Going in spite of our friends' cancellations

franlovestravel

Me too. Frankfurt airport is my personal nightmare.

PureLuxury

cathyandsteve ....may I ask you please where did you get your PCR test and how long before your trip did you get it? and when did you get the results back? We need one for Antarctica in December

Cathy, I just scheduled my test for December through Passport Health. There may be a location near you. My tour departs on a Friday. The nurse I spoke to scheduled the test for Tuesday. She was very thorough and explained the timing to me: T-W = 24 hrs; W-Th = 48 hrs and Th-F = 72 hours. She said they get (I'm paying for) expedited results. The max turn-around time is 48 hours. They will email me a report with the QR code. I will remember to print extra copies.

AlanS

Two quick questions for those who scheduled a PCR test and taken their trips-

1. When you checked in for your flight or arrived at your destination airport, did the airlines or immigration look at the dates (and times) of your PCR test?
2. If so, did they (a) just look at the date only, or did they (b) look at the date AND time of your test, do the mental math to figure out how long ago (days and hours) you had your test, and did they take into account the 6 to 9 hours time difference between your US point of departure and arrival at your destination? Or was all this done automatically when they scanned the QR code?

Smiling Sam

AlanS - For my Iceland tour I believe they just looked at the dates. I didn’t ask, but I didn’t see them doing any mental calculations that would likely be required to factor in the time. That said, I was cautious for all of these types of things and I had factored in the time when scheduling my test, and I factored in time zones. If significant flights delays occur on the way all of that planning can go South. You can only plan and account for so much.

Ken from Vegas

Alan-
It will obviously depend on the country you are traveling to and the airline. For our trip to Canada, the Canadian standard was within 72 hrs of the scheduled departure of your flight into Canada. Note that if you took a fight within the US to get to your Canadian flight, that wasn't the time they would look at - it was the flight that crossed the border. If your flight was delayed, you would be OK. However, if your flight got canceled and you were bumped to a later fight, it would conceivably create a problem. We chose to pay for a rapid result PCR Naat test within 48 hrs. of our flight to be safe. Our tests were checked by the airline (pretty carefully) and by Canadian immigration. If we had managed to get to Canada, but had a problem with documentation, it would have been a mandatory 14 day quarantine.

Coming back to the US, we did a rapid antigen test. Air Canada handed us a form when we checked into our flight to Montreal to attest that we had a negative test. Nobody (either the airline or US immigration) asked us for the form or the test result. Somebody screwed up.

The bottom line is to check the wording of the requirements for the country you are visiting and comply to the letter of the requirements. Consider paying for a rapid PCR test closer to your departure to allow for flight cancellations.