Your urgent international travel questions answered by Simon Calder

Flight connections, baggage stress, tropical islands and cut-price dollars

Going places: Terminal 5 at London Heathrow (Simon Calder)

A little-known legal loophole, involving those fortunate enough to have been born in the Gatwick area around the time of some complex boundary changes, means that the travel correspondent of The Independent qualifies as a part-time non-dom. (Some of his less charitable colleagues abbreviate that description to “part-timer”.)

Nevertheless, while in transit at Heathrow airport, someone claiming to be Simon Calder – as he is known on his diplomatic passport – took an hour out of his busy day to answer your pressing travel questions.

Flight fears

Q: We’re due to fly to the US just after Easter. What are our rights should we miss a flight? My main worry is with our UK flights as we’re scheduled to fly from Manchester to Heathrow, then onward to New York JFK. Looking at this week’s flight statistics for our BA shuttle to Heathrow, it’s been cancelled once and severely delayed on most days.

Do you also think that the CDC will drop their Covid testing policy for the US after Easter?

Kim C

A: I am constantly amazed at the number of people who fly from Manchester (or Glasgow, or Edinburgh) to the US via Heathrow. If I’m not being impertinent, I cannot imagine a worse place to change planes on a transatlantic journey. You will be flying for the first part of the journey away from New York, and could even end up going overhead Manchester on your flight to JFK.

Much better, I think to travel via Dublin – which is just 20 miles or so longer than the direct flight, and has the added benefit of allowing you to clear US customs and the passport before stepping aboard the transatlantic flight. When you arrive in New York you’re a domestic arrival and can head straight off without the long queues for immigration.

Anyway, we are where we are. Were British Airways to cancel or heavily delay the flight from Manchester to Heathrow, it would be responsible for getting you to the US. BA would need to look at all the possible options – Ideally, for you, one of the non-stop flights direct to New York. These are operated by Virgin Atlantic and Aer Lingus, and tend to be more expensive. Which I presume is why you booked to go the long way around.

On your second question, I fear the US health regulator, the CDC, is in no great hurry to drop the pre-departure Covid testing requirement. Based on the ponderous history of opening up the US to overseas tourism, I don’t expect any changes until after the main summer peak.

Emotional baggage

Q: We are currently in Australia. We flew with British Airways from the dreaded Heathrow Terminal 5 to Copenhagen before travelling on to Australia with Qatar Airways. On arrival at Copenhagen we found out that no luggage whatsoever had been loaded onto our flight. We completed the necessary missing bag forms with the address in Australia. BA’s tracking system tells us bags were found and placed on flights to arrive in Australia on 6 April. The flights arrived but no sign of our luggage.

To date we still haven’t had any response, still have no luggage and I’m fuming at how bad the customer service of BA is. I’d there anything you can suggest we do?

Stribs22

A: Sorry to read about your experience. Sometimes when bags go astray the reuniting process can threaten to dominate the trip. On the rare occasions when it has happened to me, I would really rather not spend time online or on the phone trying to find where the bag is and coordinating reunification with it.

Rather than chasing around for them, I ask the airline to return the missing luggage after the trip. I also explain that I will buy the minimum to meet my travel needs (keeping the receipts for a later claim).

Checking in bags always involves a risk, though yours evidently fell at the first hurdle and were left behind at Heathrow.

Had you been travelling only on British Airways, you could have avoided any such problems by taking everything you need as cabin baggage; the airline has an extremely generous 46kg, two-piece hand luggage allowance. By taking advantage of this, as I invariably do, you can avoid the risk that your possessions will be misrouted or just left behind at Heathrow.

But I see that as you were taking a fairly exotic routing, transferring to Qatar Airways in Copenhagen – presumably because of a good-value fare. The Qatar Airways allowance is a paltry single piece weighing 7kg. In practice many people take much more than this, but not as much as British Airways would allow.

Anyway, I hope you did the sensible thing – which is to assume you will never see your checked baggage again, and avoid packing anything that you would be upset not to see again.

Orbital manoeuvres

Q: I’m generally pretty knowledgeable about my rights but this one’s stumping me. I’m on an AA booked itinerary from Madrid to Miami via Heathrow. British Airways have cancelled the MAD-LHR flight one day before and rebooked one hour later to Gatwick. As operating carrier, I’m guessing BA will pay for transport to LHR (once claimed).

