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.

 

[CaptainCurtis]

My work (>50k employees) has cancelled all travel to/from Singapore, Mainland China and Hong Kong.

Update: Work has banned travel to South Korea and Italy.

 

[Melburnian1]

It's not alone but Nestle (with 290000 worldwide employees!) has banned all international travel.

If widespread (and increasing), this must really be hitting all legacy airlines' revenue from corporate travellers, who have a greater propensity to travel in J (or, where available F/W) and who typically pay more per revenue seat kilometre.

Post automatically merged: Feb 28, 2020

While the attitude of corporate insurers will be a major factor, is there also a 'herd effect' where decision makers at other companies read this, panic, and institute similar bans, or, as dajop mentioned some time back, even domestic Oz travel is questioned?

 

[straitman]

From a personal perspective we are watching all of this closely. We are due to get on a cruise ship (Regal Princess) in Civitavecchia on 17th October. For us to cancel without penalty we need to do so by 19th April.

We'd prefer to remain with our original plans.

 

[juddles]

From a personal perspective we are watching all of this closely. We are due to get on a cruise ship (Regal Princess) in Civitavecchia on 17th October. For us to cancel without penalty we need to do so by 19th April.

We'd prefer to remain with our original plans.

straightman, I suspect that by October much of any chaos will have already occurred - I would be far more confident of October travels than anything in the next three months

(just to be clear - I mean that by then pandemic will be old news and border closures/quarantining of vessels etc will be a thing of the distant past - but there could well be an influential existence of the virus still)

 

[Pushka]

From a personal perspective we are watching all of this closely. We are due to get on a cruise ship (Regal Princess) in Civitavecchia on 17th October. For us to cancel without penalty we need to do so by 19th April.

We'd prefer to remain with our original plans.

I'll let you know what happens. Ours departs Civitavecchia on 27 July. My thoughts - the TAs won't happen in April. Our deadline is 18th May but unless the cruise is cancelled we will lose our deposit if not paid in full by then.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

(just to be clear - I mean that by then pandemic will be old news and border closures/quarantining of vessels etc will be a thing of the distant past - but there could well be an influential existence of the virus still)

Yes, by then you will most likely be free to travel anywhere and catch Covid 19 at your leisure from your fellow passengers just like you already can today with the flu etc. You just will not get quarantined for 14 days.

 

[Melburnian1]

I'll let you know what happens. Ours departs Civitavecchia on 27 July. My thoughts - the TAs won't happen in April. Our deadline is 18th May but unless the cruise is cancelled we will lose our deposit if not paid in full by then.

So despite all the (adverse) publicity re Yokohama, cruise lines are not willing to let you cancel a cruise and receive every cent back from them due to the virus?

Yet often (rightly) criticised airlines are offering full refunds. Re cruises, some may be able to claim from travel insurer but most policies (credit card or not) will have at least an A$200 excess per person, per claim 'event.'

 

[Pushka]

So despite all the (adverse) publicity re Yokohama, cruise lines are not willing to let you cancel a cruise and receive every cent back from them due to the virus?

Yet often (rightly) criticised airlines are offering full refunds. Re cruises, some may be able to claim from travel insurer but most policies (credit card or not) will have at least an A$200 excess per person, per claim 'event.'

There are a few caveats. If you rock up and are denied boarding, you will receive a full refund. If they cancel the cruise, you will receive a full refund. If, and this is quite a common practice, you decide you just dont want to travel then you lose a deposit and anything else paid past the cut off date. I know that in Bali we have prepaid accommodation that if we decide today we wont risk it, then likely we will lose what we've paid. I havent contacted Luxury Escapes yet. I do know there a message on their website about China.

 

[straitman]

So despite all the (adverse) publicity re Yokohama, cruise lines are not willing to let you cancel a cruise and receive every cent back from them due to the virus?

Yet often (rightly) criticised airlines are offering full refunds. Re cruises, some may be able to claim from travel insurer but most policies (credit card or not) will have at least an A$200 excess per person, per claim 'event.'

The cruises we are talking about are 5 and 8 months into the future. Now is really too early for that part of the discussion.
Where it gets hard is the cut off dates for payments and refunds as the ‘normal’ rules still apply at the moment.
My April date refers to 181 days before the cruise. Up to that time my deposit is fully refundable. Normally we use a $100 deposit voucher so not normally a big issue. On this occasion, due to the length of our cruise the deposit is approx $940 which I’d prefer not to lose.
From that date to 90 days (full payment time) there are no further issues. Cancellation after 90 days goes through a few levels of loss versus refund.

 

[Pushka]

The cruises we are talking about are 5 and 8 months into the future. Now is really too early for that part of the discussion.
Where it gets hard is the cut off dates for payments and refunds as the ‘normal’ rules still apply at the moment.
My April date refers to 181 days before the cruise. Up to that time my deposit is fully refundable. Normally we use a $100 deposit voucher so not normally a big issue. On this occasion, due to the length of our cruise the deposit is approx $940 which I’d prefer not to lose.
From that date to 90 days (full payment time) there are no further issues. Cancellation after 90 days goes through a few levels of loss versus refund.

I'm thinking we will know in April when the repositioning TAs start. Americans don't like to travel outside their own country and somehow feel its safer. The ships won't be filled.

