Last night I ran into an old TG friend and in conversation she mentioned that she has been hanging out at Conrad and Spasso this month and I took the opportunity to ask her about these places. She reports the following:
1) At Spasso, the TG’s must buy a membership cars. The card cost 100,000 THB (this is not a typo) and entitles the girl to enter Spasso and transact for one year. TGs without a membership are not allowed into Spasso unless escorted by a farang customer. The Free Shot at Spasso is more valuable than I thought.
2) At Spasso, TG’s who have paid for a membership must dress nice or Hi Soi. This means a nice dress and high heels. Jeans are not allowed.
3) At Spasso, if a customer complains about a girl the management “has a talk with them.” This puts pressure on the girl to be compliant and make the customer happy. If there is a legitimate complaint, Spasso invalidates their membership and retains the remaining value. The Spasso regulars are aware of this and are not reticent to lodge complaints against non-compliant TG’s. The girls retain the right to turn down Spasso customers although this can trigger a complaint which can cause problems for the TG.
4) At Conrad, any girl dressed anyway can hang out and transact but they must buy a ticket which entitles them to enter for the night and is good for one drink. The ticket costs a little over 300THB.
5) The going rate for ST is 4000THB+ at Spasso and Conrad. LT is 6000THB+
6) The drinks at Conrad are in the 300-500THB range. A diet coke is 200THB+ According to my friend the drinks are expensive but very good, very large, and contain premium alcohol.
My friend also hangs out at Nana Disco, Biergarten, etc. where she asks for the prevailing 1000-1500THB ST rate at these venues. When she goes to Conrad or Spasso, she charges the 4000/6000THB rate. If you want to hang with my friend when she is wearing a nice dress instead of jeans it costs extra!
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Sorry Kenny, but I dont buy the 100k baht card bit- way too steep. If they did that, the place would look like BarSu does now!
When I was at Spassos last week I did talk with the bartenders quite a bit about the ‘behind the scenes scene’ and also with some TGs I met and left with. They’d said that a few months back they were getting too many girls in Spasso and not necessarily good ones. So, they now have a 650B cover charge for girls after 9pm which made my TGs think twice (also, they need to buy at least one drink or so) and they claim that that policy stripped off the low-end girls. My TG also goes to Q Bar, Vertigo and other high-end places, but I know girls in Spasso that I also see in Gullivers and even one that works at Cupidy. So, same girls, but price set by venue is certainly true…
View all comments by Cohiba
I also find the 100k price a bit suspicious. I know a few girls who go there 2-3 times a month with their friends (not farangs) and there is no way they could afford that up front hit. With that investment the girl would have to be going there all the time. I think the steep cover would keep most lower end gals away anyways.
Here’s what I suggest: If you like a girl there talk to her but not about money. Suggest you go to after hours and take her to Spicy (I’m sure she will know it). Once there if she asks for 4000-6000 laugh and look around at all the other girls there. Politely say no thank you but there are many girls here. Supply and demand and the supply will bring that price down and bring it down fast.
Just an idea.
View all comments by bkk22
I also found it very suspicious and would think hardly any girl could plunk this money down. BBK felt like it was coming from a reliable source and wanted this as a follow up to his post. I will leave it to the readers to get some data to refute this or back it up. Maybe BBK can get some more data to back it up as well. I figure that is the beauty of the system and hope everyone agrees.
BTW - how is bar su? I heard it sucked since it is not that great of a club and they worked so hard to keep P4P girls out that it is really boring. Thoughts?
View all comments by smitty
Last summer a friend of mine liked Spasso and always wanted to go there. He was friends with a couple of girls from Gulliver’s and they were always asking to be taken there.
My friend didn’t really care about the money and the girls from Gulliver’s were a barrel of fun so it became a regular thing. I went to Spasso a couple of times a week for about a month.
These girls told me the same thing last summer–that a membership card was needed to hang out at Spasso and the membership card was in the 100,000 THB range.
I also noticed that the men hanging around Spasso looking to hook up, as opposed to the men with dates, or men there with family or business associates, looked a little wierd. At the time, I wondered what was going on but really didn’t bother to find out.
