Planning
The trip to Italy and Croatia that we had planned for spring 2020 needed to be cancelled. There is the advice out there that all leisure travel should be avoided until there’s a vaccine against COVID-19, and that’s certainly something that should be considered, but the news came out that Croatia was open to Americans under certain conditions. Could we make the trip this summer, and take advantage of the Slow Europe prize stay in Hvar that we got? As much as I liked the thought, and Margaret was certainly pushing for it, I had my doubts, and we’d need to see if certain circumstances came into place.
After a first essentially complete opening, the rule came into place that travelers should have a negative PCR test taken within 48 hours before arrival in Croatia. I joined the Viber discussion group for Total Croatia News where many people reported details about currently getting into Croatia. As I understand it, without any test results one would be required to self-isolate for a week before being tested in Croatia; travelers with test results that were too old could get tested there and wait for the results. When the opportunity for the trip came up, we weren’t sure if we could get tests and results in the proper time. We knew of people in the Boston area who had quick results, but didn’t know if that testing would be available to us even if we went to Boston early before departing from there; we also considered testing in and departing from New York, but that would have its own complications.
I talked to contacts in Croatia: Andro, who had offered the prize of the apartment stay, and Shannon, who arranged for the apartment to be in the prize offerings, and who had wound up in Croatia when the COVID situation turned critical. They encouraged us to confirm the trip: that we were o.k. as Americans who hadn’t been in high-risk situations, and Andro bent the rules that excluded prize stays in August, but we should start the stay in late August.
When I contacted our small-town health care provider, they said they were taking a long time for test results, but they were working on an arrangement with nearby hospitals for fast results. We would also arrange for a test at a pop-up site in Vermont that would be too soon before the trip, but would be good enough to avoid a full quarantine. We were able to arrange a test with our provider for the day before departure.
And to arrange the flights: I wanted to use the awards we planned to use for our previously planned spring dates to Italy and Croatia, going over on Iberia and returning with United awards on Croatia and Lufthansa. The Iberia Avios points, for the trip cancelled in March, didn’t repost until late July. That was one element to make it possible to give the trip serious consideration. We could convert them to Aer Lingus Avios to book a trip to Split via Dublin, but they stopped showing as a bookable connection, and eventually the Split service was cancelled for most days. So I could use Iberia’s points directly for flights on British Airways via London. Then, thinking of what a pain it could be to reinstate the Iberia points in case we cancelled, I decided to use American Airlines miles. We had a balance that would allow the two of us to go to Italy when it’s possible, but I used this and hope that, when we go to Italy, we can use the Iberia points one way and American the other. In either case, there was a high amount in money to pay to take a “free” trip on BA.
For the return, I looked to use United miles from Dubrovnik to fly Lufthansa on the transatlantic segment. Conveniently as COVID hit, they discontinued having a fixed number of miles for partner awards, and I needed to convert some Chase points to reach the new needed number of miles. I booked the trip for the date that seemed right with a good connection to a Frankfurt-Boston flight, when it was reported that Lufthansa would be sticking to that schedule.
I rechecked the bookings regularly, and before long I found a change: they’d taken that Frankfurt-Boston flight off the schedule for that day and kept the original first flight, meaning we’d have over 24 hours in Frankfurt airport where we wouldn’t be able to clear border control at the airport. At best, we could pay a lot for a small room at a hotel in the international transit area. It didn’t work to delay it all by a day, because the Dubrovnik-Frankfurt flight didn’t operate the next day. What seemed to work was to fly United Frankfurt-Washington Dulles-Boston.
I booked that, but wasn’t that pleased with the extra exposure we’d have in the U.S., and how late we’d complete the day. I looked over the schedule again for the later day with the Frankfurt-Boston non-stop: I’m sure that when I looked first, the one option for completing the trip that day gave 30 minutes to connect in Zagreb including exit passport control, which I didn’t want to risk. Now I looked and found the schedule allowing two hours to connect in Zagreb, and I booked to that feeling better, although needing to convert still more Chase points: we’d be back on the Lufthansa flight to Boston.
Tuesday, August 25, 2020
We got the PCR test done at our small-town provider’s office on Monday, understanding we’d be lucky to get results in their portal by our Croatia entry time Wednesday. In fact we got an alert of the results before we left home Tuesday, and were able to print them.
Although the Dartmouth Coach bus service between our area and Boston had recently resumed after being suspended in March, we’d decided to avoid that area of exposure and drive to Boston, parking at the Hilton Garden Inn where the Park & Fly deal, with the hotel stay after the return flight, looked like a better deal than even in other programs where we had an annual free night to use.
We parked and got the airport shuttle. There was a pretty empty international terminal. We were three hours early. I knew that there is often an argument at airline check-in about Americans being admissible to Croatia, but this British Airways agent seemed to be familiar with the rules and was satisfied with our test results. She asked if we’d completed the United Kingdom locator form, I said we’d only be transiting, but she said we should still complete the online form before boarding. When we got to the gate area, I looked at the site and understood there was an exception for people transiting, but completed the form. The questions included our seat numbers, and I understood they wanted our information for contact tracing in case someone on the flight tested positive. There were very few passengers around, with a few more showing as boarding time got close.
The flight boarded. With BA’s system of free seat assignments opening 24 hours before departure, I was concerned that all seats from row 30 (the start of Economy) through about 46 showed as occupied, with us getting seats in row 33. Would all these seats in fact be occupied? No, the flight remained very sparse. They gave out cold boxed meals of some kind of pasta salad with beans; a request of wine brought two of the small bottles to make it more tolerable. With no one behind us, we could recline without guilt; going Boston-London, one of the shorter transatlantic trips, I got a decent amount of deep sleep.
