Canary Islands ADDED to quarantine list, with Botswana and Saudi Arabia removed

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• Optimus Prime says:

  10 Dec10 December 17:23

  The Canary Islands local authorities were trying to get permission to accept rapid antigen tests instead of PCR. I guess it’s pointless now.

  • ChrisW says:

    11 Dec11 December 09:44

    Unless you have the second test on arrival after quarantining like Barbados does, I don’t really see the point of needing a negative test taken several days before to gain entry. Even if you test negative 2 days before the flight you could easily catch it on the way to the airport!

• Optimus Prime says:

  10 Dec10 December 17:26

  BTW another one to add to Harry T’s hit list… 😛

  • Anna says:

    10 Dec10 December 18:12

    Lol, that was my first thought! He also managed to close the Trump Turnberry this week. My own jinxing abilities might be about to shunt London into Tier 3 following on from Edinburgh and Manchester 😬

  • Harry T says:

    11 Dec11 December 02:48

    Ha bit late to this one because of nights shifts – made me chuckle. Good thing I didn’t book Tenerife for Christmas after Turnberry cancelled!

• Yorkieflyer says:

  10 Dec10 December 17:41

  Let’s party in Saudi then……

• Andrew says:

  10 Dec10 December 17:42

  And likely only essential travel will be permitted to the EU after 1 Jan anyway

  • abc says:

    10 Dec10 December 18:00

    Only applies to British citizens (and also, eg, Spain could and probably would make an exception if they wanted British tourists).

    • abc says:

      10 Dec10 December 18:02

      To be precise it only applies to non-EU citizens, ie Brits that have another EU citizenship can also still travel.

  • Sam G says:

    10 Dec10 December 18:27

    Simon Calder on Independent Facebook doing a live saying Malta will be letting us in anyway and he expects many other EU nations to follow suit (borders are still a sovereign policy)

    • John says:

      10 Dec10 December 19:49

      I don’t understand how that would work though, once you are in Malta you could travel to another Schengen country freely, unless they decide to impose passport controls on arrivals from Malta.

    • ChrisW says:

      11 Dec11 December 09:26

      Many EU countries will want UK tourist money. They’re not going to ban Brits from travelling there.

• EOC says:

  10 Dec10 December 17:46

  No direct flights to Botswana and stop off connectors are all 14 day or not allowed. Thanks for nothing Grant

  • Andrew says:

    10 Dec10 December 17:50

    Unless you’re travelling by private aviation.

  • Rich says:

    10 Dec10 December 17:51

    The existence, or lack, of direct flights is unrelated to the prevalence of COVID in a country. Many things are the fault of the Government, but not this!

    • abc says:

      10 Dec10 December 18:10

      It’s not unrelated, airlines could, for example, decide to offer direct flights to countries with a low prevalence of COVID because those might attract more travellers due to the lack of quarantine. (Of course your main point is correct, it’s not the Government’s fault if they don’t.)

      • Rich says:

        10 Dec10 December 18:37

        Yes, I’d kind of expected that airlines would continue flying direct to Greek islands after the end of the traditional season (October half-term). At that time, IIRC, a lot of Greek islands were still quarantine-free, but could only be accessed via Athens, triggering quarantine. Maybe the November lockdown put paid to any possibility of that anyway.

    • John says:

      10 Dec10 December 19:43

      The government does not publish criteria for adding or removing countries from the list. So it is their fault botswana comes off but is practically still on. Most countries don’t count transit stops.

• Jan says:

  10 Dec10 December 18:04

  Yeah that makes sense. We’ve got Fuerteventura booked. London rate about 200 per 100k, Fuerteventura rate extremely much lower – a total of about 40 cases at the moment. It’s all Brexit politics. Britain for Brits, no foreign travel needed.

  • Anna says:

    10 Dec10 December 18:09

    I think you’ll find it’s the EU threatening to curtail travel. That Brussels is so keen to cut off its nose to spite its face speaks volumes about its level of desperation.

    • Jan says:

      10 Dec10 December 18:12

      Pardon my ignorance, what has the EU done?

      • Anna says:

        10 Dec10 December 18:18

        Threatened to bar most UK citizens from entering Europe from January 1st, so you might not have been going to Fuerteventura anyway, depending on your travel date.

        • Paul says:

          10 Dec10 December 18:23

          Can’t blame them – 20k cases again today and over 500 deaths. The euphoria of the vaccine soon wore off!

        • Jan says:

          10 Dec10 December 18:23

          This is not the EU threatening anything – leaving the EU is the proactive choice of the British public. Why should the UK keep EU privileges after leaving the union?

