Looking forward to travel but what about costs of covid tests?

Rebeccarussell94

I’ve been thinking about booking a holiday and looking into what will be required for travelling internationally when we officially can. We have moved our last years holiday to October but are now considering somewhere is the summer holidays, as many people probably are too. We are currently looking at Mediterranean or Caribbean holidays. At the moment most international countries are saying they will require a negative covid test to enter and England currently say that you need 2 covid tests upon arrival on day 2 and day 8. However, the cost of the tests are around £100 each. So a family of 4 are looking at spending approximately £1200 on testing alone. Do you know if I’m just making numbers up or this is likely to be the case over the coming months once the restrictions have been eased? 

k3lvc

Nobody knows a) whether you'll be able to travel to the country you want or b) what the additional costs/stipulations will be

At this stage given the information floating around your assumptions seem reasonable

Westin

Your line of thinking and calculations are correct as things stand today but much is changing...

I would personally hold fire until 12 April when the Government's "Task Force" is due to report back on relaunching travel plans. Alternatively book with a reputable tour operator which allows flexibility and amendments to be made.

I suspect many countries will relax entry requirements. Some have already indicated this intention (Greece, Cyprus, Turkey and possibly Spain) as tourism is very important for their economy.    The great unknown at the moment is what the UK side will do re quarantine and testing for incoming arrivals.  

Alan_Bowen

I agree that it is probably too soon to know what is going to happen this summer. The pause in vaccination in Europe isn't going to help matters, Turkey's announcement that it will welcome people who have not been vaccinated is a recipe for disaster and may well result in it being placed in the red zone requiring compulsory hotel quarantine which will be a lot more expensive than testing.
I suspect wherever you travel in 2021 testing will be required outbound and inbound, costs may fall, BA is offering a £33 test at present but it is not a PCR test which most destinations are likely to require. I fear a lot of people have already jumped in and booked a cheap holiday without realising the potential additional costs which cannot be avoided. 

CKhalvashi

I have my personal opinions on what may or may not happen, but we are waiting professionally until April 12 at the moment for the government to give further advice.

The cost of testing varies, and the necessity of testing, both inbound and outbound may change, however there have been several situations where countries that in general are more open than others have closed their borders for several weeks at a time with very little notice, so there is no guarantee of anything now. Flights may still operate, as borders are generally open to nationals and residents.

Any requirements may change for the better or worse, and this will need to be taken into account.

silvercar

Things will change. Also covid tests in the UK are very expensive, abroad they are far cheaper, so if you need one for return entry to the UK, it won’t be so expensive. (In fact so cheap that our hotel in December offered a free test on departure if we needed it.)
these tests on day 2 and 8 for those coming back to the UK are expensive because they are genome sequencing positive tests to trace variants, so that is factored into the price.
I expect things to change in the coming months, even to the point when those vaccinated may not require tests, at least outbound.

photome

Summer holidays are extremely unlikely this year according to the headline in BBC news website

CKhalvashi

photome said:

Summer holidays are extremely unlikely this year according to the headline in BBC news website

It is not a good idea to trust unfounded speculation.

The government have released a timeline, and we are waiting now for further information on this timeline. The next update for this particular issue will come on or around April 12.

Alan_Bowen

Whatever you may think of the BBC, the comment comes from scientists advising the government and feeding into the task force to report on April 12th. I do fear that there will be little travel possible before the 4th quarter, starting in September and those that book for earlier departures are taking a risk. It is clear that COVID19 is far from under control in a lot of Europe right now

CKhalvashi

Alan_Bowen said:

Whatever you may think of the BBC, the comment comes from scientists advising the government and feeding into the task force to report on April 12th. I do fear that there will be little travel possible before the 4th quarter, starting in September and those that book for earlier departures are taking a risk. It is clear that COVID19 is far from under control in a lot of Europe right now

This is less about what I think of the BBC, and more what I think of the current situation in general.

The government has already orange lighted international travel from May 17 (the subject of this thread), which is going to leave a lot of angry consumers if everything is cancelled again and they stand little to no chance of receiving money back from airlines, hotels etc. I can also see the inevitable closure of a lot of travel companies if this is once again pushed back.

I have business interests in leisure, and anything UK-facing is off sale for just over 3 more weeks (but can be brought back with a few hours notice). We have achieved this by geo-blocking various sections of websites.

We plan going forward on dragging any fraudulent chargebacks through the courts, including all fees that we have to pay on such fraud. I suspect that other businesses may be tightening their terms and conditions.

For the avoidance of doubt, I have no interests in travel packages, but do have interests in certain elements of travel.

If the government hadn't issued the advice they had, the terms wouldn't be tightened to this extent.

photome

CKhalvashi said:

photome said:

Summer holidays are extremely unlikely this year according to the headline in BBC news website

It is not a good idea to trust unfounded speculation.

The government have released a timeline, and we are waiting now for further information on this timeline. The next update for this particular issue will come on or around April 12.

Hardly unfounded given the scientist is on the government advisory body. If cases carrying on rising in Europe I think it unlikely that travel corridors will open any time soon