Suddenly on the Red List - wwyd?

[Franklin12]

I am wondering what the options would be if you suddenly found yourself in a red list country and couldn’t get back in time.

Would you launder your time in another country, say Italy for 10 days and then fly from there back home? I guess you would need a covid test of some sort?

My worst nightmare is having to spend 10 days in a scummy hotel at Heathrow.

I sincerely hope I am never in this situation but has anyone got any ideas? I know one of the ideas is to not go anywhere.....

I think I'd try and do one of those hacks where you find a country you can fly to that's not on a red list of your final destination or the country you're coming from. I know some people did this. When UK made their holiday destination a red list, they flew to Barcelona who only required a PCR so isolation was a day and they just extended their holiday by 10 days in Spain. Obv can't work for everyone but I think I'd try my best to find something like that first.

This wouldn’t work as the Passenger Locator Form asks for ALL of the countries you have visited lately, not just the one you are flying from.

Friends of mine coming from Dubai earlier this yr, did ten days in greece and then didnt have to isolate in uk. Seems a much better option to me.

Thank you Meadow. It’s finding a country that would take you I guess but I hear you can even go back to the UK and stay airside to travel to your Laundry Country. How you would do a PCR test in those circumstances is a mystery!

Treble jabbed btw.

I think I would try and stay in another country and do my 10 days there. As you can probably guess I have a long haul holiday coming up..really want to go somewhere. It’s a package to South Africa and I don’t think it will go ahead but would like to swap for somewhere else.

I’d try to find another country to stay in for the 10 days before flying home. I know someone who did that last year and spent 10 days in Spain at an all inclusive, it was much cheaper than the quarantine hotel. A UK quarantine hotel would be our last resort.

Jac. Even if airside in the UK? God, by the time you finally returned home you would be the most tested person ever.

@Jacaranda75 this is totally fine and legal and if you spend 10 days somewhere else (actually more 11 days) then you are allowed in without quarantine hotel.

I think it’s easier said than done finding somewhere to hop to for 10 days. Also rules are changing you can risk getting even more stuck!

@Franklin12 Yup. I have travelled all through the pandemic and have had 27 PCR tests.

Just to add that I’d go somewhere touristy, lots of big hotels, consulate support and access to testing. I just had a look and Cape Verde might be an option if currently in SA.

Thank you all. Hopefully if SA does open it won’t close the next week! Don’t think it will open in time to go though. Thinking of Seychelles instead or possibly the Caribbean but the latter is blooming expensive and according to travel agent nearly full.

Seychelles is rainy season though and Caribbean is perfect weather in Feb. Do you think travel agent would assist with trying to find another country or just get us home and don’t care about whether we need to quarantine in hotel

I read somewhere that there aren't enough quarantine hotel rooms for seriously popular countries such as Spain or France - I imagine that must be even more the case now that travel within the UK has fully opened up - therefore only booked holidays to those destinations to avoid that particular issue.

It's not going to be much of a holiday is it ? Why not just cancel & rebook in the summer?

BIL is in that situation - he was in an African country not on the initial red list visiting charity he runs when he heard about first red list, so he moved his return ticket forward hoping to avoid possible red-listing, but wasn't soon enough, so now he's in quarantine hotel, which is pretty grim. I personally wouldn't be travelling anywhere this Christmas, the situation is likely to change very fast.

Dublin Dodge or elsewhere for 10 days for sure. No way would I quarantine in an airless hotel room for 10 days and a fortune.

@NovemberNovemberDarkNights everyone’s situation is different but our holiday was for summer 2020. We paid a few thousand to move it to summer 2021 but to move it to 2022 they want a further 4K. We moved it to Christmas as the price was the same. If we cancel we’ll lose the £20k already spent, so it looks like we’re taking the risk and hoping for the best. In an ideal world we wouldn’t be going, might be my last chance to see my family though as they’re elderly.

Need. Totally understand. My DH isn’t in the best of health and we need to have as good a time as possible.

There are people who say just wait, just wait. Sadly if we wait too long the opportunity will be gone.

@Franklin12

Need. Totally understand. My DH isn’t in the best of health and we need to have as good a time as possible.