I will now also arrive at LHR over two hours after original arrival time. However, my arrival time in Miami will not change due to this flight being unchanged. So, ethics of claiming aside, would I be entitled to cancellation compensation based on this last minute delay? Obviously now more hassle going via Gatwick but that’s a separate issue!

“Shimmydamper”

A: Goodness, once again I would never want to fly on that route: Madrid and London happen to be exactly the same distance from Miami (4,425 miles), and interposing an additional 800-mile hop looks excessive. I imagine you also had a very long stopover originally scheduled for London Heathrow.

British Airways may well provide you with a voucher for the Gatwick-Heathrow bus around the orbital M25 (“bring back the helicopter link,” I hear some cry) but otherwise you will need to claim back – for the bus link, not a taxi. I fear that if you are not late at your final destination, though, you cannot claim for cash compensation. You won’t have been delayed (though you will have had a whole lot of stress).

Dollar deals

Q: My husband and I hope to fly to the US next week (providing, of course, that the flights aren’t cancelled). Could you please recommend the best way to get US dollars? We’ve read that one gets the best rates from ATMs over there, rather than by ordering them from UK banks or post office travel services - is this so?

Also, on return we have the last flight of the day from Heathrow to Glasgow - if we miss the flight due to delays at Heathrow, is the airline required to put us up in a hotel for the night?

Suz D

A: Until the coronavirus pandemic I was always keen to use cash as my prime form of spending, but now much has changed and many places now say “cards only”. Certainly the most useful thing you can do, if you have time before you go, is to apply for a Halifax Clarity credit card. It will get you excellent, no-transaction-fee rates on plastic payments.

Anyway, to address your question: I can tell you the method I use for finding the best deals for foreign currency, but I fear you may not like it. I would never use an ATM in the US – rates, I find, are poor, and there are usually significant charges involved. So instead I buy in the UK. In London.

I generally start at the southern end of Queensway, a kind of high street for the Bayswater area of west London, and call in at the series of bureaux de change that are on both sides of the street. My question is: “How much, in sterling, will it cost to buy $500?” (Or, if I am heading for Europe, euros.)

The responses vary wildly, but there is always one that will get you close to the middle rate. Today that is $1.30 to £1, so I would be looking for $1.28 – in other words, paying £390. (By the way, the change firms I deal with all want sterling in cash, not plastic.)

If your travel plans do not include trawling for the best rate, let me recommend Thomas Exchange Global at Hammersmith Underground station. Book online with “click and collect” and you can get close to that middle rate.

Should that excursion also not appeal, then book through the currency provider Travelex – paying in advance and collecting at a specified bureau de change at Heathrow.

On part two of your question, assuming you are on a through ticket (US-Heathrow-Glasgow) then the airline will certainly pay for accommodation and meals. You could also be entitled to £520 in compensation, depending on the reason for the original delay.

Faraway dreams

Q: I am finally hoping to visit my daughter in Melbourne in June. While I am there we hope to visit other parts of Australia and/or Bali or Fiji. There seems to be a better of selection of flights (and cheaper) if booked in Australia. Am I able to book on an Australian website or my daughter book for me over there or does this affect my rights/insurance? Any advice greatly appreciated. Also thank you for all the helpful articles throughout Covid.

Sharon G

A: Thanks very much for your kind words. I unreservedly recommend that you involve a good long-haul travel specialist such as Trailfinders. They will be able to put together a continuously ticketed itinerary at decent rates – especially if you happen to be flying out on Qantas, in which case discounted domestic flights will be obtainable.

Including Bali and Fiji on your trip sounds great – but on the way to and/or from Australia, not a side trip.

Q: I got caught up in the BA cancellations (technical issues) in the last weekend in February. My flight back to Heathrow from Budapest was cancelled via text on the morning (Sat 26 Feb midday) I was due to fly back. BA offered re-booking (on their website) but the next available flights to London were from the Tuesday (1 March) onwards.

They offered no other help, their phone lines were busy/unanswered and I was left stuck having checked out of my accommodation already so I scrambled to fend for myself. For various reasons, I couldn’t hang around till then at the risk of BA cancelling those last minute too, so I booked myself on a Ryanair flight that evening to Stansted at the cost of almost £500.

