Covid era travel

[ad hoc]

In other news my hotel proudly boasts that it has played host to Bill and Hillary Clinton, George Mitchell, Michael Parkinson, Bob Geldof, Daniel Day Lewis, and, slightly incongruously, Jason Donovan

It also lists "sporting stars" in this order: Frank Lampard, Luis Garcia, Rio Ferdinand, Sir Alex Ferguson, Darren Clarke, and Barry McGuigan

I'm going to confess that I'm struggling to remember which one Luis Garcia was. Is he one of the semi infinite managers of Watford?

[ursus arctos]

Liverpool winger, methinks

[ad hoc]

Wikipedia claims it's the world's most bombed hotel, but the in-room information gubbins omits that fact.

[ad hoc]

Liverpool winger, methinks

Hmmm. Still drawing a blank. I'll look him up

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

He scored the "ghost goal" for Liverpool against Chelsea in the 2005 Champions League semi-final, before goalline technology came along and spoiled such fun.

[Tactical Genius]

I can confirm that anyone who needs to travel to the UK should go via Ireland. Easy to fill out forms that ask logical questions and are user friendly. Well checked (I changed planes in Munich and there we had to have all our documentation checked, and scanned and we were then given a sticker on our boarding cards, so it all felt very well processed). The address I've submitted is the one in Belfast, so I feel like there is a system in pace should anyone on the plane come down with something. Whereas arriving in the UK (by plane, not by land from Dublin) you need to book tests and pay loads of money to some dodgy private company many (probably most) of whom are just set up to facilitate the transfer of money from visitors to Tory donors. I'm hoping to come at Christmas and at the moment i am seriously considering flying to Dublin, getting the bus up here and then travelling from Belfast to England.

Come on Ad Hoc, the UK passenger locator form is not that difficult, 5 minutes maximum.
All you really need are:
passport details
Flight details
where you will be staying in the UK
Proof of Vaccination status
The serial number for the day 2 test you have booked.

The questions are yes/no and are sensible like asking if you have been to a red list country in the 10 days before coming to the UK etc.
The day 2 tests are not expensive, if you can afford to pay for a flight, you can surely afford £45 for a day 2 test.

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/tr...l/#arrivalstwo

It is the Airline who check you paperwork before you board the flight to the UK, normally passenger locator form and proof of vaccination is what they are interested in. When you arrive in the UK, you go through the electronic gates as usual

[ad hoc]

It takes way more than 5 minutes. Each question is on a single page , so there is a ton of clicking for a start, plus there is the test booking process which takes a good length of time too. Ireland's was 5 tops. I'd spent getting on for 45 minutes on the UK one, before asking someone who told me that coming to Belfast via Dublin I didn;t need to complete it

[Amor de Cosmos]

We've got credit on a flight we cancelled back in March last year. I plunged into the effort to retrieve it to pay for Christmas in Texas this morning. After almost an hour in purgatory (sorry... 'hold') I decided to book a call back. This Saturday morning was the earliest slot available. Which I can't help but think doesn't bode well.

[Gangster Octopus]

Luis Garcia gave his name to a greatly missed poster.

[ursus arctos]

I was wondering about that

A poster who may well have graced the same hotel, as it happens

[Fussbudget]

Come on Ad Hoc, the UK passenger locator form is not that difficult, 5 minutes maximum.

You must be joking. It took us at least half an hour to fill it in, it's horribly badly designed and keeps repeating the same questions over and over again and asking stuff irrelevant to your personal situation (e.g. asking vaccinated people the address where they will self-isolate even while acknowledging that they don't need to self-isolate). The first time I tried, the site crashed halfway through and I had to redo it all from the start as well. I guess it's a classic piece of Home Office design in that it seems entirely designed to discourage people from filling it in.

[ursus arctos]

You people taking a Nigerian man's advice on online forms at face value

I didn't realise the turnip truck was that large

[Tactical Genius]

It takes way more than 5 minutes. Each question is on a single page , so there is a ton of clicking for a start, plus there is the test booking process which takes a good length of time too. Ireland's was 5 tops. I'd spent getting on for 45 minutes on the UK one, before asking someone who told me that coming to Belfast via Dublin I didn't need to complete it

The pages are mainly simple yes no questions, and are completely relevant. What were the questions on the locator form you found irrelevant. The longest bit is the part where you upload your vaccination status. I have filled out the passenger locator form twice since the latest changes that came into effect on the 4th October. But I had all the information to hand before I started and had booked the day 2 test and had the reference number to hand which helps.

