What is involved in Canada’s quarantine plan?

Q We’re booked to go on a fly-drive to Canada in June. The entry requirements for Canada stipulate a “quarantine plan”. Any idea what this means, exactly? Do we need to book a hotel at each of our stop-off points with the potential to extend the stay to 14 days if one of us catches coronavirus? Sounds complicated.

Derrick F

A Relative to most of the western world, Canada has some unusual Covid-19 rules for international visitors. There is a fairly standard requirement for a “professionally administered or observed negative antigen test taken outside of Canada”. This must be taken on the day of departure or the previous day. You must also download and fill in the ArriveCAN app – which includes a requirement for a “quarantine plan”.

The Canadian authorities insist: “You must submit a quarantine plan even if you are a fully vaccinated traveller. This is because your eligibility to be exempt from quarantine will be determined at the border.” In other words: until you turn up at Canada’s border control, you will not know whether or not you will be instructed to quarantine.

Because this is a (tiny) possibility, the government says arrivals must confirm they have “a suitable place to quarantine”. It must be somewhere in which you can stay for 14 days or possibly longer and “have access to the necessities of life, including water, food, medication and heat without leaving quarantine”.

I agree this is not exactly visitor friendly. But it should be sufficient to say that you would take up the Holiday Inn quarantine package that is available at the Toronto Airport East property – and, I imagine, at many other hotels nationwide. Having said all that: given that you are not travelling for three months, I think there is every chance the rules will be eased and you will not need to arrive armed with a plan.

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Q It is very confusing to work out the rules for getting into Singapore. Could you summarise the requirements in plain English, if you know?

Phil M

A Arrivals from the UK must be fully vaccinated against Covid-19 (two jabs, the last at least 14 days before entry). If you pass this hurdle, the next necessity is to get a vaccinated travel pass, which must be applied for between three and 60 days before arrival.

Next, you must find a suitable flight. The only acceptable departures are those organised on “vaccinated travel lane” (VTL) principles.

This is a scheme that distinguishes between people flying to Singapore to connect with onward flights and those who actually want to travel into the city-state. The idea is that some flights are designated specifically for vaccinated and tested travellers from countries designated low risk. Both Singapore Airlines and British Airways offer VTL flights from London Heathrow.

Be careful where you go in the seven days ahead of the flight to Singapore: stray outside the list of “active VTL countries/regions” (to Morocco, for example) in the week before travel and you won’t be allowed in.

Next task: short-term visitors must have Covid travel insurance with a minimum coverage of S$30,000 (about £17,000) for medical treatment and hospitalisation costs. Good-quality policies will offer this. “You must carry an electronic or physical copy of this insurance policy to facilitate entry into Singapore,” the authorities.

In the three days before arrival, you must also submit an SG arrival card, which comes with an electronic health declaration. In the two days before departure, you need to undergo a professionally administered test (lateral flow will do).

Once you touch down in Singapore, you must take a “supervised self-administered” rapid antigen test (lateral flow) at a quick test centre or combined test centre within 24 hours of arrival in Singapore.

“Travellers are required to self-isolate in their declared accommodation, except for attending the supervised test, until they are notified that they have tested negative,” the authorities say. After all that, you’ll need a holiday.

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Q My passport expires on 25 November 2023. When is best to renew it, please?

Ann P

A It all depends where you plan to travel. For many popular destinations, including the US, Barbados and Australia, your passport is valid for travel up to and including the date of expiry. (I don’t advise you to take it right to the limit, though: if you stayed in, say, Barbados until 25 November, the airline may raise a problem by pointing out that it will expire in mid-Atlantic during your overnight flight back to the UK.)

At the other extreme, some countries – including the UAE – say passports must be valid for at least six months from the date of entry or even exit.

The rules for the European Union and Schengen Area “hangers on” including Switzerland, Norway and Iceland are more complicated, and depend on the date of issue as well as expiry. On the day of entry to the EU, your passport must have been issued in the past 10 years; and on your proposed day of exit it should have at least three months to run. Many UK passports are issued for over 10 years – with up to nine months added, in some cases.

If yours was issued on 25 February 2013, which I calculate to be the earliest possible date, you can enter the EU any day up to 14 February 2023 and stay for up to 90 days. But if it was issued on 25 November 2013 (the latest possible date) you must end your visit by 25 August 2023.

Complicated, isn’t it? Which is presumably why some big travel firms make up their own rules. Britain’s biggest holiday company, Tui, wrongly asserts your passport must have “at least six months validity on the day of departure” to an EU country such as Spain, Portugal or Greece. Virgin Holidays fancifully claims: “Most countries now require passports to be valid for at least six months after your return date.” This is all the more ridiculous because the main destination for Virgin holidaymakers is the US, where your passport is good for travel up to its expiry date. But the rules of the destination country always trump those dreamed up by the travel firm.

Finally, if you are travelling to Ireland, no passport is legally required. Although some airlines still demand one as proof of identity, there is no minimum validity requirement.

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Q Any thoughts on when Spain might let the unjabbed in? We booked a package holiday to Tenerife back in January 2021, for departure at the end of June 2022. If we can’t go because we’re not vaccinated, is the holiday firm under any obligations – as the condition of entry didn’t exist when we booked?

Roger S

A Forgive me for beginning with the unhelpful words: “Ideally, I wouldn’t start from here.”

I vividly recall the dark days of January 2021, when one feature of the stringent Covid lockdown was a complete ban on international leisure travel for 19 weeks. As cabin fever intensified, I can fully understand people wanting something to look forward to – such as a holiday almost 18 months ahead on the largest and most beautiful of the Canary Islands.

Had you asked me at the time, I would have urged you not to commit, but to dream: with so much uncertainty surrounding the coronavirus pandemic, it was wise to plan a journey without actually committing to one. You can be absolutely sure that there will be plenty of availability to Tenerife in June, and even with the pressure of school holidays in Scotland, it will largely be a buyers’ market.

Having said that: we are where we are, and you have a contract with the package holiday company for a trip that, if present rules remain in place, you will be unable to take – unless your vaccination status changes.

Legally, it is a cloudy situation: travellers are generally obliged to be fully documented, but you can argue that the firm cannot reasonably apply its rules in these unprecedented circumstances. I don’t think, though, it will come to that: we are seeing countries engaged in “competitive reopening”, with the UK following Ireland, Norway and others in removing all travel restrictions. It is very likely that Spain will be among the tourism-dependent nations to follow suit. But if I am wrong, and three months from now you are still effectively barred, I daresay a conversation with the travel firm could see you rebooked to a different destination to mutual satisfaction.

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