 

[jase05]

straightman, I suspect that by October much of any chaos will have already occurred - I would be far more confident of October travels than anything in the next three months

(just to be clear - I mean that by then pandemic will be old news and border closures/quarantining of vessels etc will be a thing of the distant past - but there could well be an influential existence of the virus still)

Hope you are correct as we are heading to the US in October and are going via Jakarta and then either AUH or DOH.
Have 2 trips to Bali and 1 to the Philippines before that which are in far more danger of not happening I think

 

[OATEK]

I have posted on other threads about our upcoming trip, with Eastern Med cruise. We cancelled our reward flights on QF/CX to/from HKG, and re-booked our BA flights (HKG-LHR) so that we fly SYD-LHR through SIN. We felt keeping a bit further away from the centre of the Covid-19 outbreak would give us greater chance of still being accepted on our cruise.

Our cruise is from Athens, and includes Ashdod (for Jerusalem & Bethlehem), so when the Israeli government imposed heavy restrictions it seemed we might be refused boarding because of our transit in SIN. But this has been clarified, and while transit through China (eg via PVG) would see passengers refused boarding, SIN will be ok. Anyone travelling in/from Singapore, Thailand, Japan, Iran, China etc in the last 30 days would be refused entry in Israel, and therefore rather than have their ship turned away the cruise line would refuse boarding. The wording is travelling from or through as in on the ground, as would we assume be determined through passport stamps.

The Israeli restrictions could change in the next 3 weeks, but so far so good.

BA were very helpful, and was onto an excellent CSO in India within 5 minutes (whereas my total call time to QF was about 90mins). BA were very accommodating and the new eTickert was there within an hour.

Bottom line, still leaving 19/3 and expecting to be allowed to join our cruise on 28/3. Will let you know how it goes.

 

[Melburnian1]

Hope you are correct as we are heading to the US in October and are going via Jakarta and then either AUH or DOH.
Have 2 trips to Bali and 1 to the Philippines before that which are in far more danger of not happening I think

I'd have more confidence in Filipino health authorities than Indonesia's.

An Australian specialist believes that Indonesian cases of this virus 'simply hadn't been detected.'

 

[lovetravellingoz]

Well for Europe from June for 8 weeks had only booked the airfare. Normally I would actively be booking land arrangements, accommodation etc. Only thing booked to date was the SIN Transit hotel which is cancelable at no cost. So my main change is that I am simply not booking anything. Flights are redemptions and so easily cancelled last minute at little cost. I suspect that Europe is going to get a lot worse before it gets better as still is very much active flu season and so conditions perfect for virus spread. At least I am to be there in Summer, but who know at this stage. Suspect my final decision will not happen till say mid-May. I am not worried about making late accommodation bookings as I suspect tourism will be decimated still and late bookings easy.

However for Ko Samui in the first half of April of the three accommodations one cancelled at no cost till late March, one by 19 March at 60% cost and one (the cheapest) is non-refundable. Flighhave things in order. Thailand I am less sure about, but Koh Samui is more remote. I think the hotter climate helps with both.ts are redemptions except for 1 of our 5. At present I would still travel but will review on 18 March. Singapore look to

 

[Renato1]

Well, I've just read the latest news on fatality rates of those with pre-existing conditions in China.

Given that seasonal flu has a fatality rate of less than 0.1%, I've concluded that we would be nuts to travel anywhere where there is any possibility of a Coronavirus break out until a vaccine comes out.

Will coronavirus kill you? Why fatality rates for COVID-19 vary wildly depending on age, gender, medical history and country

President Trump, based on what he called a ‘hunch,’ suggested this week that the WHO coronavirus fatality rate was incorrect.

www.marketwatch.com

Regards,
Renato

 

[Pushka]

Well, I've just read the latest news on fatality rates of those with pre-existing conditions in China.

Given that seasonal flu has a fatality rate of less than 0.1%, I've concluded that we would be nuts to travel anywhere where there is any possibility of a Coronavirus break out until a vaccine comes out.

Will coronavirus kill you? Why fatality rates for COVID-19 vary wildly depending on age, gender, medical history and country

President Trump, based on what he called a ‘hunch,’ suggested this week that the WHO coronavirus fatality rate was incorrect.

www.marketwatch.com

Regards,
Renato

The researchers did state that this study may not be replicated elsewhere and also point out the fact that 50% of the male population in China smoked.

 

[Renato1]

The researchers did state that this study may not be replicated elsewhere and also point out the fact that 50% of the male population in China smoked.

May not be replicated elsewhere....or may.
A small part of the 64% greater fatality rate of men over that of women, may also have something to do with there being more men in China.
<redacted>
Cheers,
Renato

 

[VPS]

Passengers on Emirates coronavirus flight spent nearly two hours in Bali airport

The presence of the woman in the terminal raises questions about other passengers in the Denpasar airport in Bali being exposed to the virus.

www.smh.com.au

Interesting the conflict between Emirates and Balinese officials and we will see whether Bali remains free of the virus

 

[Pushka]

Passengers on Emirates coronavirus flight spent nearly two hours in Bali airport

The presence of the woman in the terminal raises questions about other passengers in the Denpasar airport in Bali being exposed to the virus.

www.smh.com.au

Interesting the conflict between Emirates and Balinese officials and we will see whether Bali remains free of the virus

I cannot see how Bali is free of the virus and if it isn't then I wish that this might be announced Sooner rather than later. And these days I've never been on a transit flight where I haven't had to disembark.

Italy, the country, has now been placed on CDC level 3, essential travel only. This will wreck the cruise industry.

 

[I love to travel]

Australian government has raised Iran to do not travel and only Aust residents and citizens allowed to enter Australia after going there for 14 days