It’s a little cynical, but with a title like that, you’ll have a pretty good idea of the tone of this episode. And before I tell you the story behind this, I’d like to confess something terrible: I didn’t take my own advice or heed my own warnings.
There’s an excellent reason why they call me ‘Motorhome Matt’ and not ‘Holidaying Abroad Matt’. I deal in motorhomes. I provide motorhomes for thousands of people to holiday in, to take to festivals and to grab a quick break from normal day to day life.
Motorhoming. That’s my business. So why, oh why, didn’t I stick to what I’m good at?
If you’re seriously considering travelling abroad before the world returns to normal, you really (really) need to understand the process, nay, saga I and countless others have suffered, in order to enjoy a relaxing break away from the UK.
It started like this:
Once upon a time, a kindly CEO of a motorhome hire company (we’ll call him Motorhome Matt of the Motorhome Holiday Company) decided to reward his fleet hire manager (we’ll call him Jordan) for his extraordinary efforts throughout a challenging couple of lockdown years.
2020 and 2021 have been a tough time for all of us for a number of reasons, most of them caused by COVID. Early in 2020, I feared the business would go under. By July I knew we’d survive, but my team and I were shattered due to the workload caused by many, many new customers heeding my advice and binning foreign holidays in favour of a UK holiday in one of our motorhomes.
With Jordan’s birthday looming, and with him being incredibly understanding to my occasional rants and ever-greater demands, I really wanted to thank him. I knew he desperately needed a holiday and I wanted to take him somewhere special. Spain was out – been there, done that, got the wet t-shirt. New York would have been a hit, but the US borders were still closed when I looked. Plus New York in December would be very cold. I thought sunshine and warmth would be more Jordan’s cup of tea.
I turned for help and advice to the brilliant travel specialist Mark Oakes at Not Just Travel, and he came up with the inspired suggestion of Dubai. Dubai is an old, dear friend of mine from my many years in the events industry. I know it well, love it and I knew it would get Jordan’s juices flowing. Since I was last there, a new five-star Hilton had sprung up on a man-made island just outside of Dubai in Sharjah. Perfect. I checked with Jordan’s father – who tried inviting himself along – that Jordan would be up for it, and booked two rooms.
And it was all downhill from there.
I knew we’d need COVID tests before we could fly. What I didn’t know was that the government (bless ‘em and their numerous illegal Christmas parties whilst the rest of us were behaving) would keep moving the goalposts and that the NHS test would not be accepted by the airlines. Yes, it’s true. Somebody saw the opportunity to earn a quick buck and insisted that only commercial tests would be acceptable. And so, after much research, I found oodles of test options ranging from £40 to £300 and no indication whether any or all of them were better than the others. A scam or just a huge practical joke at my expense? I closed my eyes, threw a dart and chose a test.
Boris (sorry, our beloved Prime Minister), decreed a new system involving three separate COVID tests. Test One would be taken in the 48 hours before the outward flight. Test Two would be taken in the 48 hours leading up to the homeward flight. Test Three would need to be taken within 48 hours of our return to the UK. And, naturally, every test would need to be paid for. Oh, and all the tests now had to be a PCR test.
The obvious thought was to book all three tests from one company (so six tests in all at around £70 a pop!), but after many hours of research, including the government’s own website, it transpired that Test Two would need to be booked separately in Dubai. Thoughts of saving time and stress and taking it with us from the UK were thwarted. We’d have to wait until we reached Dubai to book our Test Two there.
But at least we could book Tests One and Three through the same company. Right? Um, wrong. Trust me, I went back to www.gov.uk, which even had conflicting information depending on which page I landed on. On this occasion, Google was not my friend. I couldn’t find the information I needed, nor one company to take my money in return for Tests One and Three (for both of us). What I did find was a plethora of stories about UK travellers trapped in resorts and unable to fly because they could not obtain the required Test Two.
Admittedly, some of those travellers had decided not to have their jabs (no, I don’t get the conspiracy theorists either), but both of us have been double jabbed and I’m booked in for my booster. But did that make a difference? Nope. Not at all. It just meant we weren’t subjected to additional layers of testing and questioning.
It struck me that this was a cocktail of arse and elbow syndrome. I suspected there was probably some bloke sitting on his bed in his underpants, selling PCR tests for exorbitant sums and laughing at me for falling victim to his scam, and I was on the verge of throwing in the towel and buying Jordan a case of beer instead.
Resisting the urge to quit, I emailed Mark at Not Just Travel again for his advice. Mark was on a cruise ship stuck at sea unable to get hold of a pre arrival test for himself and his wife. He was sympathetic. He’d heard this saga from countless customers already – he proved to be the calming voice of reason, telling me to approach this one step at a time – and to forget the expense if I was determined to enjoy the holiday. And so…
One step at a time
Step One:
Book Test One. By now, we were just a few days away from travelling and rumours were rife of results not being received in time. I found a company based at Bristol Airport close to us and booked a Test One for each of us there. They offered results with 4 hours for a whopping £140 per test. We agreed that was too expensive, and so I took the 48 hour test result option – at £70 each. So £140 spent on Test One, with Tests Two and Three to come. And that’s on top of two return flights, two hotel rooms… Somebody’s making fortunes hand over fist here. But at least we could fly, right? Wrong!
Step Two:
Register and log our vaccinations status. To do this, we needed to download, update, and log in to the NHS app, which was simple enough. We then had to log our Test One PCR test results. This led us to a new verification app that had to be downloaded, called YOTI. And that required all manner of information that took about an hour to find and upload. So, that was two apps plus the Nuffield Health website. Oh, I forgot to tell you about that. Believe me, you don’t want to know. Confused yet? You will be.
