Having a holiday has turned into a very stressful affair for long-suffering Brits longing for a bit of late summer sun.
Whether it’s organising PCR tests, having flights cancelled, or, for some passengers the country they’re travelling to being changed from amber to red just after they’ve arrived, it’s not been easy.
Obsessing over traffic lights and local travel rules that might not let your teenage children in also provides additional stress.
The rules have been relaxed over the past few months, with the government’s scrapping of the quarantine requirement for anyone who is double vaccinated and coming back from an amber list country, seen as a big turning point.
Another issue is that some holiday hotspots have been deemed unsafe by the government and put on the red list.
Anyone going to and returning from those countries faces a pricey 10-day stay in a quarantine hotel.
As well as the cost, user reviews of the hotels haven’t been great in a lot of cases.
There are still 60 countries on the red list, and while people probably aren’t desperate to head out to the likes of the Democratic Republic of Congo or Mongolia, the likes of Sri Lanka, Mexico and Turkey have also been largely ruled out.
Countries like Bangladesh and Pakistan, where many Brits have families, are also on the list.
On August 12, the government hiked the price of hotel quarantine per adult from £1,750 to £2,285.
A further £1,430 will now be paid for an additional adult or child over 11, up from £650, meanwhile, the additional rate for children aged five to 11 is £325, which is unchanged.
There was better news when Germany, Austria, Norway, Latvia, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia were added to the green list in the last update.
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