        • Rich says:

          10 Dec10 December 18:40

          They haven’t threatened anything. Non-EU citizens are barred from travelling except for a few low-risk countries and for some essential reasons. UK will be non-EU from next month and so will, by default, go on that list. That’s the fun of being outside the club!

          Member states have the final say: some will be more strict, some less. We’ll have to wait and see, I guess.

        • John says:

          10 Dec10 December 18:40

          eu is applying the same rules to the uk as for other non-eu countries

          the uk government insists on leaving, in spite of most in the last election not voting for it

          eu membership is a privilege. the uk government has chosen to relinquish that privilege

          leaving has consequences, get used to second class status

        • Anna says:

          10 Dec10 December 19:15

          The EU has the power to grant an exemption or otherwise re the travel ban, therefore this is absolutely a threat. There are EU member states with higher COVID rates than the UK so this is absolutely not about infection risk, it’s about trying to turn the screws on UK negotiators. However I am confident many countries will unilaterally decide to permit entry to UK residents. After all, one of the major problems with the EU is that individual members just do their own thing regardless of policies or even laws, and Brussels appears powerless to do anything about it.

        • Anna says:

          10 Dec10 December 19:21

          John – the last election was nothing to do with Brexit so I’m not sure what you mean, however the Conservatives’ landslide win would suggest that a majority of voters do, in fact, support their stance on the issue.

        • PerkyPat says:

          10 Dec10 December 19:52

          EU are simply applying their rules on 3rd countries like Albania and Turkey to the UK, which has chosen to leave. Individual states might choose to allow UK tourists because, guess what, they have control of their own borders.

        • J says:

          10 Dec10 December 23:06

          @Anna. The UK said that in a no deal scenario it would treat the EU as any other third country for travel, and the EU reciprocated. They were fairly clear throughout that the UK could set what it wanted for it’s own borders and they would reciprocate (even offering to continue freedom of movement). I wonder if your sources ever pointed out the difference in how the UK and EU treat third countries for travel and how that would leave us at a disadvantage. The rest of us knew, and didn’t like the idea of it… 4 1/2 years later you are complaining about what was obvious even back then.

        • S says:

          11 Dec11 December 08:04

          Sorry, Anna, but it is utter nonsense to claim this is the EU acting out of spite. It is an inevitable, default legal consequence of no longer being a Member State and therefore not receiving preferential treatment without special intervention. Britain has left the EU, and these are the rules that currently apply to non-Member States. A limited number of EU-wide exemptions have been made, all of which have far lower Covid rates than the UK. As others have also said, individual countries have the sovereignty and freedom to create particular exemptions anyhow.

          This isn’t “punishment” or similar and to portray it as such demonstrates a staggering lack of awareness of the reality of EU law and international relations.

        • Lady London says:

          11 Dec11 December 12:19

          Would you blame the EU ? I wouldn’t.

    • marcw says:

      10 Dec10 December 18:58

      Total rubbish.

      • Lady London says:

        11 Dec11 December 12:29

        @Anna I’m normally with you on most things however looking at various statements by the EU management over several months now they would like to act as one bloc with a hard external border against any non-EU not particularly Britain.

        The UK has no right to any special privileges can only ask and may be declined.

        I agree this whole mess has not been helped by Boris refusing offers of special extensions kindly made by the EU.

        But there is no way this has started in order to target Britain although it may develop into that if we dont let the French and Spanish? and Icelanders? grab our fish.

        England should stop whining our politicians are more responsible for this whole Covid mess than the EU is.

    • Tri87 says:

      10 Dec10 December 19:16

      I’d say you’d have to be pretty desperate yourself to make such an illogical statement about the EU rather than the UK.

      Cutting off its nose to spite its face? Isn’t that the exact concept of Brexit?

      • Anna says:

        10 Dec10 December 19:22

        Why is it illogical?
        Not at all – ceasing to pour billions of pounds into a balck hole of mismanagement and corruption cannot in any way be described as cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face. You really need to do some research on your beloved EU.

        • Anna says:

          10 Dec10 December 19:37

          https://www.politico.eu/article/corruption-costs-eu-990-billion-year-rand-study-fraud-funding/
          I fail to see how anyone could want to pay into this, unless they are a net recipient of EU funding, of course …

        • Bill says:

          10 Dec10 December 19:48

          You’ve ignored the comments about the coronavirus travel restrictions from 1 Jan.

        • Jan says:

          10 Dec10 December 20:03

          “There are EU member states with higher COVID rates than the UK”. Why are you comparing the UK with EU member states? Free movement is exactly one of the benefits of being in the EU. Now the UK needs to compare itself to other non-EU countries. So ask yourself this: are there any non-EU countries with same or higher Covid rates than the UK that are allowed travel into the EU?

