Have you had to change/cancel travel due to COVID-19 (involuntarily or voluntarily)?

robtemt

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I thought I would start a thread as a resource for AFFers who have changed or cancelled travel plans directly or indirectly due to 2019 n-CoV.
  • Did the airline/cruise company cancelling or change your flight/cruise? Or, did you proactively or reactively cancel or change it on your own (and why?).
  • Did they notify you directly, or did you discover it on your own?
  • What was your original plan, and what was the revised plan?
  • What was your experience like?
  • Did you go through any travel insurance claim process, and how was that part of it?

For the record, part of my role at work is to monitor medical related issues, filter out mis/disinformation, and brief other staff using only verified facts from trusted sources, so I am not one to buy into sensationalism or hysteria. BUT, I am also an advocate of forward planning and monitoring situations that could affect travel plans.
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To start it off…. We have begun voluntarily changing (or making back up plans for) our upcoming holiday SYD-(+/- SIN)-LAX-SJO-LAX-HNL-LNY-HNL-SYD

We are booked to the USA via SIN on SQ in a few weeks (F Saver Reward Booking). A few things caused us to start making contingency plans on getting to the USA including:
  • Reading posts from Buttermilk Chicken regarding her RTW flight being disrupted between HKK and CEB
  • Member Pushka raising a good point if Singapore will be next.
  • Monitoring the World Health Organisations surveillance on n-CoV (as part of my responsibilities at work). Singapore confirmed infections were 28 on 5 Feb, 40 on 8 Feb, and 43 on 9 Feb. Several of these cases were human-to-human contact, with no recent travel to China.
  • Bloomberg’s article this morning HERE, which discussed the spread of the virus from a conference attendee in Singapore, via a resort in France, to people in France, Spain, and the UK.

We contacted SQ, to discuss the options of alternative carriers, to which there were no available flights. The agent was very friendly, and said she understood the desire to rebook and avoid an Asia transit, but she said until official bans are in place, there were no options, but “we will offer options if Singapore becomes affected by travel bans”.

We began searching other options. We contacted VFF, who found one seat on DL SYD-LAX in W, and one seat on VA in J SYD-BNE-LAX. No other business or premium reward seats (except any seat) were available +/- 1 day of our desired travel (with pre-booked hotels, cars, and other flights to South America, and Hawaii). We will keep looking for another J seat on same day, and hopefully two on the same flight to free up closer to the date.

We have left our SQ bookings as is for now, and will cancel either that booking of the DL/VA booking closer to the date as thing develop.

Overall Experience:
  • Wait times on the phone are obviously a bit longer, but I’ve not been on hold longer than 15 minutes with either VA or SQ.
  • Staff at both SQ and VA call centres have been friendly, empathetic, and helpful in searching, but have no/limited availability and flexibility in voluntary changes so far.
 
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and Wellington. Not even direct flights from Wellington to Australia.
 
I think I was told 6 - 8 weeks, but I will follow up at 6 weeks.
Following up is the way to go. I originally booked a Flexi J with Qantas for December from SIN to SYD, ringing the call centre and cancelling in mid October due to a change in circumstances.

From Week 6, I started calling up now and again to try my luck with the standard call centre queue times (I personally did not want to go through the social media route, and did not use any special priority numbers), but it wasn't until Week 7 where I had a few hours where I could stay in queue. IVR quoted 1-2 hour wait, ended up getting through to a rep at the 3 hour mark. Spoke to a rep who was able to address the refund situation immediately. The reversal was posted to my Credit Card 3 days later.
 
Booked flights to Poland and Ireland about 2 weeks ago, for travel over the next 6 weeks. Dealing with cancellation of those now due to new restrictions. The fun never ends!
 
Booked flights to Poland and Ireland about 2 weeks ago, for travel over the next 6 weeks. Dealing with cancellation of those now due to new restrictions. The fun never ends!
Is it that bad entering Europe and back to UK at the moment?
 
I am hoping on a trip to Europe in May/June 2022, going to the UK, Germany and Spain but the threat of having to cancel puts me off until things get more certain. The stsories from contibutors to this thread make me very wary.
 