I requested a refund from BA and compensation as I understand I am entitled to. I got the refund three weeks later with no correspondence at all and I haven’t heard from them about my compensation. It’s been six weeks and I’ve tried calling them and the phone remains unanswered. I did have travel insurance but when I contacted them, they said I should get as much as I can from BA first then put in a claim for any remainder I am ‘out of pocket for’. I have lost all faith in hearing from BA.

Is there anything I can do to hasten my compensation claim such as seek redress from a regulatory body regarding BA’s behaviour?

Poupee

A: Sorry to hear about your experience. There is no doubt, from the facts as you explain them, that British Airways must refund your Ryanair flight and pay you £220 in compensation on top (Budapest is maddeningly a few kilometres short of the 1,500km threshold at which compensation would increase to £350). I suggest you write a Letter Before Action giving BA a week to reimburse and compensate you, and go to Money Claim Online after that.

Asian liaison

Q: Due to fly to Singapore with British Airways in November, want to transit through to Bangkok with Thai Airlines. Current rules state “passengers transiting through Changi and planning to depart on a different airline must have both flights booked in same booking itinerary. Passengers must also have their checked in luggage tagged through from the origin airport to their final destination”.

Is it possible to check luggage through to final destination with BA/Thai flights? We already have Singapore flight booked and can’t see how we can transit through to Bangkok with Thai Air under the above rules.

Callat

A: You have come up with an unusual way to reach Bangkok: flying almost 1,000 miles beyond it (possibly even flying overhead the Thai capital) then returning on a separate flight from Singapore. You have no choice that I can see other than to go through immigration into Singapore and then immediately check in to leave again.

Spanish practice

Q: Did you say that the Spanish government has dropped the requirement to fill in the Health Control form if you are fully vaccinated? Everything I have checked says it is still required.

Jezzaman

A: The Spanish tourist office in London says it was dropped for fully jabbed (and boosted) Brits. Do let me know if you read anything different.

Stansted stress

Q: I am travelling to Turkey on 22 May from Stansted. Will the queue problem be sorted by then?

“Turkey Holidays”

A: In the past few weeks long queues for security at a number of airports, including Manchester, Birmingham and London Stansted, have caused problems for passengers ranging from frustration to actually missing planes – often with very expensive consequences.

The highest number of travellers appears to be at Manchester airport. Last Friday the chief executive of Manchester Airports Group, Charlie Cornish, admitted frankly: “We don’t currently have the number of staff we need to provide the level of service that our passengers deserve.

“For now, we are advising passengers to arrive at the airport three hours before their flight leaves.”

Stansted airport is part of the same group, and is experiencing similar problems: with passenger numbers soaring in a tight labour market, hiring people quickly enough to establish a full-strength team in the airport security operation is tough.

There has been a very obvious lag between the reappearance of strong demand for aviation – which was triggered by the ending of travel restrictions in the UK – and the supply of trained and vetted staff.

However, I conducted a wide-ranging (if unscientific) social media survey over the weekend and was heartened to see that most passengers were pleasantly surprised with the speed at which they were processed through security.

While I won’t yet return to the days when I might deliberately get to an airport just 45 minutes before departure, the length of security queues is, I believe, a diminishing problem. I am getting more reports about delays in ground handling, in particular queues for baggage drop-off.

If your flight is in the first wave of departures, between 6am and 9am, I certainly commend arriving two hours ahead – and half-an-hour earlier if you have bags to check in.

Finally, long after the security queues dwindle, I fear long waits will continue for UK Border Force when you come back from Turkey.

Manchester countdown

Q: I am off to Dubai on Saturday 16 April from Manchester airport. My flight is around 8pm. When should I be there with everything happening there?

Sonia1970

A: According to the airport boss, Charlie Cornish, three hours ahead – ie 5pm. Personally, though, given that it will probably be a quiet Easter Saturday evening I would bowl up just two hours ahead. Have a great trip.

Cancel culture

Q: My flight to Berlin on 2 April with easyJet was cancelled. I managed to rebook it for 1 April. I claimed the compensation and was awarded. Now my return flight for 16 April from Berlin been cancelled. Unfortunately I can’t get any flights with easyJet so I bought new tickets from different airlines. Can I claim the cost of the tickets and again the compensation for this flight?

Anonymous

A: Yes you can.