The TG friend I talked to this week, told me the same story as the girls from Gulliver’s las summer. A membership card was needed to transact regularly at Spasso, the card was expensive, and the management performed a least a minimal filtering and monitoring function.
I doubt both sets of girls are mistaken but it very possible the details got garbled while being passed along.
Maybe there are only certain nights of the week were a membership card is required, maybe there are some extra benefits that come with a membership card, maybe if a girl is there everyday and is making a lot of money the management starts taking a cut and calls it a membership fee.
This it Thailand so anything is possible.
One thing that makes the Big Mango Blog the best source of information on the internet is the wide experience, depth of knowledge, integrity, and straight shooting of the regular posters.
I am sure there is someone out there who has better information about Spasso and I hope they will share it.
Like the TG’s sharing man pleasing bedroom skills I am always hoping to expand my BKK skill set and happy to get some good intelligence.
BigBabyKenny
P.S. I noticed that this week’s Stickman column mentions the high ST/LT fees at Conrad that were the subject of the original post. They seemed to miss out on the explanation of why the ST/LT fees are so high blaming it on “price fixing” among the girls instead of the underlying economics created by the pricing structure of the club.
I wouldn’t want to accuse them of plagiarizing the Big Mango Blog but ……
View all comments by BigBabyKenny
This whole membership card idea has me wondering. If a Thai girl needs a membership card to get in, what about legit girls that want to go there to hang out? I have been there and there are obviously girls there that are not working. In addition, I dated a rich Thai girl who would blow 24,000 baht at one sitting on a shoes and she would go there with her friends. I can’t imagine her being asked for a membership card. I wonder what the real deal is?
View all comments by bkk22
If it is true at least stick knows where to find good material.
I am not sure how to solve the membership card riddle other than to ask management or staff at Spasso if it is really true since other than that I guess it is mainly rumors? Would love to know though!
View all comments by smitty
Great information - thanks again.
I have met some girls who _claim_ that they only go to CM2 so they cannot be found at other venues at a better CPO. But I stress the word “claim”. I don’t necessarially believe them.
I was amused to see that Google AdWords put an advertisment for the Conrad at the top of this page. Since the information in the post is fairly negative about the disco (if not the hotel) I wonder if that is a good idea? I wonder how sophisticated their matching software is?
View all comments by Arthur
Arthur - Adwords is not that smart. The advertiser can put in a list of sites that their ads will not show on but apart from that they will show on any page where there is relevance as long as the pages are not banned. Google scans pages all the time and if they think content is in appropriate then they refuse to show ads on pages they deem too adult. The blog has been experience that lately but it is not as consistent as I thought it might be.
funny stuff
View all comments by smitty
one more thing - this is where web advertising is funky. I think the ad u are referring to that says conrad bangkok is actually a trip advisor ads with reviews on conrad. Which is potentially even more damaging to conrad than if conrad had hosted an ad themselves since all the reviews could be horrible. Love how the internet changes the game!
View all comments by smitty
Yes - I saw the Trip Advisor link but there was also one from the Conrad (Hilton?) group itself. They change within a limited set every screen refresh.
I just realized - another friend told me she likes to go to a hotel on Wireless Road and I thought she said the “Korat Hotel”, which I have never heard of. (And I thought I knew all the farang-oriented indie hangouts). Now I realize she was referring to the Conrad.
View all comments by Arthur
A - maybe I missed it but if they do not specifically say they won’t show ad on the site then they will appear. Lots of work actually for the advertisers to make sure their ads don’t show up in the wrong spot.
View all comments by smitty
I have plenty of friends (Thai and female) that go to Spasso regularly. They don’t have any membership.
I guess if a place attracts too many prostitutes, they have to do something about it.
In general, I think the filtering of customers in top-end places are much worse in European capitals. For instance, “rainbow lines” are often applied in hip night clubs in Stockholm. This means that customers are not cuing in a straight line, but wait in a wide circle around the entrance. The bouncer can then hand-pick customers, and does not have to make up a reason to reject customers that are too fat or belong the wrong race.
View all comments by Christoffer Larsson
Intersting News about Spassos. I miss a Girl with I met a year ago, Ohh. She was tall and spoke good english. Is she still there ? Regards from Toronto.
View all comments by James