Originally Posted by
FLLUAFlyer
Any experience or advice on whether the RT-PCR test needs to be performed 3-days or 72 hours exactly? CDC guidelines for return state 3-days and their website even goes as far as to say this gives you a "buffer" to be able to test 3-days prior to return to USA without worrying about the time of day. The Tahiti Tourisme website is a little ambiguous.
The wording says "A negative laboratory RT-PCR test performed less than 72h before departure", but the info graph on the page shows between "D-3 and D-1".
My dilemma is I am leaving U.S. East Coast to SFO on a Friday, overnighting at SFO, and taking UA115 on Saturday to PPT. So I want to be able to test and get results prior to flying to SFO. This means D-3 would be the prior Wednesday. But can I do it (for example) Wednesday at 2:00p EDT, which would be 11:00a PDT, and therefore exactly 74 hours and 20 minutes before UA115's departure time of 1:20p PDT?
As you pointed out Tahiti Tourism states less than 72 hours. As I mentioned upthread Timitac states less than 72 hours. ETIS FAQ states “
Time to perform the test: Three full days before the flight (for example, if your flight is on Tuesday evening, the test cannot be performed prior to the previous Saturday).”
Personally I would not want to risk the interpretation left to a non-SFO United check-in counter agent that would be less familiar with the requirements than someone at SFO so to be safe I would get the test collection done with the 72 hours threshold.