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

[robtemt]

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.

Post automatically merged: Feb 10, 2020

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.

 

[get me outta here]

“St Vincent’s Hospital is searching for patients who may have been exposed to the coronavirus after a man who presented to the hospital was diagnosed with COVID-19.

The man in his 70s was in the Darlinghurst emergency department on Friday. He has not recently travelled overseas and the source of his infection is not known”. SMH 10pm

 

[Pushka]

“St Vincent’s Hospital is searching for patients who may have been exposed to the coronavirus after a man who presented to the hospital was diagnosed with COVID-19.

The man in his 70s was in the Darlinghurst emergency department on Friday. He has not recently travelled overseas and the source of his infection is not known”. SMH 10pm

Have they not set up a clinic that is separate to the emergency department so others aren't exposed?

 

[amaroo]

Have they not set up a clinic that is separate to the emergency department so others aren't exposed?

Given my experience on Wednesday - I'm thinking no.

 

[Pushka]

Given my experience on Wednesday - I'm thinking no.

Maybe it's something SA got right for a change. We have a clinic that was set up last week. Free clinic. Walk in be assessed and tested as necessary. Separate entrance to Casualty.

 

[amaroo]

That is all I worry about. My parents have passed on so I don't need to worry about them. I am worried about the business impacts as we are in small business and close to retirement. Our superannuation has taken a significant hit. I'm glad we don't have the responsibility of having young kids anymore. I understand the context of containment because health systems couldn't cope with a major use of specialised resources should this virus hit compromised people en masse. I just hope we don't create such massive financial impact that it will take years to recover from through this shut down process.

My parents and my wife's parents are still ticking. We have two kids still under our wing, we both own multiply businesses ... two dogs + a few sponsor kids .... and we're in the middle of an expensive build.

IMO, this bug is not benign, it's going to be destructive, and we all need to be mindful.

 

[PineappleSkip]

Meanwhile, 60 minutes reckons we’re all gonna die of Hendra Virus, eh? That was just bizarre.

cheers skip

 

[Princess Fiona]

Meanwhile, 60 minutes reckons we’re all gonna die of Hendra Virus, eh? That was just bizarre.

cheers skip

It was legit the worst scaremongering cr@p I have seen in a long time. The selective editing of the actual expert they had and the reporter wearing the Bunnings mask.
Complete and utter bs

 

[amaroo]

It was legit the worst scaremongering cr@p I have seen in a long time. The selective editing of the actual expert they had and the reporter wearing the Bunnings mask.
Complete and utter bs

Hahaha, scaremongering is everywhere...

Be afraid, be very afraid. Multiple schedule changes will come and they will not be popular amongst the crowd here including myself.

"The best things in life are free. The second best are very expensive"
Gabrielle 'Coco' Chanel

Qantas - what will Coronavirus mean in the medium term?

Maybe Australian universities should have a business model that caters for Australians, rather than offshore students. No different to all the lobster / abalone / tuna / specialised exporters of meat and select F&V. I agree, but the issue is that the Australian government is treating...

www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au

 

[Jos888]

Meanwhile, 60 minutes reckons we’re all gonna die of Hendra Virus, eh? That was just bizarre.

cheers skip

Turned it off and watched Rick Stein in France...ah...much better

 

[Fred_bear]

Very good read.
Personally I’m not worried about travelling or the virus but I am worried about having flights cancelled or worse being stuck OS.
Sounds like domestic Chinese flights are starting to get back to some sense of normality, hopefully others follow suit

This is exactly it for us as well. Given the restrictions the Italian government has now put in place re northern Italy and museums, archeological sites etc in the rest of the country we’ve re-jigged our trip to avoid Italy all together and are now flying SQ into LHR instead of FCO next Wednesday & are off to Edinburgh and Dublin.

It involved a change to an award ticket and I must say Abdul from SIA was incredibly helpful in getting us sorted last night. All up change fee was only $35 SGD/ person.

 

[daft009]

At this stage I'm stick keen on sticking to my work trip in late May to SIN, HK, TPE.

Award flights were booked prior to Xmas on SQ..let's see.

