Category Archives for Destinations.
The EU is expected to recommend against allowing American visitors, however each country still sets its own entry rules. As a result nothing may change, there could be come changes in rules leading to greater inconsistency, or several countries could ban American travelers.
Covid-19 self-tests, to be allowed for travel back to the U.S., must be overseen by a foreign call center employee. But wait times for call center employees may stretch into the hours. Be prepared, and consider a work-around.
The U.S. is planning to require vaccination as a condition of entry for nearly all visitors to the country. This would replace country-by-country bans on travelers, and would not apply to returning U.S. citizens and permanent residents.
The U.S. has kept its land borders with Canada and Mexico closed to non-essential traffic, even as Americans flock to vacation in Mexico in record numbers (American Airlines says they’re looking for any airport they don’t currently fly to with a paved runway) and even as Canada announced its re-opening to Americans and others.
The U.S. has also continued to ban travelers who’ve been in China, Iran, the European Schengen area, U.K. and Ireland, Brazil, South Africa or India in the prior 14 days.
While there has been significant discussion of when the U.S. would lift its restrictions, but it appears that may now be off the table.
The U.S. Border Patrol claims the right to search traveler laptops, thumb drives, cell phones, and other devices capable of storing electronic information. They can keep all your data. And they can do it anywhere within 100 miles of the border… except , now, in these 9 states.
When you need your passport renewed, and you have travel within 72 hours, it’s possible to get emergency expedited service. However the State Department has taken the ability to schedule this offline.
The State Department did this because people are using bots to schedule these appointments and then sell them. But this is a cop out.
U.S. Covid-19 travel bans make no sense. They are about politics, not science. Lifting travel restrictions looks weak, and the administration needs to appear to be ‘doing something’.
With Australia reducing the number of international passengers allowed to enter the country each day in half, American is running many of its Los Angeles – Sydney flights as cargo-only until August 31, while the return Sydney – Los Angeles flight carriers both cargo and passengers. On days where American has an allocation of allowed passenger arrivals, they’re carrying passengers to Australia.
After this period American Airlines will exit the Australian passenger market for two months, although of course this suspension of service could be extended based on facts on the ground in Australia.
Only 215 people per day are allowed to enter Sydney, Australia from overseas between July 14 and August 31.
As a result American Airlines will stop operating a passenger flight Los Angeles to Sydney starting July 12th (arriving the morning of July 14). They will, however, continue flying Sydney – Los Angeles.
A US passport is now as powerful as one from Rwanda thanks to Covid restrictions.
In normal times a U.S. passport offers “access [to] 187 destinations around the world.” That’s been cut to “fewer than 60 destinations – a passport power equivalent to that of Uzbekistan. US passport holders have a passport power equivalent to Rwanda.”
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
