starfishflyer

Hello All,

I can't believe I made this mistake but I was wondering what folks here think should be the path forward. Basically, we wanted to go visit Cairo, Egypt and Istanbul, Turkey for a week and booked following two flights:

- Boston, USA to Cairo, Egypt (through Lufthansa BOS-FRA-CAI) on May 28, 2021
- CAI to ASR (turkish airline with connection in istanbul) on Jun 02, 2021
- ASR to Boston, USA (turkish airlines with connection in Istanbul) on June 06, 2021

I am on a TN visa (temporary resident) in USA and just realized that there is a Europe ban which disallows temporary residents to come back to USA if they have been in Schengen region in last 14 days (hence my transit stopover in Frankfurt on May 28 will cause an issue on my flight coming back).

At this point, if I try to select refund on Lufthansa, its giving me a whopping $40 refund as I booked a very restricted option (yes, I feel very dumb right now). I was hoping that the 14 day restriction is removed by June but it doesn't seem likely. There are no other flights to Cairo on Lufthansa that don't have a connection in schengen region so there is no point asking to change the flight.

I am thinking of calling and asking if I can get a travel credit but not even sure if I will get that as I booked an Economy (T) fare? Anyone encountered this or has any suggestions for me before I make the call? Thank you!!

Edit: If I could extend the trip to 14 days, that would have been the best case scenario but unfortunately, I don't have enough days off to allow this. Hence, going to Canada or Mexico for 7 extra days isn't a possibility at this time. Pushing the trip to few more months was something I have considered, I will call Lufthansa tomorrow and find out my options and make a decision then. Thanks for all the replies.