Step Three:
Find and book Test Three for our return. Hours later (though by now it seemed like weeks) I found an option to have two tests posted at £40 each, but the company required a reference number which, naturally, I didn’t have. Or at least this is what I thought. Once I’d acquired it from our travel consultant, Mark, I was then directed to another website, which provided proof that I had requested the test so Royal Mail could post it. They did (hurrah) a day late (boo), which meant we didn’t have them when we left for Heathrow (uh-oh) and so didn’t have the test codes and the reference numbers that we were required to provide before we could board the plane home (oh, &%$£@). Fortunately, just in the nick of time, they arrived at home and my partner was able to WhatsApp through with the necessary details. Phew! We could sort that part whilst we are in Dubai.
Step Four:
Book Test Two for 48 hours prior to departure from Dubai. To find out how and where I could obtain the correct COVID test in the UAE I returned to my friend, Google. Google took me back to the BA website, which made sense as that was the airline we were flying with. But the BA website was slammed by people in the same boat as me and, consequently, it crashed. Gone. Nothing. For six hours! Twitter and Facebook exploded with travellers reporting that British Airways had left the building, and wondering what the heck they were supposed to do next.
Later that day, BA returned. The website informed me that I needed to download two more apps from the UAE, one to record proof of COVID status, the other a tracking app, much the same as the NHS app in the UK. Aha perhaps this is where we book the pre return test 2. But, even with the apps downloaded, could I book our Test Two? Could I, heck.
In the end, I rang the Hilton in Dubai for advice. They informed me they had a plan. They offer guests a voucher for a local hospital where the test can be taken, and the result provided within 24 hours. They also directed me to a required health declaration form that could be downloaded, and which included our flight and seat numbers for further infection tracking – information that nobody over here had informed me we’d need.
Well, things were looking up. Our Test One results arrived within just 5 hours. I’m glad we didn’t spend £280 on the 4 hour test results!
By 9 p.m. on Tuesday night, bruised and battered from the experience thus far and ready to check in, it was time for Step Five: Upload Test One results to the BA website in order to be permitted to fly. No problem. Except…
Nope, the website wouldn’t accept it. Instead, BA directed me to yet another app (VeriFly) to which I had to enter our personal details, trip itineraries and test results. Arrggghh. And then?
Test results not recognised. I’m not kidding. You really couldn’t make this up! Apparently, that’s as far as the technology could go. Now we needed an actual human to review the application and notify us if we could fly. That has to be the longest two hours in my life, but after 120 minutes (give or take) I heard a ping, I received our results, we had our boarding passes, and we were ready for…
Step Five:
Fly to Dubai, stay at hotel, forget Boris, have fun.
Oh, at this juncture I might need to insert a Step Five-point-one. Having arrived at Heathrow in plenty of time, quaffed a single-shot espresso and headed with Jordan to check-in in plenty of time, armed with printed copies of our PCR test results and a file of paperwork, the lady at the BA desk (friendly, professional, courteous to a fault) declined to check it. Any of it!
Yup, you heard that right. Oh, she checked the boarding pass and our passports, but beyond that she wasn’t interested. However, she did mention that the flight might not be very full because in recent weeks hundreds (yes, hundreds) of passengers have not turned up for their flights because they have not managed to wade through the quagmire we just did, have not received all the stipulated results and paperwork, and have given up on their holidays abroad before they even reached the airport.
And so, here I am, writing this on the runway, with a double-shot Americano to calm my nerves, lifting my mask to sip between paragraphs and reflecting on whether this was worth it, all the while wondering if – now that we’re close to the point of being airborne – we’ll catch something in this metal tube with the same air being recycled and circulated, inhaled and exhaled by a couple of hundred other people before it returns to my lungs.
So, was it worth it?
I’ll know for sure after our holiday, that depends largely on the size of Jordan’s smile. As for whether I would go through this rigmarole again or suggest anyone else attempts to holiday abroad for the foreseeable, Hell no!
As the BA staff member said, hundreds of travellers have given up. Presumably, if the story is true of other airlines, that figure runs into the thousands. I regard myself as being pretty tech-savvy – but what of others less confident with technology? What of older generations who don’t own computers or smartphones and fear the internet? What of those with learning difficulties? Or dexterity issues?
I’ll tell you what: They’ll have given up, lost their money, lost their confidence, felt worthless, have been completely overlooked and ignored, and feel as though they have no-one to turn to for help and compensation. Does this constitute prejudicial abuse at the hands of the government and corporations, or is it just the result of some bloke sitting on his bed in his underpants, selling PCR tests for exorbitant sums and laughing at us all for falling victim to his scam?
I don’t have an answer, but the cynic in me might suggest the entire process is deliberate and in place to deter travellers, so, mission accomplished? Let’s face it, our economy is in real trouble and we’re better off keeping the money in the UK rather than spending it abroad. Right?
However, the greater part of me, the reasonable, balanced part of me knows that the travel industry – both domestic and foreign – needs us to travel, to fly, to holiday abroad and to spend freely across the globe, because if we don’t go to their countries, why will they come here? We’re all in this together. We’ve suffered together, we’ll survive together, and we’ll triumph over this adversity together.
No, I don’t think this is a conspiracy; I firmly believe it’s nothing more than gross incompetence.
But whatever it is, the result is the same, at least in my opinion. If you’re planning on holidaying abroad, don’t! For the love of all that you hold dear, don’t even think about it.
What could you do instead? Well, I happen to know a man by the name of Motorhome Matt…
