Cross Border Travel

It’s now mid-November 2021, and Coronavius remains at the forefront of the travel industry, despite many openings and relaxing of restrictions.

At the end of this month, Canadians can now enter the US, and return, without the mandatory PCR test.  This only applies to short trips of seventy-two hours maximum.  There’s your weekend shopping trip to Detroit!  US residents must submit a negative PCR test to enter Canada.  One can easily see why, mostly due to the lack of immunization in border states.

Viet Nam, Cambodia, Thailand

My second attempt to get to southeast Asia has failed.

In May of 2020, I booked a trip to Thailand, Cambodia and Viet Nam through Indus Travel.  At the time I had no reason to think Coronavirus would still be an issue.  We come to August 2021, and the company wants me to make my final payment.  Given there were many restrictions in place to travel, I reasonably asked what was the possibility that this trip would actually proceed?

Two days later they phoned and confirmed that this trip would not go forward.

Here is the catch – this trip, flights included, was $910 – equal to the cost of the flight alone.  To rebook will cost three times as much.  I now have a usable credit, which expires in August of next year.  This raises another question.  I purchased this trip in good faith – Indus Travels cancelled the trip – so why does my credit expire?  I’m not at fault here.

The same can be said for airlines, and almost all aspects of the travel industry.  I can accept a credit – I should not have to accept an arbitrary time limit.

I currently have a credit with Swoop Air and American Air – it is unlikely I can use them.  Same scenerio – in both cases flights were cancelled by the airlines.  I have been flatly refused a refund from both.