US needs to drop the stupid covid test 24 hours before airline travel for US citizens to get back here. It’s airline travel ONLY at this point and only adds a ton of stress to what should be fun. It does absolutely nothing at this point except cost the traveler money and stress. US is the only main country requiring it–everyone else has long dropped it.
Went to France for past two weeks. They do require vaccination with boosters or evidence of having had covid. When going (Air France) we were supposed to wear a mask on airline and they had to hand them out because almost nobody had one (left from Miami). But nobody yelled at you if not wearing on plane. Mask mandates in France disappeared a day or so later.
Think I saw about 6 mask wearing people the entire trip and they were usually a foreign traveler. Planes, trains full, restaurants bustling. Everyone has been itching to travel and now are in force. We had a great time!
Well my parents are in the final days of their 45 day trip. They are in Iceland at the moment and will come home Thursday. They started cruising from NYC to Bermuda to the Azores and then to Portugal/Spain. Somewhere around Barcelona, my Mom got covid. She thought it was allergies (I inherited my allergic to everything 365 day/year from her) and rapid tested - negative. But next morning, she wasn’t sure. Rapid was still negative, but checked in with the med staff. PCR positive.
So she and my dad were isolated in their cabin. This part of Europe they’ve been to many times, so being in a cabin with the balcony that was bigger than some of their apartments was not awful, especially with their kindles and WiFi. And their private butler that would drop off their fancy meals at their door. They got to get off and see Malta and Naples and got off in Rome. I think there they needed to test to fly to England. Or maybe the test was for the next cruise around England, Scotland, Norway and then to Iceland. I’m not sure. I’m sure I’ll hear more in the days to come!
Oh and my dad never tested positive or had symptoms. My parents were vaxd and Single boosted. They are in their mid 70s and general good health for their age. My mom sounded like she felt pretty sick for 2-3 days and then was fine.
No covid tests required for entry into England.
Spain requires proof of vaccination but no covid test (unless not vaccinated). The vaccination can’t be over 270 days old or you need a booster to update). This is same as France.
The rules are very fast changing. You must look for updated rules on almost a daily basis while traveling. What was required last month, last week or even a couple days ago can change. Europe is definitely opening up.
France will also accept a negative PCR. I believe that began in March. We are heading over in two weeks. I’m almost relieved we all recently had Covid so that we don’t have to worry about testing for either leg.
But is it really that complicated? Is there anything that can’t actually be rescheduled or delayed? Maybe it doesn’t seem the time…but how many times in your life is your daughter going to be in Italy, asking you to join her? If you actually could work it, is there actually a concrete reason that it can’t happen, will you regret it forever that you said no? Life is short, sadly.
After this weekend of cancelled flights and missing rental cars, I’m worried about my trip over 4th of July weekend. Since we booked the flights, almost all are now full (and airfare is 3x what it was). I read an article that most of the car rental places (and we’ve decided to skip the rental car and just take public transportation) don’t have enough cars, even for the people who reserved and paid in advance. They were shuttling people to their hotels because they just didn’t have cars.
I think the only good thing is that we have the first flight out in the morning and the last flight at night (and we don’t care if we are delayed coming home). We won’t be in the airports mid-day when the frustration levels are high.
My ILs were caught up in flight delay madness this past weekend, flying out of ATL. Thankfully, this was their return home flight, so no impact on their trip.
After our April experience (flight cancellation with no option to rebook until late the following day), I will never again plan a trip that doesn’t have a buffer day built in at the beginning.
Ahh, so the flight delays/cancellations WAS a thing this weekend. We flew home from LaGuardia Friday later in the day with about a 3 hour delay but were seeing flights left and right cancelled on the AA screens in the airport.
I had a crazy weekend planned - on a flight every day from Friday-Monday. Was checking in for the next day’s flight even before the day’s flight had departed. Delayed graduation and a family wedding to attend on the same day/weekend. No room for any delays/changes.
First flight got canceled, no other options on this airline until the next day which would have canceled my entire weekend! H was great - he booked me on an alternative airline immediately. I flew standby on an earlier flight with that airline and despite sitting on the tarmac for 1 1/2 hours , was able to make it to my destination and dinner with S !! The rest of the crazy weekend worked miraculously! Made it to the wedding with minutes to spare, made it to S’s graduation party. Last flight back home was delayed - but by then, I didn’t care. Switched to a later flight and made it back home.
Given the weather and flight problems this weekend, I count myself as incredibly lucky. Cousins were also flying in for the wedding on Saturday - their flight got delayed, changed and then it was impossible for them to make the wedding - so they canceled.
Trip to Canadian Rockies 17 days away–ticked off a bunch of things on the to-do list today:
–notified credit card companies about upcoming foreign transactions
–ordered monitored COVID test kits (guaranteed to make the US drop the testing req!)
–set up car service to/from airport
–installed ArriveCAN app on phone
Someone above mentioned Verifly. It was useless on one of my European trips and fantastic on the other. It only works on some routes, but I flew through lines that were long on the second trip.
Car rentals. I use a service called autoslash.com, that surveys lots of different rental companies including AAA and Costco. I may have mentioned this before. I use a Chase Sapphire Reserve card, which serves as primary car insurance when I rent.
@MADad, heading to the Canadian Rockies as well. Twice in fact. Once for my wife’s residency at the Banff Centre and once for hiking in Lake O’Hara. Almost no rental cars to be found in Calgary. I haven’t thought about the testing coming home. Which monitored Covid test kit did you get? Do you actually have to tell your card companies you are going to be in Canada? All but one of mine (which I never use) figure that out without any help.
France, Slovenia and Malta. The only three countries that still require the EU Plf form before flying there (unless it’s changed in the last few weeks). It’s a communicable disease tracker form.
Gist of this is, not a big deal to fill out at home on your laptop with plenty of time, allowing you to likely check in for your flight online. HUGE pain in the rear to fill out on your small iPhone, in dim light, after waiting 90 min in line, with people near you enraged and crying because they were going to miss their flight (Delta won’t allow check in until this form is filled out), and realizing this delay could force you to miss your international flight. Ask me how I know.
You go to emed.com and purchase the BinaxNow kits that come with access to an online proctor who supervises you as you self-test, then sends you certified results via email in 15 minutes that is accepted by airlines, etc., to reenter the US----AAA/Collette Tours is recommending this testing method. Just be sure you get the monitored BinaxNow kit, not the much cheaper kit available at CVS, etc. They are pricey to be sure ($25-$35 each, based on how many you buy), but you do it in the comfort of your hotel room the night before you fly home. The upshot is that should you test positive, you are at your last hotel, as opposed to at the airport. I would rather be in downtown Calgary looking for a hotel for 5 days than at the airport, hours before my flight.
We have 2 cards that don’t have foreign transaction fees that we use out of country. For one of them I was able to use a toggle to set a foreign use alert (it asked for country name and dates). The other card, when I called informed me that no alert was needed.
Used this Binex test system in March. It was so easy. All you need is internet access, your ID, and the computer/phone camera.
And the cost was cheaper than our tour arranged testing for some other travelers
sieze the day!!