Travel to Spain via Hong Kong

[Paul_L]

Hi all,
We‘re starting our camino in the first week of March, travelling from Australia to Spain via Hong Kong. I’m concerned with the Coronavirus that we will be quarantined, or our flights will be cancelled. I appreciate that worrying alone doesn’t serve any purpose, but it’s driving me seeking other options, which are all becoming prohibitively expensive. (I am travelling with my wife and six children, so an inconvenient $250 reticketing fee becomes a prohibitive $2000 reticketing fee very quickly).

Is there any advice in Spain around stopping flights or entry for travellers from Hong Kong?

Thanks In advance!

 

[Kiwi-family]

If you were refused entry to Spain, wouldn't your travel insurance cover that? Then it's really worthwhile!

 

[Deleted member 67185]

Hi all,
We‘re starting our camino in the first week of March, travelling from Australia to Spain via Hong Kong. I’m concerned with the Coronavirus that we will be quarantined, or our flights will be cancelled. I appreciate that worrying alone doesn’t serve any purpose, but it’s driving me seeking other options, which are all becoming prohibitively expensive. (I am travelling with my wife and six children, so an inconvenient $250 reticketing fee becomes a prohibitive $2000 reticketing fee very quickly).

Is there any advice in Spain around stopping flights or entry for travellers from Hong Kong?

Thanks In advance!

Paul, the public health issues that are now occurring with regard to travel restrictions and quarantines are dynamic. . . it is being assessed daily on a global scale, by individual governments. Basically, there is no one, and no agency that can offer any assurance as to travel status or restrictions to come. It really is a day to day assessment.

This does not mean that we need to worry about the zombie apocalypse occurring as a desperate pandemic event. It does mean that your travels have a metaphysical possibility, NOT probability, of being affected. How to respond is, as with everything, based on a one's tolerance for varying levels of risk. . . in this case, travel disruptions that result in possible last minute scrambles and fees.

 

[Saint Mike II]

Hola, based on currently available best info, Hong Kong is not being included in mainland China. If we assume you are not leaving the terminal then my recommendation - buy the best quality masks you can get (not the ones that come from that well known hardware store). You might need to clarify your flight ex HKG - is it not stop to Madrid or via an intermediate port?? (Not sure if this will make any real difference).
Given that you are not flying until early March - 4 weeks from now then there should be a reasonable chance that the issue will be finalised. Did you book directly or via a travel agent??? If you used an agent contact them for best advice, also talk to travel insurance people. Sorry this does not really answer your question. But this is a situation that is very moveable. Cheers

 

[SYates]

... Is there any advice in Spain around stopping flights or entry for travellers from Hong Kong?

Thanks In advance!

So far not, but as others have stated that might or might not change over time.
BC SY

 

[Kanga]

@Paul_L if you are traveling to Spain via Hong Kong then do you have an additional stop somewhere? I know Cathay flies direct from Hong Kong, but other airlines seem to stop in the Middle East or another major European city.

Not sure if it makes any difference.

I'd activate my travel insurance now - if relying on the one that comes with your credit card, you need to do this. If your don't have travel insurance, I'd buy some!

 

[John Sikora]

You have two sources of uncertainty. 1) Will the flight to Hong Kong actually fly and 2) if you stop in Hong Kong, will the authorities in Spain view it as a problem.,

I think that you can almost bet on a worst case scenario since there is little doubt that the virus will continue to spread and we're in the early days of bad information.

I also saw a note that Cathy Pacific is waiving change fees for flights going into or out of Hong Kong so you may be able to reroute without an additional charge.

I'd reroute just to play it safe. The downside of rerouting is that you will probably pay more. The downside of not rerouting is that you may get sick and lose the opportunity that you've been waiting for.

 

[Rick of Rick and Peg]

Things will probably work out alright for you if all legs are with the same airline. It will likely work with you and your wallet to reroute you if it can't get you to Spain with your current route.

If I were in your situation I would be using Google's advanced search page at https://google.com/advanced_search

Put in Spain, Hong Kong, coronavirus, airline, your airline's name. Search for the last 24 hours and repeat the search using the domain names au, hk and es. Play with the input until you start getting relevant articles.

 

[dougfitz]

My thoughts on this:

a. Find official sources. For travel from Australia, use the Smartraveller website, the Embassy of Spain (Canberra) or the Consulate in Melbourne. The Spanish websites will give you contact details, or just ring the general number, explain your situation and ask for information on any entry restrictions from Hong Kong.
b. be cautious about expecting insurers to payout for additional costs for 'just in case' changes. They are likely to require either the Australian or Spanish governments to provide formal advice that travel to Hong Kong has been raised to 'Do Not Travel' or similar, or Spain has formally banned entry from Hong Kong. When I checked a moment ago, the DFAT advice for Hong Kong was 'Exercise a high degree of caution'.
c. Consult your insurer - you do have one, don't you? Check what their tolerance is for these matters, and when they are going to be prepared to compensate you for changes.
d. If you have booked through a travel agent, keep in touch with them. If you have booked directly with the airline, contact them directly or watch their web pages for information about any flight changes and cancellations. If you have provided an email address, they should be in touch with you about these, but given the circumstances, you might want to contact them to check the current status of your flights.

In the meantime, I hope all goes well for you and you get to your Camino start point safely.

 

[Vacajoe]

Here‘s another issue you may face: two airline companies in the US (Delta and American) have suspended flights to Hong Kong for the next two weeks due to a lack of customers - they blame the protests as well as the flu for the drop in bookings. Id stay on top of the news and your airline and jump at any offer they make to reroute you.

 

[Old Bamboo]

I'm in Asia right now and currently flights to/from HK are suspended till Mar 31st from many countries. Unsure about Spain but i did read that some European countries were following suit.

 

[Paul_L]

Thanks everyone for your advice. We have changed our tickets to go via Dubai and London. Costs a bucket more, but at least we’ll make it. Surreal how close it is now.
By the way, travel insurance isn’t particularly helpful at this stage because there are epidemic clauses that have made it difficult, and because we didn’t wait for a government ‘do not travel’ directive. We will recover much of the losses, but are still quite heavily out of pocket.