        • chabuddy geezy says:

          10 Dec10 December 20:05

          Anna that article is about corruption in member states, not the EU as an institution

        • Simon says:

          10 Dec10 December 20:09

          You clearly can’t even read your own sources. Embarrassing for you.

        • marcw says:

          10 Dec10 December 20:22

          You are falling really low Anna. Was not expecting this “quality” from you.

        • Oh! Matron! says:

          11 Dec11 December 10:01

          @anna “pour billions of pounds into a balck hole of mismanagement and corruption”

          I thought you were talking about the UK Govt for a second….

        • NHS hero says:

          11 Dec11 December 11:50

          @ Anna This is far more complex than issuing parking tickets

        • Lady London says:

          11 Dec11 December 12:36

          @chabuddy geezy…..and corruption at the centre of the EU is a separate, and much bigger topic 🙂

      • Aston100 says:

        10 Dec10 December 20:22

        “Cutting off its nose to spite its face? Isn’t that the exact concept of Brexit?”
        Exactly.
        I have yet to hear even one single amazing tangible benefit of Brexit, compared to the numerous disadvantages.

      • Paul Pogba says:

        11 Dec11 December 08:35

        Travel aside the EU does appear to be acting unreasonably in trade negotiations. Media reports suggest we were denied a CETA boilerplate without the fish and on the level playing field the EU wants a unilateral ability to raise standards and impose tariffs (without recourse to arbitration) if we don’t follow suit while preventing us from doing the same. We were never going to get a better (or even equal) deal being outside the union but asking for fairness isn’t ridiculous.

        • marcw says:

          11 Dec11 December 10:15

          But but but, didn’t the UK had all the cards?

        • J says:

          11 Dec11 December 11:37

          Not a chance that a CETA style agreement would get ratified (especially within 11 months!). The idea of ISDS paired with London’s banks is alone enough for many EU nations to veto.

    • Coucou says:

      10 Dec10 December 20:08

      Take off your “leave” glasses, my lady.

      • marcw says:

        10 Dec10 December 20:53

        +1

        • Go BoJo says:

          11 Dec11 December 18:37

          I can’t decide whether to yawn, sigh, eyeroll or all three…which would be a remarkable feat.. however, alas the EU tub-thumpers have resurfaced in number.

        • J says:

          11 Dec11 December 19:40

          @Go Bojo: Guessing you’re one of those who hasn’t yet figured out we’re all on the same side.

  • Lady London says:

    11 Dec11 December 12:32

    Why is London rate so high now? My friend in SE London was crowing a few months back London should no longer be restricted as the infectuon rate was practically zero.

• Jamie Collins says:

  10 Dec10 December 18:50

  We are booked to go to Tenerife on 18th December. While todays announcement of having to self isolate on our return isn’t a big deal for us (we have no friends and don’t like our families!) If the uk gov changes its travel advice to advise against all but non-essential travel to Canaries, this will probably invalidate our travel insurance. How likely is this to follow today’s announcement, is there a pattern to these announcements regarding other destinations? TIA

  • Phil says:

    10 Dec10 December 19:03

    Can anyone answer me how it’s logical that people returning from FUE with 40 cases per 100k have to sit at home for 14 days but outside your home the virus is going around at a far higher rate.
    This is madness.
    The government has done this purely to make money from the pcr tests that are needed to get out of quarantine.
    Profits of recommended test companies will be high.

    • Lady London says:

      11 Dec11 December 12:44

      @Phil could you possibly be implying members of the UK government are getting backhanders and freebies due to basically forcing UK citizens to pay massive amounts at inflated prices far higher than the prices for same being charged in other countries, to the pharmaceutical industry ?

      For suggesting bribery, graft and cronyism is being operated by those in power in the UK, go and wash your mouth out with soap.

  • Peter says:

    10 Dec10 December 19:54

    Just buy a new insurance policy that covers you against FCO advice, it’s like £30

    • Tom says:

      10 Dec10 December 22:57

      Battleface are the provider we used in your circumstances, Jamie. I have no reason not to recommend them (although I didn’t need to make a claim)

    • Amy says:

      11 Dec11 December 06:07

      Where from?

  • Aliks says:

    10 Dec10 December 23:04

    Insurance is probably the deciding factor for most people.

    The self isolation rules are very weakly enforced, and almost voluntary for many if not most travellers.

• ayearinmx says:

  10 Dec10 December 19:00

  I’m booked to fly to Cyprus on Jan 2nd…… would people recommend changing that to Dec 30/31 then, just in case?

  • Rich says:

    10 Dec10 December 19:22

    If the cost is reasonable and not too disruptive, I would 100% do that. 2nd may be fine, but you can’t be sure.

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