number. A man in a vest waved me to a bay, taxi was there, off we went. Fine. But I never worked out what the slip was FOR. Do I give it to the driver? Keep it? Is it a receipt? He did not seem to want it and I have still got one in my wallet from March.

And the other thing. When we got to the hotel the meter said one number and he asked for that plus 50, and I paid because I had read somewhere that was normal, but then I thought, hang on, was that normal or did I just get done for 50 baht like a rube. Plus the toll money on top. Want to be able to tell my sister with a straight face what the actual bill is meant to be made up of.

Keep the slip, at least until you are out of the cab. It has the taxi's registration on it, that is the smaller number. It is your record of which car you got into, so if anything goes wrong or you leave a bag behind you can quote it. It is not a ticket and the driver does not need it.

The 50 is real. Every taxi from the official airport queue adds a 50 baht airport surcharge to whatever the meter says. Tolls are separate again. So meter plus 50 plus tolls is the correct bill, not a rip off.

What Becca said, and one small thing that helps with a nervous first timer: show them the slip and say "that number is the taxi, that is why we are fine". It turns the whole thing from a leap of faith into a system with a paper trail, which is what it is.

I always photograph mine now before I get in. Takes two seconds and I have never once needed it.

Driver moderator here, and I have worked that queue for many years, so let me tell you what the slip and the numbers actually are from the driver's side, because your sister is right to ask and most passengers never do.

The direct answer first. The slip is a dispatch record, not a ticket and not a receipt. When you press the machine it pairs you with the next taxi in the supervised rank and prints two things: the bay or lane you walk to, which is the big number, and the registration of the taxi you are being given, which is the small one. The airport keeps the same pairing on its own system. So if you leave a phone on the seat, or a driver does something he should not, the airport and the Department of Land Transport can find exactly which car took you, from that slip, in a minute. That is why an old regular keeps it until she is unpacked. It also means a queue driver has no reason to argue about the meter, because the whole trip is on record against his plate. That is the real reason the level 1 queue is calmer than the street. The driver does not need the slip and will not usually take it.

The bill has three parts and they are all legitimate. First, the meter, which starts at 35 baht and then runs by distance with a slow traffic time charge. Second, the airport surcharge of 50 baht, which is a fixed amount every taxi taking a fare from the official airport queue adds on top of the meter, and it is set by the rules, not by the driver. Third, the expressway tolls, which are on the passenger on every Bangkok taxi, airport or not. The driver pays them at the booth and you pay him back. Into central Bangkok that is usually two booths. So your March bill of meter plus 50 plus tolls was exactly what it should have been, and you can tell your sister so with a straight face.

Two things to know so nothing surprises her. If the driver offers a fixed price instead of the meter, even at the queue, that is not how it works and you can say "meter, please" and he will run it, or you can go back to the desk and take the next car. And if the driver asks whether you want the expressway or not, that is a real question, not a trick: the expressway costs the tolls and saves a lot of time on most days, the ordinary road saves the tolls and can take much longer. Most drivers will ask, and either answer is fine. The rest of the mechanics, including the surcharge and toll rules in one place, are in getting from Suvarnabhumi into Bangkok, and the meter side of it is in Bangkok taxis.

One caution. The surcharge figure and the toll amounts are set by the authorities and they do change from time to time, so treat my numbers as current for now and check the notice at the queue desk on the day, because it is posted there.

Wichai Thongchai said:

the whole trip is on record against his plate

That is the bit I needed. It is not a token, it is a record. Somehow that makes the entire level 1 thing make sense in a way it did not for three years of using it.

Two follow ups if anyone is still reading. One, do I tip? Two, we will have two big cases and a small one between us, is a normal taxi going to take that or do I need to ask for something bigger at the desk?

Tipping: not expected, rounding up to the nearest 10 or 20 is normal and appreciated, and a driver who has just heaved three cases in and out of a boot at midnight will not object to a bit more. Nobody is going to chase you for it either way.

Luggage: two big and a small is fine in an ordinary sedan, the driver will make it work. The desk can send you a bigger vehicle if you ask, some ranks have a separate lane for it, and there is a larger surcharge for that class. Worth it for four people and four cases, overkill for two of you.

Only thing I would add for the sister. The 50 baht is per trip, not per person, and it does not go up because there are two of you. I have seen a visitor argue with a driver because she thought she was being charged the surcharge twice. She was not, the meter had just ticked over while they were talking.