There are people who say just wait, just wait. Sadly if we wait too long the opportunity will be gone.

@Franklin12

I'm sorry if your DH's health means you feel it's imperative you go sooner, rather than later. I hope you have more time to enjoy life together than you think you might.

But if you don't include the pertinent information & just talk about a holiday to SA & how to avoid 'scummy Heathrow quarantine' then I think people saying 'why not wait' is to be expected.

@NeedAHoliday2021.

My family is a long haul flight away too my mum is almost 80 (and widowed) & currently unwell. I can't go (due to their rules) so it's not that I don't understand! But if people post about 'needing a holiday' rather than 'seeing family' or saying about ill health etc then you can't expect people to be mind readers that it's actually about 'visiting family' or bring time restricted due to ill health.

I hope you get to see your family before you need to sell a kidney!!! I'm
Not even looking at flight prices until I can
actually get into the country! 🤦🏻‍♀️

@NovemberNovemberDarkNights if we didn’t have the holiday booked (since October 2019 for summer 2020) we would never be booking one now. That would be insane… but I know people are. I wish we’d cancelled summer 2020 when it would have been without loss of money. We kept the booking to “support the travel industry” but wish we hadn’t now.

If you fly somewhere else and are only in transit through the UK you can spend 10 days there instead

There was an article on this in the Times today

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/a-few-days-ago-i-was-in-sun-kissed-south-africa-now-im-stuck-in-a-disgusting-squalid-quarantine-hotel-szxk3m2br?shareToken=e86f9df835abdc2051917b8890c8dd23

[quote NeedAHoliday2021]@NovemberNovemberDarkNights if we didn’t have the holiday booked (since October 2019 for summer 2020) we would never be booking one now. That would be insane… but I know people are. I wish we’d cancelled summer 2020 when it would have been without loss of money. We kept the booking to “support the travel industry” but wish we hadn’t now.[/quote]
@NeedAHoliday2021

It's crap that you did it to help & have been left worse off for it!
I really help you get to see your family soon!

My siblings are whinging that I haven't been
To see my mum, it's like I choose for the country to lock down to 'visitors' 🤦🏻‍♀️

@NovemberNovemberDarkNights it’s so rubbish. Not seen my brother since summer 2019 and if they do make it here next summer my nephew will be 3 years older than when I last saw him. That’s massive when they’re little. Sadly we’re not millionaires so unable to do care free travel. (Never been money motivated before this but the two-tier society is horrible).

I think I'd do a ton of research beforehand on where I could go for the ten days, but still be prepared to do the quarantine hotel if I had to. But then I don't really get the drama over ten days...it's not THAT long, especially if you're with someone else. The rooms have TVs, you could bring a Kindle loaded with books, a laptop to watch Netflix. I sometimes don't leave my flat for a week at a time anyway. The cost is horrendous but I wouldn't go abroad right now without 2-3K stashed away as an emergency fund.

People will say 'don't travel in a pandemic' but it's become clear now this is never going to be over. I thought things would be fine by this summer and now massively regret just not going away last year, while I could do so test free. From now on, I'll be going away without any concerns about ethics because as far as I'm concerned, I've gone above and beyond this entire time for others and then got shafted when it came to anything I wanted or needed to do. Enough.

[quote NeedAHoliday2021]@NovemberNovemberDarkNights it’s so rubbish. Not seen my brother since summer 2019 and if they do make it here next summer my nephew will be 3 years older than when I last saw him. That’s massive when they’re little. Sadly we’re not millionaires so unable to do care free travel. (Never been money motivated before this but the two-tier society is horrible).[/quote]
@NeedAHoliday2021

Yeah, I've not seen my siblings since 2018 & that was briefly because I went for a specific reason & couldn't stay long. Nieces & nephews will be at least 5 years older when I see them. I had planned to go 2020. Who'd have thought eh, pandemic wasn't something I'd ever given a thought to I must say.

My mate is stuck in SA. They can't get a flight, can't get a quarantine hotel anywhere in the UK. She's no idea what the hell to do. The Consulate aren't helping at all, there's no plan to get anyone home.