England Trip on 1/4

I’d monitor the situation closely and look at the cancellation policy for accommodations and flights so you know when you need to make a final decision. The rumour is that the government will impose a “circuit breaker” lockdown for a few weeks immediately after Christmas, in which case they would need to cancel their trip (nothing will be open). The situation is changing by the minute so I would not count on having much advance notice.

Personally, and I’m someone who has done quite a bit of pandemic travel and has a healthy risk appetite, I wouldn’t plan a leisure trip here right now. Way too much uncertainty around restrictions/lockdown and very high likelihood of catching COVID. With boosters it probably wouldn’t be too serious, but the logistics of where to quarantine and how to get the right tests/paperwork to get out of the country after infection all seem like a total nightmare. Would not make for relaxing holiday vibes in my opinion!

Tough call. What they plan to do would help determine whether they should cancel. It’s anticipated that more restrictions will be announced after Christmas, so if possible wait to find out what they are. If there is a lockdown, the airline will most likely cancel their flight and travel won’t even be an option.

I'm grappling with this myself albeit my dates are earlier and we are just transiting UK. I'm leaning towards cancelling. We've taken several trips in these Covid times and are boosted but there is alot of uncertainty and I don't relish the idea of having to quarantine if we test positive. I am not afraid of Covid but the rate of breakthru's is increasing and some of the modeling suggests that this omicron is the one that we will all get. I've been having a first world pity party for about a week now and haven't yet pulled the trigger to cancel but it seems like that is the smart move. So frustrating.

I flew to Spain in October for a holiday and felt safe, but there is no way I would currently get on a train and travel the 45 minutes into London, stay in a hotel, visit anything indoors or eat out in restaurants - the infection rates are far too high and mask wearing is too lax. Some parts of London have infection rates of 2,500 per 100,000. Vaccination rates are low.

I am double vaccinated and boosted. I have cancelled my trip to Spain for early January.

January isn’t the best time for the Cotswolds.

There’s a good chance that we will have a lockdown or circuit breaker in the new year, as people are being allowed to mix at Christmas. Numbers are likely to rocket 1-2 weeks later.

Sorry, but I would cancel as it’s not a great time to be coming here.

It is hard for me to imagine a worse time to come to the UK.

The sneaky map makers showing the covid infections around the country moved the goalposts this week and shifted the colour code one whole category to the right. A glance at the map might look ok until you realize that red last week is only beige this week and what was black last week is only red this week. Black - the worst - is now anything over 2,000 new cases per 100,000 or one in every 50 every day.

Jennifer's data is probably yesterday's.

Several boroughs of London are reporting (about 30 minutes ago) rates of over 3,000 today just in each borough, and 120,000 new cases in the country today.

I am not going IN anywhere, and I have gone back to getting groceries and anything else delivered. I just can't risk it.

It will get worse after the contagion caused by Christmas parties and family gatherings gets picked up.

That is exactly when your children are planning to arrive?

If I were in their shoes, I wouldn't.

Umm, this is close to a no-brainer. Listen to the folks who actually live in England and what they are saying...advise them to cancel now, or expect to have it "cancelled" for them by BoJo after XMAS...either way, this is not a good time to go over there for a leisure trip.

If there's a lockdown, the airlines aren't going to cancel flights - that's not what happened last time, as people still will have pressing/essential reasons to travel. But if restaurants/non-essential retail is closed that could make for a very limiting holiday.

We're in the UK now, but we're mainly here to visit family, and our son who's here at university and we haven't seen for 18 months. It seems very likely there will be more restrictions post-Christmas, so if I were them I would wait and see what these are first.

Aside from assessing any additional restrictions, they should make sure they have the resources to deal with any positive tests, especially prior to departure for home. You could end up spending more time away than you expected.

@simon - I disagree that airlines won’t cancel flights. British Airways has already cancelled or removed most odd number date flights out of Baltimore from its schedule through the middle of February. While I’m sure we’ll end up canceling our flight. The outbound flight is already flagged for rebooking. It’s just a matter of time.

NYT reporting today that per Flightaware, 3,800 XMAS weekend flights have been cancelled worldwide. Airlines are scrambling to replace staff and crew that are out with Covid...so to anyone who is counting on the airlines to keep on flying through this Omicron wave, the airlines will cut flights at the drop of a hat, and will do the same during government mandated border closings as well.