The trip to Italy and Croatia that we had planned for spring 2020 needed to be cancelled. There is the advice out there that all leisure travel should be avoided until there’s a vaccine against COVID-19, and that’s certainly something that should be considered, but the news came out that Croatia was open to Americans under certain conditions. Could we make the trip this summer, and take advantage of the Slow Europe prize stay in Hvar that we got? As much as I liked the thought, and Margaret was certainly pushing for it, I had my doubts, and we’d need to see if certain circumstances came into place.
After a first essentially complete opening, the rule came into place that travelers should have a negative PCR test taken within 48 hours before arrival in Croatia. I joined the Viber discussion group for Total Croatia News where many people reported details about currently getting into Croatia. As I understand it, without any test results one would be required to self-isolate for a week before being tested in Croatia; travelers with test results that were too old could get tested there and wait for the results. When the opportunity for the trip came up, we weren’t sure if we could get tests and results in the proper time. We knew of people in the Boston area who had quick results, but didn’t know if that testing would be available to us even if we went to Boston early before departing from there; we also considered testing in and departing from New York, but that would have its own complications.
I talked to contacts in Croatia: Andro, who had offered the prize of the apartment stay, and Shannon, who arranged for the apartment to be in the prize offerings, and who had wound up in Croatia when the COVID situation turned critical. They encouraged us to confirm the trip: that we were o.k. as Americans who hadn’t been in high-risk situations, and Andro bent the rules that excluded prize stays in August, but we should start the stay in late August.
When I contacted our small-town health care provider, they said they were taking a long time for test results, but they were working on an arrangement with nearby hospitals for fast results. We would also arrange for a test at a pop-up site in Vermont that would be too soon before the trip, but would be good enough to avoid a full quarantine. We were able to arrange a test with our provider for the day before departure.
And to arrange the flights: I wanted to use the awards we planned to use for our previously planned spring dates to Italy and Croatia, going over on Iberia and returning with United awards on Croatia and Lufthansa. The Iberia Avios points, for the trip cancelled in March, didn’t repost until late July. That was one element to make it possible to give the trip serious consideration. We could convert them to Aer Lingus Avios to book a trip to Split via Dublin, but they stopped showing as a bookable connection, and eventually the Split service was cancelled for most days. So I could use Iberia’s points directly for flights on British Airways via London. Then, thinking of what a pain it could be to reinstate the Iberia points in case we cancelled, I decided to use American Airlines miles. We had a balance that would allow the two of us to go to Italy when it’s possible, but I used this and hope that, when we go to Italy, we can use the Iberia points one way and American the other. In either case, there was a high amount in money to pay to take a “free” trip on BA.
For the return, I looked to use United miles from Dubrovnik to fly Lufthansa on the transatlantic segment. Conveniently as COVID hit, they discontinued having a fixed number of miles for partner awards, and I needed to convert some Chase points to reach the new needed number of miles. I booked the trip for the date that seemed right with a good connection to a Frankfurt-Boston flight, when it was reported that Lufthansa would be sticking to that schedule.
I rechecked the bookings regularly, and before long I found a change: they’d taken that Frankfurt-Boston flight off the schedule for that day and kept the original first flight, meaning we’d have over 24 hours in Frankfurt airport where we wouldn’t be able to clear border control at the airport. At best, we could pay a lot for a small room at a hotel in the international transit area. It didn’t work to delay it all by a day, because the Dubrovnik-Frankfurt flight didn’t operate the next day. What seemed to work was to fly United Frankfurt-Washington Dulles-Boston.
I booked that, but wasn’t that pleased with the extra exposure we’d have in the U.S., and how late we’d complete the day. I looked over the schedule again for the later day with the Frankfurt-Boston non-stop: I’m sure that when I looked first, the one option for completing the trip that day gave 30 minutes to connect in Zagreb including exit passport control, which I didn’t want to risk. Now I looked and found the schedule allowing two hours to connect in Zagreb, and I booked to that feeling better, although needing to convert still more Chase points: we’d be back on the Lufthansa flight to Boston.
Tuesday, August 25, 2020
We got the PCR test done at our small-town provider’s office on Monday, understanding we’d be lucky to get results in their portal by our Croatia entry time Wednesday. In fact we got an alert of the results before we left home Tuesday, and were able to print them.
Although the Dartmouth Coach bus service between our area and Boston had recently resumed after being suspended in March, we’d decided to avoid that area of exposure and drive to Boston, parking at the Hilton Garden Inn where the Park & Fly deal, with the hotel stay after the return flight, looked like a better deal than even in other programs where we had an annual free night to use.
We parked and got the airport shuttle. There was a pretty empty international terminal. We were three hours early. I knew that there is often an argument at airline check-in about Americans being admissible to Croatia, but this British Airways agent seemed to be familiar with the rules and was satisfied with our test results. She asked if we’d completed the United Kingdom locator form, I said we’d only be transiting, but she said we should still complete the online form before boarding. When we got to the gate area, I looked at the site and understood there was an exception for people transiting, but completed the form. The questions included our seat numbers, and I understood they wanted our information for contact tracing in case someone on the flight tested positive. There were very few passengers around, with a few more showing as boarding time got close.
The flight boarded. With BA’s system of free seat assignments opening 24 hours before departure, I was concerned that all seats from row 30 (the start of Economy) through about 46 showed as occupied, with us getting seats in row 33. Would all these seats in fact be occupied? No, the flight remained very sparse. They gave out cold boxed meals of some kind of pasta salad with beans; a request of wine brought two of the small bottles to make it more tolerable. With no one behind us, we could recline without guilt; going Boston-London, one of the shorter transatlantic trips, I got a decent amount of deep sleep.
Last edited: