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I try out the British Airways ‘Return to England’ £33 Covid test from Qured

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British Airways has partnered with a number of Covid testing companies since the start of the pandemic, most of which are PCR testing providers.

It has now announced a new partnership with Qured (pronounced ‘cured’…..) to offer a £33 inbound test that satisfies the requirement for a negative Covid test before arriving in England.

The process is quite clever, and lets you avoid the hassle of trying to find a test provider in the country you are visiting. It is based on a lateral flow antigen test, which means it isn’t totally accurate but better than nothing ….

Qured Lateral flow test kit

It is also much cheaper than a PCR test – £33 with BA’s discount code – making it a cost-effective way of testing before you return to the UK.

Here is how it works:

  • You order your test before you depart the UK and take the kit with you
  • You schedule a video call with Qured up to three days before your return flight to carry out the test
  • You receive your results and a test certificate within 20 minutes

British Airways offered to let me test the service – so I did!

I gave the Qured test a trial

Ordering the home test kit is easy and can be done on the Qured website. The headline price is £39 but the BA promo code ‘BATRAVEL15‘ will reduce this to £33.

You have to select a reason for the test – which can include a simple diagnostic if you just want to check your Covid status – but in this case you should choose the ‘Return to the UK’ option:

Qured reason

You also have to enter a few personal details including your address.

The test kit arrives via free next-day delivery, provided you book before 3pm. It is all in a small box that you can easily pack into a bag or suitcase.

Qured Lateral flow test

Once booked, you can schedule a call with a health advisor to take your test and get your results validated. This ensures that you perform the test correctly and don’t cheat, as this test has been validated by Public Health England as a valid way of entering the UK.

You can book this call for whenever you want and there are plenty of slots available, although they are limited to 9am-6pm UK time.

Cleverly, you don’t actually have an appointment with an individual advisor: instead you join an online queue and wait to be attended. This took a matter of seconds for me, and means that it doesn’t matter if you are a few minutes early or late for your slot.

On the call, the Qured health advisor will take you through the process of swabbing and performing the test. If you’ve done a lateral flow test before you are probably familiar with the process, which essentially requires you to dunk your swab in the liquid before dropping it onto the test cassette itself.

I will spare you the vivid details of my self-swabbing. Residents of South London will be pleased to know that I tested negative.

(Somebody can correct me on this but I assume C means ‘control’ to ensure the test has been carried out correctly and and T is for the actual Covid ‘test’ result.)

Once the 20 minutes are up you can take a photo of your test with your ID and send it to Qured. Qured will verify it and send you a test certificate in return.

You can upload your certificate into BA’s VeriFLY app if you wish, which will speed up your time at check-in.

The whole process was quick and easy thanks to the guidance from the health advisor, and got me a Government-accepted certificate within an hour.

It will be interesting to see how testing requirements evolve with the rollout of vaccines, although I imagine they will be here in one form or another for some time. These cheap and effective lateral flow tests are a great way of testing for your return.

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Comments (117)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Tariq says:
    5 Mar5 March 05:35

    Presumably you’d have to carry it in checked luggage because of the liquid vial?

  • Susan says:
    5 Mar5 March 06:42

    Great shame these won’t ship to those already overseas, it’s been a pain trying to find a testing centre that guarantees results within 3 days over a week-end.

    • Dawn says:
      5 Mar5 March 10:17

      That was actually going to be my question – can they send them to people already overseas? Guessing not.

      • Rhys says:
        5 Mar5 March 10:22

        Not currently, although they’re looking into it.

        • Rob says:
          5 Mar5 March 10:29

          I can image big issues on importing what is essentially a medical device into many countries.

  • Joe says:
    5 Mar5 March 06:49

    Its just a shame that the lateral flow tests are incredibly inaccurate.

    • Lee says:
      5 Mar5 March 07:30

      Is that your opinion, or do you have any proof of this?

      • Ken says:
        5 Mar5 March 07:40

        In Liverpool where the test were widely used they failed to pick up 60% of all cases and 30% of cases with a high viral load.

        They are not designed for this purpose or for example screening people as safe to visit a care home.
        The test are designed to pick up some asymptomatic cases in the community cheaply & easily

        Are they better than nothing ? Of course. But a real danger that people test negative then behave differently.

        • memesweeper says:
          5 Mar5 March 08:04

          If you have symptoms, home or abroad, this is not a substitute for isolation and a PCR test.

          Yes, they miss a huge number of cases which PCR pick up.

          However, they mainly miss the cases we don’t care about — eg the recovering sick who are no longer infectious. Sadly one category that miss we do care about is people who have *just* got infected but aren’t very infectious yet, but then go on to be spreaders a few days later. Clearly a non-zero risk for fellow passengers on a plane that someone who passed a day or two ago is now sick enough to be spreading and still asymptomatic.

          Assuming we can get symptomatic people tested properly (and they stay out of airports and planes) this seems a decent second line of defence. But it’s not ideal.

      • Joe says:
        5 Mar5 March 15:17

        Well I’m aware of specific cases of false positives and false negatives just in my own circle of family and friends. Others have put this more eloquently below, but I would always get a PCR test to verify a positive result.

  • Stewart says:
    5 Mar5 March 06:57

    Thus us great news. But how will this work when we start to fly and ten’s of thousands are using the Qured process on a daily basis. Are there enough video advisers to handle the numbers?

    • ChrisC says:
      5 Mar5 March 07:04

      And limited to UK office hours will be inconvenient to many who are abroad especially in the FAr East or West Coast USA

      And if you have an appointment at say 5.45 pm do they still send you the test that day or the next morning UK time?

      • abc says:
        5 Mar5 March 07:59

        If and when international travel actually restarts, they’ll probably just extend the times when you can have an appointment. No point in having this now, the amount of people that are even allowed to travel back and forth to the US is pretty limited.

      • Sean says:
        5 Mar5 March 08:19

        You are of course free o use someone else!

    • Alex Sm says:
      5 Mar5 March 11:48

      I think the opening hours and number of advisers can be easily expanded in parallel with the expansion of the scheme itself

    • Chrisasaurus says:
      5 Mar5 March 14:10

      Well since they control the number / rate of tests they distribute then I’d assume yes, they are able to keep pace

  • MQ says:
    5 Mar5 March 06:58

    Given the obstacles when travelling abroad, BA has done a great job with this option. I just hope I can use this service with other airlines as well.

    • Alex Sm says:
      5 Mar5 March 11:48

      Exactly my thoughts! Needs to become an industry standard soon

  • John says:
    5 Mar5 March 07:01

    Actually pretty accurate if says negative. More likely to give false positives. So if positive require a laboratory test

  • Vicki says:
    5 Mar5 March 07:04

    Would be interested to know the false positive rate and how this compares to PCR tests. In other words, what are the chances of having to miss my flight home because of a false positive test result?

    • ThinkSquare says:
      5 Mar5 March 07:11

      False positive rate is well under 1%. False negative can be close to 50% for a self-test

    • Ken says:
      5 Mar5 March 07:44

      Very few false positives with this test. Much less than 1%

  • Jonty says:
    5 Mar5 March 07:12

    I’m gobsmacked that public health emgland is accepting lateral flow tests when they are known to be very inaccurate

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