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Contingency Plan-- Should I plan for hopscotching restrictions?

Contingency Plan-- Should I plan for hopscotching restrictions?

Old Oct 8, 2020, 12:28 pm
  #1  
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Contingency Plan-- Should I plan for hopscotching restrictions?

My wife and I have an anniversary trip booked for April/May 2021 which involves PHL-DOH-MLE-SIN-HAN-SGN-BKK-HND/NRT-ORD-PHL.

At this point, I'm beginning to worry about so many different countries aligning with COVID restrictions, as we are having a couple of nights in most. If we were leaving right now, we could still get to the Maldives, and we would.

Looking for some advice on a contingency plan to get straight back from the Maldives, where we would have both our original, and another plan booked, should things not improve, or deteriorate in the meantime.
  • MLE-SIN-HAN (J) is booked with SQ miles
  • BKK-HND (J) is booked with Avios
  • NRT-ORD (F) is booked with LifeMiles
I'm thinking that booking something thru SIN is the best option. Was considering using the current Avios offer to book SIN-LHR but there is no availability, HKG-LHR does have availability and is very cheap. This would require transit in SIN and HKG...with an additional leg back to the US from LHR.

Hopefully, I've explained this in an understandable manner! Any suggestions appreciated!
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Old Oct 8, 2020, 12:35 pm
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Anyone who are telling you that they know which countries will or will not have restrictions, which ones, and for whom in April or May is lying to you. There is simply no way to answer your question, your itinerary has very little chance of being doable and many of the flights may even be cancelled, but which parts will be cancelled and/or forbidden is simply impossible to tell at this stage, and as a result, you simply do not know what you need an alternative for. I'm afraid that you'll simply need to leave with the uncertainty for many more months (unless you prefer to simply cancel obviously, which is arguably the only way of getting certainty for now).
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Old Oct 8, 2020, 12:56 pm
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no way you can build a plan B for 6 weeks time never mind 6 months time.

Save yourself some worrying till much nearer the time!!!
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Old Oct 8, 2020, 2:35 pm
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Honestly was trying to have a bit of fun looking at other routings etc. Knew I shouldn't have bothered. This place is like a fun vacuum.
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Old Oct 8, 2020, 2:36 pm
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Originally Posted by orbitmic
Anyone who are telling you that they know which countries will or will not have restrictions, which ones, and for whom in April or May is lying to you. There is simply no way to answer your question, your itinerary has very little chance of being doable and many of the flights may even be cancelled, but which parts will be cancelled and/or forbidden is simply impossible to tell at this stage, and as a result, you simply do not know what you need an alternative for. I'm afraid that you'll simply need to leave with the uncertainty for many more months (unless you prefer to simply cancel obviously, which is arguably the only way of getting certainty for now).
I didn't ask for anything certain. Just asking like-minded folk for opinions on decent options.

There will be a vaccine in place by then, which will allow travel to most places, so this is purely a plan B.
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Old Oct 8, 2020, 2:37 pm
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I would think any plan B should focus on travel to one country only. I enjoy hopping from place to place but I am really not sure that type of travel will be doable next year.
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Old Oct 8, 2020, 2:39 pm
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Originally Posted by scottishpoet
no way you can build a plan B for 6 weeks time never mind 6 months time.

Save yourself some worrying till much nearer the time!!!
Worry was perhaps a strong word! Just mulling over options. Thanks anyway!
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Old Oct 8, 2020, 2:40 pm
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Originally Posted by Dan1113
I would think any plan B should focus on travel to one country only. I enjoy hopping from place to place but I am really not sure that type of travel will be doable next year.
Indeed. That's why I was thinking about transitting only SIN. Perhaps MLE-SIN-EWR. The aim of the post was to find a way home with one stop just transit.
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Old Oct 8, 2020, 3:39 pm
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more options at the moment just gives you more to worry about as you see more things that can go wrong, you would soon decide you need a plan C, d e and f
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Old Oct 8, 2020, 5:38 pm
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Forget it lol
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Old Oct 8, 2020, 8:35 pm
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The challenge on FlyerTalk is both word choice selection and the specificity/breadth of questions posed in any given post.

By using "worry" in your original post, specific people reacted to that. Others are projecting their travel challenges/concerns that have been built up over these multiple months impacted by CV-19.

You may get better results posting to specific fora relevant to either specific countries/regions and/or travel legs on specific airlines.

David
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Old Oct 8, 2020, 11:02 pm
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I get you are looking for fun but I really don't know what suggestions people could give right now on the hypothetical of what countries may or may not have covid restrictions in April. You are asking for suggestions that are impossible to give. If you want suggestions on good use of miles round the world though, look at using Alaska miles to fly Cathay from Tel Aviv or Dubai to USA via HKG(with free stopover in HKG). 62/70k miles one way in business/first.

Originally Posted by jeffers
There will be a vaccine in place by then, which will allow travel to most places, so this is purely a plan B.
I think most people are optimistic that there will be a vaccine by end of year or early next year but also the consensus is that it will take 6months+ for the vaccine to be rolled out in sufficient numbers as to have an effect. Maybe countries will allow those to enter if they can prove they have the vaccine but who knows when we will be able to get it. If I was to take a guess, I would say that your trip will not be do-able but who really knows.
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Old Oct 9, 2020, 4:56 am
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Are you open to visiting Mexico? Most of Asia will remain closed to tourists in 2021 IMHO.
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Old Oct 9, 2020, 7:37 am
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None of that will happen, except maybe MLE. Maybe.
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Old Oct 9, 2020, 8:09 am
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Hi,

I would guess that MLE would be the most likely ( and will probably need a test ).

I think that Japan could well remain closed until the Olympics

Good luck!

Regards

TBS
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