[Tactical Genius]

You must be joking. It took us at least half an hour to fill it in, it's horribly badly designed and keeps repeating the same questions over and over again and asking stuff irrelevant to your personal situation (e.g. asking vaccinated people the address where they will self-isolate even while acknowledging that they don't need to self-isolate). The first time I tried, the site crashed halfway through and I had to redo it all from the start as well. I guess it's a classic piece of Home Office design in that it seems entirely designed to discourage people from filling it in.

That is a logical question because if you test positive on your day two test, you will be required to self-isolate.
When did you last fill out the form?

[Fussbudget]

A few weeks ago, so by the sound of it they must have simplified it a great deal since then. I had all the info ready as well and it was still a complete ball-ache to fill in.

That is a logical question because if you test positive on your day two test, you will be required to self-isolate.

Right, but the form itself said "you need to self-isolate unless you have been fully vaccinated in the UK" with no mention of isolating if you test positive.

From memory it asked me a variation of 'do you meet the requirements to not have to self-isolate?' at least 3 or 4 times on different pages. Also stuff like 'which airline are you flying with' and the drop-down had different versions of RyanAir listed (I think RyanAir DAC, RyanAir UK, maybe more?) and no explanation of how you're supposed to know which one you're travelling with when your ticket just says 'Ryan Air', that type of thing.

By contrast, the form to enter France only asked for name, date of birth, nationality and address and took about 30 seconds to fill in.

[Fussbudget]

I mean, imagine making France's bureaucracy look streamlined and efficient. I can't think of anything more damning

[ad hoc]

I started filling it out a few days ago (definitely after Oct 4th). It took ages, genuinely. Plus there were at least two questions which I couldn;t complete because they were questions that applied to the England rules not the NI ones, and it was a UK PLF, not one for individual countries. I tried to come up with logical answers but the menus couldn't accept them (I can't remember what these questions were now, but they definitely existed) One was the testing thing - my hotel is doing my testing, so I don't need to book one of the dodgy companies, but that doesn't work in the forms.

Really the level of bureaucracy was insane and as fussbudget says the overriding impression I got was that it was deliberately so in order to discourage people (and it worked in this, I know of at least 2 people who were supposed to be coming to this conference who bailed because the forms were too complicated.)

[Tactical Genius]

Maybe I should start a business filling out passenger location forms for the easily irritated and impatient. I mean everyone else seems to have some kind of pandemic hustle and I missed the boat selling PPE at a 1000% markup.

(Winky smiley thing)

[Lang Spoon]

Normally I'd say that's the nationalist side of the wall, with none of the number plates having the "GB" bit. But now with Brexit, hardcore unionists probably want to get rid of the GB bit of the number plate on account of the EU flag.

I've never knowingly seen GB stickers on plates in Scotland. And that's the kind of Britnat weirdness that would tend to stand out. Is that a thing now?

[anton pulisov]

Concerned with filling in forms. Fly to Sweden. Nobody gives a shit about Covid here.

[Sam]

Forty-five quid not too expensive for a test, TG? Given it's going to some bunch of charlatans who couldn't tell a negative test from their elbow and have got the gig by bribing a government minister I'd say it's £45 too much. Equivalent of just under a tenner here, by the way, but if you UK-based folk could stay out that'd be much appreciated. We're trying to keep the numbers down.

We're off to Córdoba (not the Spanish one) in the car on Sunday for a week.

[Moonlight Shadow]

Useful info
https://twitter.com/jonworth/status/1455848008957022212

[anton pulisov]

I can buy lateral flow tests at the local Lidl now.

[Tactical Genius]

Forty-five quid not too expensive for a test, TG? Given it's going to some bunch of charlatans who couldn't tell a negative test from their elbow and have got the gig by bribing a government minister I'd say it's £45 too much. Equivalent of just under a tenner here, by the way, but if you UK-based folk could stay out that'd be much appreciated. We're trying to keep the numbers down.

We're off to Córdoba (not the Spanish one) in the car on Sunday for a week.

If you can afford a flight, hotel, food, transfers and other costs involved in foreign travel, then £45 covid test isn't going to break you.

As for the other stuff you say, |I agree 100% and even go further. The UK has a network of test centres for PCR and Lateral Flow tests. I am not sure why these test results are not acceptable. At least you are supervised doing these tests unlike the £45 test kits which are not and could contain the spit of anyone.

[ad hoc]

It;s not the price itself that;s the problem, it;s who gets the money (also, when i came over and got my daily phone calls, I was frequently asked "Did you purchase the NHS service or one of the private providers?" but at no point in any of the process did I encounter an NHS option (because otherwise I would obviously have used it. If I knew my money was going to the NHS rather than some cunt who is Nick Hancock's mate, I'd be happy to pay it)