EYEGLASSES
 

HI WOULD LIKE TO SAVE A FEW DOLLARS AND BUY SOME PERSCRIPTION EYEWARE WHILE GONE ON MY TWO WEEK TRIP LEAVING ON TUESDAY. I will be going on an eastern loop trip-no specific plans yet. I fly into bangkok does anyone have any suggestions? I would like my glasses to be ready the next day and have some fasionable eyeware to bring back to the us.

Looking for a place in bkk...haha..not your sugestions on specific eyeware lol. thanks

in the paragon mall there are many eye places....also in the siam malls too.....almost any mall...

where are you staying?

tong's husband is also an eye glass guy if perchance you are using her services??

plan on saving 50%

Have you done a search? This question has been discussed extensively on the forum. Where to go depends on whether you are looking for high-end frames or very inexpensive glasses.

The savings is really as high as 50%? Are you talking about frames or the glass, or both together??

Cheryl saved 50% on her frames and lenses. She bought high-end frames and got the best Hoya progressive lenses.

People looking for inexpensive glasses also report big savings.

Like everything else, know what it costs at home and compare like merchandise to like.

Kathie did Cheryl have to do a lot of bargaining??

http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...;tid=35084911?

This is a thread I started a couple of months ago asking the same question. There are some helpful responses. For my mom, getting prescription sunglasses made was not a bargain, so she didn't do it. Others found it a good deal, especially if considering designer frames.

I'm one who disagrees with all the talk of saving 50% on eyewear in Bangkok. While my friends from Canada thought the prices at Paragon were good, I found them to be the same as what I paid in the mid-west U.S. just a few weeks prior to our trip in November 2007 (and I'll say again - I don't shop Wal-Mart at home. I have high end designer frames with bifocal lens) Also we were not able to get anything made as quickly as one day. I had a pair of simple, single-vision, reading lens put into my own frames while in Bangkok. The price was the same as home and it took three days to do.

The sinking dollar has certainly made all Thai purchases (including eyeglasses) a lot more expensive.

If you paid 6000 baht for eyeglasses 2 years ago, those glasses would have cost $150. But 6000 baht today costs $200 -- that's a 33% increase ue solely to the change in exchange rate.

It depends of course, on exactly what you are buying. Cheryl bought her glasses in November 2006, so the exchange rate was better then, as rizzuto points out. She shopped for glasses locally (Seattle), and picked out what she wanted and priced it. She was able to find a more unusual frame in Bangkok (but of comparable quality) plus lenses comperable to those she priced in Seattle, and paid half of what she had been quoted in Seattle.

She really didn't bargain for the glasses, the shop immediately offerred a discount and it was a very good price, so she went with that. But there was one shop we looked at in Siam Paragon where it was clear she would have had to bargain hard in order to get a good price. The initial price quoted was MORE than what she would have paid in Seattle.

As always, know your prices at home, know what your are buying, compare like merchandise and decide whether it's a bargain.