How can I ‘Covid-launder’ on my return from Poland?

Q I am about to go to Poland. I am happy to quarantine for the 14 days on return but I would prefer to visit another country which doesn’t require quarantine for most of the period. Where is there information on any countries that can be used for such “Covid laundering”?

Michael C

A This autumn Poland is an excellent choice for UK holidaymakers – if they can deal with quarantine. The country is open, welcoming, fascinating and excellent value. I was delighted to be in the fine city of Krakow and the slightly less enticing city of Katowice earlier this week, but returned before Poland joined the UK government’s “no-go” list.

Starting from this morning, anyone arriving from Poland must go straight home and self-isolate for two weeks. But there are ways to limit the damage.

Some people will regard a question about “Covid laundering” as scandalous. In fact, it is responsible and wise from both your perspective and that of UK citizens.

You and tens of thousands of other people are in the bizarre position that the government is telling you to self-isolate because of time spent in a country with far lower rates of infection than the UK. Accordingly, moving from Poland to an even less risky location is a smart move.

The obvious choice would be Germany, which shares a long frontier with Poland and has still fewer infections. But whether you can freely go there will depend on where you have been in the UK before travelling to Poland. The German government requires quarantine for people from Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales and northern England – or anyone who has been to those countries/regions in the past two weeks.

If you do not qualify, then Italy is currently the best option – but you will need to fly from Poland to avoid triggering quarantine by passing though the “danger zone” that includes almost every country in central Europe.

Italy, I should warn you, has a infection rate one-third that of the UK – but that could be enough to earn it a place on the Foreign Office no-go list.

Q In February I went into my local branch of STA Travel and booked and paid for a flight to Sydney in July (I know, by the way, that it’s not a great time to be there but it was a family event). I paid with a Visa debit card.

The flight was duly cancelled and so I asked STA for my money back. I was told that because they were an agent I wasn’t entitled to a cash refund but that I could get a voucher valid on the same airline until 2022. Because the event was going to be postponed to next year, I agreed to this. But the voucher never arrived and then STA went bust.

I called the airline who said that STA had requested a cash refund for my ticket and that it had been paid in full, therefore there was nothing the airline could do. I am now £850 out of pocket and very upset about this. I have insurance but I haven’t approached them yet. Can you help?

Name supplied

A What an awful and stressful position to be in. On the face of it, you are now an unsecured creditor for a company that has collapsed, and your likely entitlement is no more than a few pounds. But I can offer some encouragement.

The first is to see if a “chargeback” – asking the debit card issuer for a refund for services not supplied – will work. The standard deadline is 120 days (four months), which evidently has elapsed since you paid. Fortunately there is some flexibility if the service was not due to be delivered for some months. So raise a chargeback; I hope that gets results. But the scheme is voluntary, and I surmise that the card issuer could refuse either because you agreed to a voucher (thus extinguishing liability) or because you failed to apply as soon as you became aware of the problem, which I guess could be dated to 21 August, when STA closed.

If this happens, try your travel insurer. If that is also rejected, your last-chance saloon could be the Financial Ombudsman Service, which rules on travel insurance cases. But I hope you get your money back before that stage.

Q Am I allowed to travel to Dublin from the UK for a short break in October? There’s conflicting information on the internet. I would be flying from Leeds Bradford for three or four nights.

Dave G

A Six months ago, as the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic was rolling across the world, I held a series of conversations with Tourism Ireland about when UK visitors might freely be able to holiday in the republic. The chief executive, Niall Gibbons, said it would take until the autumn “before we see the recovery story happening for tourism in Ireland”.

At the time I wondered if he was being unduly pessimistic, but it now seems clear that he was not. Ireland’s rate of new cases per 100,000 in 14 days is around 80 – better than the UK (about 100) but far higher than the government in Dublin would like. Accordingly, there is an unusual form of quarantine that applies to almost all countries, which is a “request to restrict your movement” for two weeks. This means you should not visit others, and should use public transport or go shopping only if there is no alternative. Behaving like a tourist – eg going to the pub or visiting tourist attractions – is certainly not on the agenda, except for those flying in from Cyprus, Finland or Latvia. These are the countries on the “green list” from which no quarantine is required (so too is plucky Liechtenstein, though it is landlocked between Austria and Germany, so that designation doesn’t help.)

Therefore travelling to Dublin for a fun weekend in the capital of the kind that so many of us have enjoyed over the years is currently out of the question. Some people are taking advantage of what they see as a loophole: arrivals from Northern Ireland face no quarantine, and so flying from Great Britain to Belfast and continuing overland to Dublin does not trigger restrictions. But this is clearly not within the spirit of the rules, so I suggest if you want a break on the island of Ireland you simply choose Belfast – a fine and fascinating city in its own right.

Q I have a booking to Malta in two weeks’ time with an online travel agent. They have told me that I have until 4pm tomorrow to cancel or proceed with the booking. Unless I respond by then, they say, I will lose my right to cancel. Can they make this demand?

Name supplied

A This looks to me like an ultimatum designed purely to suit the agenda of the online travel agent, in its interests, not yours. If you voluntarily cancel, the firm will be able to impose its own, probably punitive, conditions. Much better to wait and see what happens. Don’t ignore the message – but make a counter-demand instead.

At present the Foreign Office warns against all non-essential travel to Malta, saying it is “unacceptably high risk” because of high levels of Covid-19. You might regard this as a nonsense, because new coronavirus infection levels are currently 30 per cent lower than in the UK. But it is still the government’s advice, and it is likely to have the effect of invalidating holiday insurance. In addition, you will need to self-isolate for two weeks on return.

When the Foreign Office warns against travel to a destination, standard practice in the travel industry is for package holidays to be cancelled and refunds issued. But it is different during the coronavirus crisis.

Some online travel agencies say that the Foreign Office advice is worthless: to say Malta is as dangerous as parts of Afghanistan and Somalia is preposterous. These firms package up flights with accommodation, and the flights are still going even to destinations that the government has placed off limits. Airlines such as Ryanair and Wizz Air are refusing to refund tickets if the flight still operates, which has severe financial implications for online travel agents: if they deem the trip to be cancelled, they must hand back all your cash.

So they are going ahead with holidays. The package travel regulations, which govern package holidays, are opaque about whether a Foreign Office warning automatically entitles customers to cancel and take a full refund.

The law says a traveller can get their money back “in the event of unavoidable and extraordinary circumstances occurring at the place of destination or its immediate vicinity and which significantly affect the performance of the package”. Ultimately this will need to be settled one way or the other in the courts.

Instead, I suggest you email (and try to call) the company to warn that you are not cancelling but expect a full refund if the Foreign Office advice is still in place. And, if that is rejected, write again saying you regard the claim as “stayed” until a judgement has been made.

On the day, check that the flight actually operates. If it does not, then you should be entitled to an automatic full refund in two weeks. But there is, though, a small degree of hope that the trip can go ahead.

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