Author Topic: "Holiday Road" - The Official Vacation Thread  (Read 145145 times)

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Offline OldChelsea

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Not good for my Bratislava trip on 19th May: just got an E-mail from the US embassy there that with effect from tomorrow the only way out of Slovakia is on foot or by car, since the last flight to the United States leaving Vienna (which also serves Bratislava - it's just 30mi away) is leaving that day.
(Bratislava does have a small airport of its own, but it's only served by a handful of intra-European LCC's.) This is to continue for the foreseeable future.

My booking for May is still intact on the BA website so I'm not making any changes now, but if the situation just drags on with no end in sight and it doesn't cost me a lot more to change my booking I might just move the trip into June or July. Besides, BA will be starting to restore some of its London-Vienna service on Monday 23rd March.

The State Department's STEP programme (https://step.state.gov/step/)...don't leave the US without it.

Online wj73

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Had to cancel our trip to Cooperstown at the end of the month. Also not looking good for our trip to SoCal to see the Nats @ Angels game, to take my Angels fan MIL to the game. Even if the games have started up by that time, unless this coronavirus has totally blown over, taking a 92 year old to a ballgame doesn’t seem like a good idea.  :icon_frown:

Offline skippy1999

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Had to cancel our trip to Cooperstown at the end of the month. Also not looking good for our trip to SoCal to see the Nats @ Angels game, to take my Angels fan MIL to the game. Even if the games have started up by that time, unless this coronavirus has totally blown over, taking a 92 year old to a ballgame doesn’t seem like a good idea.  :icon_frown:

I'm so sorry wj :(

Offline Count Walewski

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My UMC sob stories over travel:

- My wife and her friends have a "Girls Trip" to London (2 weeks) planned for early May on American Airlines and British Airways. Currently, such a flight would be banned. I don't see the situation in the UK getting better by May given the UK government's decision to pursue a policy of herd immunity rather than quarantine. I hope to get a voucher for the value of her flights.

- During my wife's "Girls Trip", I have a short (4 day) trip to Lexington, KY, which I picked because it was the cheapest place to fly to that I hadn't already visited. I paid something like $300 for airfare on United and $200 for an Airbnb. I hope to get a voucher for the flight and a full refund for Airbnb. Lexington has actually been hit pretty hard by the virus.

- In September, the wife and I have a big 2-week trip planned to Poland, Belarus, and the Ukraine on American Airlines, LOT Polish Airlines, and Belavia Belorussian Airlines. Poland and Ukraine have shut their borders entirely to foreigners at this point. I hope this trip actually happens. If I'm still alive in September I will need a vacation badly.

Offline OldChelsea

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GOOD NEWS: British Airways have resumed one of their daily flights to/from Dulles (also limited service resumed to Boston, Chicago, LA and New York and possibly a few other points). Still, there's the matter of most of Europe being in various stages of lockdown...will probably have to re-schedule next month's trip. (And yet BA are still taking bookings for 19th May, my departure date, including to locked-down cities like Vienna.)

BAD NEWS: National Express (Britain's main bus operator) suspended all service with effect from yesterday; expected resumption date 1st June.

Offline imref

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United and Delta have agreed to extend current 2020 status to the end of 2021.  United has lowered the requirements to achieve status as well.

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/united-airlines-extends-status-for-mileageplus-premier-members-to-2022-makes-earning-status-easier-301035865.html

Offline OldChelsea

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United and Delta have agreed to extend current 2020 status to the end of 2021.  United has lowered the requirements to achieve status as well.

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/united-airlines-extends-status-for-mileageplus-premier-members-to-2022-makes-earning-status-easier-301035865.html

Good move. Here's hoping British Airways follows suit.

Offline imref

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Good move. Here's hoping British Airways follows suit.

Found this:

Quote
Last week, British Airways announced that it would be lowering the number of Tier Points required to qualify or requalify for certain elite members. Under the policy, only status for members with status renewal dates in April, May and June are eligible.

