tyddynonn

I have a long-booked holiday trip to SA this November.

Accepting fully that it can only be speculation at this stage, what do the experts here think about the likelihood of SA coming off the Red List by then? And if it doesn't, what are my refund/rebook options?

If it's relevant, it's a Holiday booking (including a hire car) and thus far I've only paid the deposit.

mikeyfly

Their vaccinations rates are exceptionally low which I believe is key also in decision making - I wouldn’t hold much hope for this year

drwook

I'm moving mine to mid-2022, and I'm not even sure that'll happen at this stage....

Nephoi

the likelihood for <insert any aviation/travel topic here> is 50%. with a deviation of 50%

Genius1

And a sprinkle of Bojo 'caution' over everything.

umgowah

South Africa took delivery of 2.8M doses of Pfizer donated by the US on Saturday. Another 5.6M doses arrive tomorrow. Currently they are on track to commence vaccinating the 18+ age group in September, per the Dept of Health Twitter account. However whilst the rollout to 18+ sounds positive, at the current daily vaccination rate they will only hit 67% of the population (the local herd immunity target) having at least 1 dose by March 2022. (Sources News 24 and https://www.businessinsider.co.za/th...rollout-2021-7)

I have bookings for November and January, and suspect the major issue determining how those go will be UK government policy. There is also the possible risk of another flare up of political violence around the provincial elections (27 October).

Thomathy

I will be going one way or another since our household is dual-location. The question is, whether it has to involve a ten day stop on the return via an amber list country. It is doable but really, really inconvenient and over the year those ten days add up to months of wasted time in purgatory.

Self-isolation prior to the red list rules wasn’t so bad - drive home in car left at T5 and then stay at home alone for the required period. Maybe that option will come back for vaccinated and tested travellers. Quarantine hotel is pointless since with careful planning even ten days in pricey Switzerland (open to vaccinated travellers from both sides) can be cheaper than the quarantine hotel and certainly nicer.

Shingi

And the recent riots did not help as some vaccination places were burnt down. My son-in-law aged 54 was offered his J&J jab a few days ago but cannot have it for three months due to recovering from COVID. At least they only have to have the single vaccination. We are booked for the whole of February but who knows?

Just seen the post about Pfizer.

konagirl2

I also expect that SA won't get taken off the red list any time soon, and that means BA won't fly (uneconomical). I hope I am wrong and the Government makes some decisions based on the evidence rather than politics (or lack of heavy-weight lobbyists for these smaller economic nations!). Since the criteria for being red list rather than amber is "presenting a high public health risk to the UK from known Variants of Concern (VOC), known high-risk Variants under Investigation (VUI) or as a result of very high in-country/territory prevalence of Covid-19" and the genomic testing shows that it is almost exclusively Delta variant in SA now and that their recent wave is dropping, I would hope that once SA returns to Level 1 then the UK will move it to amber. But who knows.

bigbadjoe

We currently have a trip to Knysna, SA planned for mid-September this year, already been deferred 4 times since last year. I am trying to get out there to make sure that my aged mother's needs are being catered for but neither of us can do it if it involves a 10 day hotel stay on our return to the UK. We are both fully vaccinated and if SA magically turns to amber or, as mentioned in the press "red minus", then we will go. We both work from home and 10 days self-isolation isn't so bad. We couldn't do it if it meant the two of us sharing a small hotel room for 10 days. Two of would go in and only one would come out!
Added to the complication is that I have a long planned ( a year before COVID) self drive safari in Namibia planned for mid-November to celebrate a significant birthday. Will also be staying a couple of nights in Chobe, Botswana, ending up with 4 nights in Victoria Falls. I am 90% confident of that one going ahead.

wijibintheair

We are going in September - at this stage trip planned, but not booking flights. As the rules change (supposedly) every 3 weeks we will wait until early September (by which time two new announcements will have been made) and then book according to the latest regulations. At this stage we are looking at any of the following options:

a) Return UK-SA-UK in an ideal world
b) One way UK-SA and decide by early October (after a 3rd round of new announcements) how to get back
c) Book a UK-SA-Albania ticket - spend 10 days relaxing on the Albanian coast and then fly back to the UK (one of the party is on an SA passport so would need to get a Schengen visa for an EU)

c) in particular could change depending on if any countries come on or go off the red list - for instance if Turkey comes off then the flight would definitely be to IST instead of TIA.

Whichever way it ends up - we are going.

T8191

Always worth following this forum >>> https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/africa-459/

A lot of real-time info from people on the ground, which I rate higher than Media sources!

We have no expectation of returning to the Western Cape in 2021.

tgsh2006

I travelled to South Africa in late May/early June and then "sat out" the 11 day "quarantine period" in Poland to avoid the Red List UK farce. I am firmly of the view that the UK Government will not remove RSA from the Red List prior to the middle of 2022. There has not been much justification for keeping it on there for some months now; however, given the absurd OTT decision to place France on a so called Amber Plus List (citing the Beta variant as justification) then I do not hold out much hope for rational decision making anytime soon.

Beergander

We've reward fights booked to JNB for Oct 21. I'm taking the advice of these pages and awaiting cancellation from BA to get more favourable terms than if I cancel now, tbh even if they are not cancelled we'd prefer to wait a year. A real shame as we were so looking forwards to going and I'd booked up all the B&Bs/Safari. :0(

johnaalex

Remember if BA cancel you do not have to worry about Avios availability so you have free range of dates and your ticket is valid for a year from the date of your outbound flight. My flight for the end of August was cancelled and even though I was automatically moved to a flight on the same day and same cabin I was able to change my date of travel to next March.