Coronavirus (2021) thread

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Chippy_boy said:
That may be your take, its not mine.

Personally I think anyone booking for mid to late summer is running a very high risk of their holiday being cancelled on them and then not getting their money back for months. And god help you if the worst case scenario happens: the holiday company DOESN'T cancel on you and you decide its not safe to go, or that maybe you'd need to quarantine and you cannot for whatever reason. Then maybe you've just lost your money.

Everyone to their own, but IMO booking a foreign holiday now is just daft.
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Booking the holiday of a lifetime or bucket list trip for this summer? Yep, daft.

Eyeing up a cheap (relative to individuals circumstances) week or 2 in the sun after the 12 months we've endured? Not daft.

Whilst nothing is risk free, booking it responsibly with a reputable package tour operator/agency is about as ring-fenced as it gets; they have a lot more responsibility to provide you with a good experience so they ain't gonna take you away to anywhere ''unsafe'', as they are bound by FCDO advice.
Likewise they won't take you to anywhere whereby you had to quarantine on arrival, and generally speaking they offer a free amendment if your destination required home isolation on return (should the FCDO not be advising against travel)

On that note, avoid like the plague the likes of Loveholidays and Onthebeach, or indeed anyone not a member of ABTA.

We're clearly not gonna 100% agree so it seems churlish to continue. I absolutely understand why people would have zero interest in booking a holiday right now. I also understand completely why some people are choosing to take a punt and hoping for the best. Sometimes the deals are too tempting when market demand is low. Fortune favours the brave occasionally.

Like everything in life though, horses for courses.

PS I'm not telling you how many trips I have booked this year cos daft wouldn't even come close ;)
 
hammocity said:
Mate of mine has a small holiday home near Villamartin in Spain, been a couple of times, amongst others there's a large contingent of South Easterners from the UK who sold their houses for big money and retired to Spain circa early 2000's until the financial crash a few years later. Their biggest problem is Spanish property prices plummeted whilst the UK market is booming, there's no way they can come home, not to the SE anyway.
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Once you move out of the South East, to elsewhere in the country or overseas, it is difficult to move back due to house prices. At a more local level, once you move out of London it is near impossible to move back in.
 
feedthegoat27 said:
Booking the holiday of a lifetime or bucket list trip for this summer? Yep, daft.

Eyeing up a cheap (relative to individuals circumstances) week or 2 in the sun after the 12 months we've endured? Not daft.

Whilst nothing is risk free, booking it responsibly with a reputable package tour operator/agency is about as ring-fenced as it gets; they have a lot more responsibility to provide you with a good experience so they ain't gonna take you away to anywhere ''unsafe'', as they are bound by FCDO advice.
Likewise they won't take you to anywhere whereby you had to quarantine on arrival, and generally speaking they offer a free amendment if your destination required home isolation on return (should the FCDO not be advising against travel)

On that note, avoid like the plague the likes of Loveholidays and Onthebeach, or indeed anyone not a member of ABTA.

We're clearly not gonna 100% agree so it seems churlish to continue. I absolutely understand why people would have zero interest in booking a holiday right now. I also understand completely why some people are choosing to take a punt and hoping for the best. Sometimes the deals are too tempting when market demand is low. Fortune favours the brave occasionally.

Like everything in life though, horses for courses.

PS I'm not telling you how many trips I have booked this year cos daft wouldn't even come close ;)
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even booking a holiday and aranging it yourself is pretty safe,3 weeks ago i booked tenerife going with Ryanair November 6th,they alow you to move your flights back if things are bad for free, most of the hotels on booking .com are now pay at the hotel or free cancelation the day before you go, hardly any risk there
 
marco said:
even booking a holiday and aranging it yourself is pretty safe,3 weeks ago i booked tenerife going with Ryanair November 6th,they alow you to move your flights back if things are bad for free, most of the hotels on booking .com are now pay at the hotel or free cancelation the day before you go, hardly any risk there
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Yeah this is also true.

I actually went against my own advice on Friday and booked some Ryanair (groan) fights to Rhodes and a TUI hotel only.....total cost £110pp for me and my mate (£87pp for flights and £23pp for hotel), to go in June.
Might happen, might not happen....it's a low enough amount to risk taking the punt and our maximum liability isn't much should the worst happen.

Ryanair are offering a free change and with that being the bulk of the cost then it's all good. Had Ryanair not been offering that free change then I wouldn't have bothered.
The hotel is so cheap that it's almost negligible, though TUI do refund hotel only bookings in line with their package holiday refund criteria.

There are some airlines to really avoid.....Wizz Air being the main culprits; they make Ryanair look reasonable.
Jet2 packages are good but their flight only product doesn't offer much flexibility without paying.

Easyjet are the big players now for both flight only and their packages. Flight only you can chop and change all you want outside of 2 weeks before travel and no fee (just fare increase if applicable).
Their package holidays are very well priced, sometimes 100% cheaper than Jet2/TUI, and very flexible on the deposit should you choose not to travel (basically you can retain as a credit). They only want the balance 4 weeks before departure too, when others are 10 weeks.

Back in May I booked a one way Cork - Birmingham for end of March 2021. Back then obviously had no idea we'd still be well in the shit.
Booked it with lastminute.com as it was about 7 quid cheaper than Aer Lingus direct, and the flight was only cheap anyway (£35.99).
Fast forward to now, flight been cancelled and lastminute.com are offering a credit to the value of £35.99 or a full cash refund minus a £30 handling charge lol (all buried in their Ts and Cs, they had my pants down but all above board)

I guess that serves me right for being a tight **** and not booking direct with the airline just to save a few quid.
Had to accept the credit with my tail firmly between my legs.

Moral of the story....if you're booking short haul flights then just go direct to the airline and not a consolidator.

And don't book DIY unless you can mitigate your liability/liability is so low its worth the 'risk'.
 
hammocity said:
Mate of mine has a small holiday home near Villamartin in Spain, been a couple of times, amongst others there's a large contingent of South Easterners from the UK who sold their houses for big money and retired to Spain circa early 2000's until the financial crash a few years later. Their biggest problem is Spanish property prices plummeted whilst the UK market is booming, there's no way they can come home, not to the SE anyway.
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Their biggest problem in future will be that they are only allowed to reside 90 days in a 12 month period. any longer and they will have to pay income tax (post Brexit)
 
Blue Llama said:
Their biggest problem in future will be that they are only allowed to reside 90 days in a 12 month period. any longer and they will have to pay income tax (post Brexit)
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I heard that just last week, I googled it, it's very complex but I'll take your interpretation just to piss him off, he's a rag!
 
Blue Llama said:
Their biggest problem in future will be that they are only allowed to reside 90 days in a 12 month period. any longer and they will have to pay income tax (post Brexit)
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So Spain is different from every other EU country where you can stay for 90 days in any 180 day period, so two lots of 90 days in a year, with 90 days between them?
 
True_Blue69 said:
And the reason for pubs, football matches and festivals in the uk is?
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That’s up to pub owners, football clubs and bodies and festival promoters,or any business owners isn’t it? So if they require them, as well as any airlines or foreign countries for travel the question is who issues them.
Whether anyone agrees with them or not is neither here nor there.
So if we need them they need to be government or NHS backed.
 
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