The number of Tier Points required was cut by 30% meaning for eligible members. These are the new thresholds:

Bronze: 210 Tier Points (instead of the normal 300)
Silver: 420 Tier Points (instead of the normal 600)
Gold: 1,050 Tier Points (instead of the normal 1,500)
Gold Guest List: 3,500 Tier Points (instead of the normal 5,000, with 30% reductions required to earn additional Gold Guest List benefits)

https://thepointsguy.co.uk/news/ba-should-do-more-for-elites/

Offline OldChelsea

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Found this:

https://thepointsguy.co.uk/news/ba-should-do-more-for-elites/

...which unfortunately wouldn't apply to me since my status years end in January. But if I can get next month's trip re-scheduled I'll be all right.

Offline Count Walewski

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- In September, the wife and I have a big 2-week trip planned to Poland, Belarus, and the Ukraine on American Airlines, LOT Polish Airlines, and Belavia Belorussian Airlines. Poland and Ukraine have shut their borders entirely to foreigners at this point. I hope this trip actually happens. If I'm still alive in September I will need a vacation badly.

There are some projections (https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america) saying that at least in the USA the pandemic will be over by September. If that's the case, and Poland/Belarus/Ukraine are also OK, then this trip might happen. But if the USA is ok and Poland/Belarus/Ukraine are not, I need a backup plan because I still have 2 weeks off work in September.

I am playing around with the idea of a roadtrip to Branson, MO as Plan B. Always wanted to go and see what it's like.

Offline imref

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There are some projections (https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america) saying that at least in the USA the pandemic will be over by September. If that's the case, and Poland/Belarus/Ukraine are also OK, then this trip might happen. But if the USA is ok and Poland/Belarus/Ukraine are not, I need a backup plan because I still have 2 weeks off work in September.

I am playing around with the idea of a roadtrip to Branson, MO as Plan B. Always wanted to go and see what it's like.

Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg are "interesting" if you've never been.

Offline RobDibblesGhost

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I'm holding out hopes for my Alaska trip in July. I'd probably pull the plug if it was in June but I'm going to wait another few weeks and see what happens. They're currently requiring anyone coming in to quarantine for 14 days (with a penalty of $25,000 and/or a year in prison). Alaska's the only state I haven't been to so I was really hoping to join the 50 state club this year. My backup plan is to push the trip to late August/September but there are a lot of moving pieces to consider and I don't know if I could make it work.


Offline imref

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I'm holding out hopes for my Alaska trip in July. I'd probably pull the plug if it was in June but I'm going to wait another few weeks and see what happens. They're currently requiring anyone coming in to quarantine for 14 days (with a penalty of $25,000 and/or a year in prison). Alaska's the only state I haven't been to so I was really hoping to join the 50 state club this year. My backup plan is to push the trip to late August/September but there are a lot of moving pieces to consider and I don't know if I could make it work.



Where in the state are you going?

Offline OldChelsea

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Treasury Secretary Mnuchin says it's 'too hard to tell' whether US international travel ban will be lifted this year: https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/news/2020/05/04/mnuchin-too-hard-tell-when-international-travel-resume-coronavirus/3077347001/

In fact he sounds really gung ho on promoting domestic tourism this year. (Those travel bans had better go though - I've got four trips booked for September-December.)

Offline imref

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Treasury Secretary Mnuchin says it's 'too hard to tell' whether US international travel ban will be lifted this year: https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/news/2020/05/04/mnuchin-too-hard-tell-when-international-travel-resume-coronavirus/3077347001/

In fact he sounds really gung ho on promoting domestic tourism this year. (Those travel bans had better go though - I've got four trips booked for September-December.)

From reading the State Department web site, travel restrictions do not apply to American citizens.  Looking at the Dulles Airport departure list for today, there are flights to virtually everywhere.

Offline Natsinpwc

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From reading the State Department web site, travel restrictions do not apply to American citizens.  Looking at the Dulles Airport departure list for today, there are flights to virtually everywhere.
You can leave but you can’t return. The anti Hotel California.

Offline OldChelsea

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From reading the State Department web site, travel restrictions do not apply to American citizens.  Looking at the Dulles Airport departure list for today, there are flights to virtually everywhere.

...just not on the scale of pre-Covid-19 (Dulles is served by some 30 foreign carriers, only a half-dozen or so of which seem to be running flights to/from there right now). What's really gumming things up right now is the ongoing European Union ban on arrivals by most foreign nationals (unless you have residence status in one of those countries) - I'll be watching weekend-after-next to see if some of these rumoured forthcoming reductions in the ban are implemented.