Shame. Things were looking up. Not sure about my trip in March - no decisions until February, who knows what other variants are going to elicit mad responses...maybe we just know too much about viruses now...
Yes, we have the same view. We may have to change, but hope not to.

Now the next item on the agenda is to try and recover our cruise money. The Greek Govt changed the law to allow travel companies to hang on to funds from cancellations until 31/12/2021. Vouchers were issued for a $USD amount, in the hope travellers would rebook, on the proviso that if not rebooked by 31/12/2021 then the traveller would be entitled to a refund. Only a few weeks to go to test this!!
 
Shame. Things were looking up. Not sure about my trip in March - no decisions until February, who knows what other variants are going to elicit mad responses...maybe we just know too much about viruses now...

I am hoping on a trip to Europe in May/June 2022, going to the UK, Germany and Spain but the threat of having to cancel puts me off until things get more certain. The stsories from contibutors to this thread make me very wary.

Still come. It'll be long gone by then. BoJo the clown will no longer be Fuhrer, the skies will be clear, and it will be a lovely 28 degrees Celsius.
 
I booked a flight via Travelocity in mid-September from CNS to LIS via Perth departing on 22 December. Not long after this was cancelled as Qantas changed its departure hub from Perth to Darwin. At that time I was given the option to cancel and be refunded which I did. I am still waiting for a hefty refund 3 months later. Travelocity claim it is Qantas holding up the refund. I have now rebooked directly with Emirates and fly out from CNS on 29 December (hopefully) and still await a refund to hit my credit card.
 
Still come. It'll be long gone by then. BoJo the clown will no longer be Fuhrer, the skies will be clear, and it will be a lovely 28 degrees Celsius.
Perfect temperature. All will be well, "yeah right!"
 
Booked flights to Poland and Ireland about 2 weeks ago, for travel over the next 6 weeks. Dealing with cancellation of those now due to new restrictions. The fun never ends!
I'm due to fly to Poland in 6 days. I've been keeping abreast of all the requirements and restrictions but none of them seem that bad. Can I ask what the final straw for you was? .. just in case I'm missing it!
 
I'm due to fly to Poland in 6 days. I've been keeping abreast of all the requirements and restrictions but none of them seem that bad. Can I ask what the final straw for you was? .. just in case I'm missing it!

Currently nothing, but I'm sure I read something about new testing requirements they were bringing in (even for vaxxed travellers). Odd.
 

Currently nothing, but I'm sure I read something about new testing requirements they were bringing in (even for vaxxed travellers). Odd.
You did. From 15/12 it's a RAT or PCR taken less than 24 hours before the departure of the flight into Poland.

At least that's my reading of it. The Polish version of the website is different than the English version. Typical Poland.
 
You did. From 15/12 it's a RAT or PCR taken less than 24 hours before the departure of the flight into Poland.

At least that's my reading of it. The Polish version of the website is different than the English version. Typical Poland.
That's the one. Don't worry, FR was similar with their EN vs FR versions too which contradicted each other recently. So yes, coming to/from UK for me it's a test either side, plus the Day 2 PCR on top of that too. At least I can do £10 + £10 + £20, so not as bad as it has been......
 
…and then there was NSW…

Dear Pineapple Skip
… As you arrived in Australia on 28/11/2021, you were required to isolate until 9:30pm on 12/12/2021. The COVID-19 tests taken on 29/11/2021, 1/12/2021, 03/12/2021 05/12/2021, 06/12/2021, 08/12/2021 and 11/12/2021 returned NOT DETECTED (negative).
Yep, 7 tests in 14 days, apparently because of Omicron on my flight, and I’m directed to take another on day 15. The upside was they were all free…

cheers skip
 
…and then there was NSW…



Yep, 7 tests in 14 days, apparently because of Omicron on my flight, and I’m directed to take another on day 15. The upside was they were all free…

cheers skip
The UK has finally seen the light and ditched the red list (which also means HQ), realising that HQ makes no difference to spread. Hopefully other certain countries catch on.
 
The UK has finally seen the light and ditched the red list (which also means HQ), realising that HQ makes no difference to spread. Hopefully other certain countries catch on.
Good news. Wonder if it will come back for new variants or is it now ditched "permanently"
 

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