 

[drron]

It was legit the worst scaremongering cr@p I have seen in a long time. The selective editing of the actual expert they had and the reporter wearing the Bunnings mask.
Complete and utter bs

Though on the escalator in the HKG shopping centre the reporter held on to the railing and touched several other surfaces and wasn't seenonce washing his hands.

 

[oztraveller]

Despite the Indonesian authorities being less than open about the number of cases there, ive cancelled my 10 day trip to Bali starting end of April purely because I won’t enjoy my time there while this is going on. QF were ok about cancellation of flights, hotels in Bali the same but Luxury Escapes do not offer refunds. So I asked them to cancel my package there ($3000) but hold the money until situation is clear. Still waiting for the hotel involved to confirm they are ok with that.

 

[Pushka]

Despite the Indonesian authorities being less than open about the number of cases there, ive cancelled my 10 day trip to Bali starting end of April purely because I won’t enjoy my time there while this is going on. QF were ok about cancellation of flights, hotels in Bali the same but Luxury Escapes do not offer refunds. So I asked them to cancel my package there ($3000) but hold the money until situation is clear. Still waiting for the hotel involved to confirm they are ok with that.

We are in exactly the same boat. Our Hotel agreed to hold onto the booking until December 2020.

Did Qantas allow you to cancel penalty free? We were due to fly out 27 March.

 

[Canberradaddy]

I cancelled my QANTAS 'around the world' first class departing in April due Corona Virus fears and the inability to get insurance for Corona Virus. Full refund from Qantas, Luxury Escapes have provided a credit, to be redeemed within 12 months.

As insurance was booked 6 months ago, I will try and get a refund of the very professional assistance provided by Award Flight Assist ($350 well spent). Pity the trip did not proceed.

 

[Pushka]

I cancelled my QANTAS 'around the world' first class departing in April due Corona Virus fears and the inability to get insurance for Corona Virus. Full refund from Qantas, Luxury Escapes have provided a credit, to be redeemed within 12 months.

As insurance was booked 6 months ago, I will try and get a refund of the very professional assistance provided by Award Flight Assist ($350 well spent). Pity the trip did not proceed.

Thankyou. I'll try cancelling now then.

 

[stoney]

Being a cheapskate, I usually save a couple of bob booking the non refundable accomodation. This could cost me $7k if I need to cancel my upcoming RTW trip commencing in June. Guess what I will be booking in future?

 

[Canberradaddy]

Being a cheapskate, I usually save a couple of bob booking the non refundable accomodation. This could cost me $7k if I need to cancel my upcoming RTW trip commencing in June. Guess what I will be booking in future?

Also check that it is not refundable via insurance.

 

[pauly7]

I’ve had a few messages about this - the corporate insurers (big companies have standing travel insurance for any one of their employees that travel - kicks on automatically when they book) are basically not covering coronavirus - full stop.

This is one of the key reasons why almost all fiscally responsible corporates have grounded all their travelling staff from OS travel and some also have slowed down domestic.

No insurance cover means if anything happens to that employee, every single $ incurred to treat and repatriate that employee back is at the out of pocket immediate cost of the company.

That’s why we aren’t even allowed to go to the US for example which has relatively low ‘reported’ case numbers (yea right!) because if you needed to access even basic care like oxygen support in their horrifyingly poor health system you would be charged tens of thousands of dollars. Straight on the company card....

If you are being allowed to travel OS for work I highly suggest you get in writing from your company and their insurer that you are covered (and check the limit on your corporate card). A work colleague was being sent to the US on exemption to our new travel policy banning all OS travel. He checked, followed up and found out wasn’t covered. The company then put in writing they would directly cover any costs and doubled his already large corporate card limit. He’s still going.... leaves in a few weeks...! His choice though.

 

[stoney]

Also check that it is not refundable via insurance.

Have done thanks for the thought though. I have top level with NIB but they covered themselves, as usual. The should not be allowed to cherry pick. If they take your money then all risks should be covered. It may cost more but so be it.
Interestingly, I did cancel Beijing in February and the hotel did not hesitate but I think the Chinese government made this compulsory for all accomodation.