gkl

relax. I'm in a similar situation and have a flight to PVG on 3.April. I already now know that I will not take it, however I understand that AFKL cannot cancel already now all flights until summer when they don't know when exactly the situation will improve. I have a feeling that the hysteria can easily be with us a couple of more months. As long as several governments have travel restrictions against China, AFKL will continue to offer waivers. I'm quite sure that I'll be able to rebook my flight (for free) to HKG (I would go there but not to PVG) or ask for a full refund.
Actually I'm on a KL codeshare operated by MU. I deem it more likely that MU continues flies, however I would then argue with KL that it's better for them to rebook me onto their own flight to HKG (instead of having me on the codeshare). We'll see, I'm quite relaxed at the moment.

tbaiyun

FYI, I cancelled an award PUS-TPE-HKG on Feb 24th (operated by KE & CI) last week and FB has no problem cancelling the ticket and waives all fees.

If the situation gets worse, they must be able to refund and waive all the fees for free. Just relax and wait, I recently postponed a business trip to China from Feb to early April too, and we all know that everything can change rapidly.

Lawrious

Not that I wish to dismiss the severity of the Novel Coronavirus of 2019, but, the daily case rate is actually slowing down which means transmission probability is slowing down and that means a resumption of flights going back to normal by April is by no means unreasonable. I mean, when North America suffered the Swine Flu epidemic of 2009-2010 (which caused 201,000 fatalities), very few people were as panicked for some reason.

Anyway, as long as governments and individuals keep to good quarantine and hygiene practices there is nothing to worry about for the moment. It's just a shame the outbreak occurred during CNY.

The current statistics for the Wuhan Novel Coronavirus are below, and still do not beat Seasonal Flu:

johan rebel

That's roughly the average number of people dead of all causes worldwide every day. The number of corona fatalities in three months is about the same as the number of people murdered daily.

Yet Amazon and other corporations have withdrawn from the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. That's in Spain, not China. Spain has reported two corona cases, one in Majorca, the other in the Canary Islands. Neither is anywhere near Barcelona. The average Amazon employee is probably at greater risk of being run over by a dump truck or being struck by lightning at home than contracting a Wuhan virus in Barcelona.

Johan

PeteM01

The major issue with covid-19 has been the number of patients who become critically ill; in the early stages, the rate was nearly 10% of confirmed cases. That is taking up a lot of critical care beds and specialised medical staff. The UK has about 4000 such beds with a normal occupancy rate of >80%, so even 10,000 cases could overwhelm the health service here. The number of excess deaths this will cause will not be counted amongst the deaths directly caused by covid-19. I imagine that this is why governments are quarantining some travellers and why companies are pulling out of major events: they do not want to lose employees for this length of time.

Often1

The underlying science isn't relevant. The answer to OP's question is that it's simply too far in the future to expect a carrier to have extended a waiver for this.

pulokk1

Travel insurance can cover award miles redeposit fees, but does not cover the "value" of the miles. And make sure you talk with an agent from the insurance company about coverage for the redeposit fees.

Mozart0815

To conclude the situation: Air France reached out to me today to let me know that FM now cancelled both flights from their side, all miles and fees are being refunded.

Now I only need to get Swiss to do the same on a different booking.