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Covid Passports not ready by 17 May
In unsurprising news, the government has announced that they will not make their target for the NHS app to be used as a Covid passport. It was supposed to be ready for travel by 17 May when leisure travel should become legal again. Officials are working on alternative plans for when international travel resumes on 17 May.
A spokesperson for the PM told The i newspaper
“Obviously we will be able to confirm ahead of the 17th at the earliest what measures are used for those initial countries that are available for travel, be it the app or another approach. There are other routes to achieving the same end goal. We are working on the app at the moment, at pace, to have it ready and we will be able to confirm ahead of the 17th at the earliest what approaches we will be using.”
In the meantime, I plan to pay my GP to write a letter including the dates, batch types and other personal information such as DOB and address etc. Hopefully, this should do the trick. I could wait but I have little faith that they won’t announce something on 16 May when it’s all a bit too late for comfort for most people.
Easyjet’s new COVID insurance and cheap tests for travel for all
There are several hurdles for most travellers of which the biggest ones tend to be testing and insurance. easyJet has today announced a new travel insurance policy which includes COVID-19 cover as standard. The new partnership with insurance provider, Collinson Insurance, now also offers customers a host of dynamic insurance options, including dedicated COVID-19 travel cover.
The new travel insurance will cover customers who are diagnosed with COVID-19 ahead of a trip, providing the necessary rearrangements or refunds, as well as cover to customers for any required medical care if diagnosed with COVID-19 during their trip. Customers who are unable to return home due to being diagnosed with the virus are also covered for additional accommodation, necessary medical assistance, and the cost of returning home safely.
Customers wishing to purchase the new travel insurance can do so during the booking process on easyJet.com.
All travel policies come with core features that include cover for medical expenses, trip cancellation or delays, and lost or stolen baggage or money. Customers can also tailor their policy optional extras and add-ons, including gadget insurance and sports activity cover. In the event of a medical emergency, the Collinson 24-hour assistance team are available to support customers and there is a new online claims process.
If you aren’t traveling with Easyjet, Staysure is one of the only mainstream policies offering Covid cover and an extension to cover travel against FCDO advice for Europe and a few other destinations. They also offer annual policies.
Cheap Covid tests
In addition to COVID-19 travel insurance cover, easyJet has also partnered with Randox to supply customers convenient, reliable and affordable pre-departure PCR testing at preferential rates. The discounted tests are available at https://www.randoxhealth.com/covid-19-home-testing-kit/ by entering discount code easyJet2021 at the checkout.
With Randox, you don’t need to be flying Easyjet to get the cheap test. Just enter the discount code which takes it down from £120 to £60 which is reasonable for a home test. Just make sure you look at whether your destination will accept home kits as some such as Barbados will not.
3 comments
I see they are finally coming round to the realisation that wherever you come back from, you are quite likely to mix with high risk passengers.
Even if flying from a green list country, and assuming no-one else on the flight has themselves travelled from a red list country previously, you get safely back to UK then mix with red list passengers in the terminal shuttle, wait for hours alongside them in immigration, then the bunfight at baggage reclaim and on the bus to the car park.
The whole thing has been very hypocritical with saying they are protecting the country and then cramming them all together with the other arrivals for up to 6 hours due to their own policies! Hopefully it will now get sorted.
I’m not sure how it can work successfully unless you can segregate green and red arrivals, which most airports are not set up to do. And don’t even begin to imagine where your green list aircraft has just been to on the previous trip!
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