Offline imref

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fwiw my son's passport expired and we looked into renewing it last week.  The Passport office guidance is don't even think about it.

Quote
If you are thinking about applying for or renewing a U.S. passport now for international travel, please read the Department of State's current international travel advisory. Because of public health measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19, we have extremely limited U.S. passport operations.

If you apply or renew now, you will experience significant delays of several months to receive your U.S. passport and the return of your citizenship evidence documents (such as birth certificates or naturalization certificates). Unless you have a life-or-death emergency, please wait until we resume normal operations to apply for or renew your passport.

Offline OldChelsea

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fwiw my son's passport expired and we looked into renewing it last week.  The Passport office guidance is don't even think about it.


I've read that (https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/ea/passport-covid-19.html) - passport applications are effectively shut down except for certain emergencies. Thankfully my passport has five years left on it.

Offline OldChelsea

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Current ban on non-Schengen-citizen travel into Schengen countries (=most of Europe) ends 15th May, but EU is widely expected to extend the ban another month; France and Scandinavia may extend their bans into October/November: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/europe-tourism-reopen-summer/2020/05/06/185436bc-8e3f-11ea-9322-a29e75effc93_story.html

Offline RobDibblesGhost

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Where in the state are you going?

So I’m planning to spend a day in Anchorage, a couple of days camping in Denali and a couple of days exploring in and around Fairbanks (I have a coworker recommending Chena Hot Springs). Then my plan was to go down to Oregon to visit Crater Lake and meet up with my brother in Portland before taking the Empire Builder back to DC. I recently pushed the trip back from early July to mid-August but I still have doubts. One of my good college friends is supposed to meet me for the Alaska part of the trip and I’m not sure he’s on board at this point so everything is still up in the air.

Offline imref

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A person shared their experience of traveling from France to Hong Kong, it's worth a read:

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1260784481159442434.html

tl;dr - it's an 8 hour process to clear through the airport.

In other news, Delta is retiring it's 777s and BA and Lufthansa are retiring their 747s. 

Offline OldChelsea

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[...]and BA and Lufthansa are retiring their 747s. 

BA are currently the largest deployer of 747's, I believe. I had read not too long ago that they were starting to phase them out now, with full phase-out expected by 2024.

Under ordinary (non-CoronaExtraVirus) circumstances the earlier of BA's two Dulles departures (BA216, usually departs round 18.30 daily) normally uses a 747. I'm booked on one for my annual November/December London trip - Club World (business class), upper deck - hope it comes off. If you want to grab one last chance to fly in a 747, BA216 is the best choice in this area...going to be sad to see those beautiful birds fly off into the sunset.

Offline imref

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BA are currently the largest deployer of 747's, I believe. I had read not too long ago that they were starting to phase them out now, with full phase-out expected by 2024.

Under ordinary (non-CoronaExtraVirus) circumstances the earlier of BA's two Dulles departures (BA216, usually departs round 18.30 daily) normally uses a 747. I'm booked on one for my annual November/December London trip - Club World (business class), upper deck - hope it comes off. If you want to grab one last chance to fly in a 747, BA216 is the best choice in this area...going to be sad to see those beautiful birds fly off into the sunset.

Agreed.  We flew a Lufthansa 747 in 2018 to Frankfurt on our way to Italy.  We found out that the first row of economy in that aircraft had about 8" of extra leg room and could be had for a small premium (I think around $75?) and so we booked the center section (4 across) for the trip.  The seats were fantastic.  Seatguru showed that they were bulkhead but the "bulkhead" consisted of a small pane that hung from the ceiling to indicate the change in cabin, it didn't go down more than 12" from the ceiling.

I found an image below, we had the row in front of the row that has no recline


Offline Count Walewski

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Been working on my Plan B for if Poland and the Ukraine are not taking foreigners in September. Plan is to fly to Chicago, leave the toddler there with my parents, and then do a roadtrip along the Illinois/Missouri border. See all the cute little river towns like Rock Island, Quincy, Nauvoo, New Madrid, St. Louis, etc. I figure those are places that are touristy enough to have stuff to see, but not so touristy that they'll be packed with possible virus carriers. And the fact that there are a lot of state borders around (Iowa and Kentucky are in play too) means we can hedge the risk that any one state is still totally shut down then.