What will next year look like? How about next month? Or next week? Will we contain COVID-19? How much will it destroy the world economy?
Short and honest answer: we don’t know.
Are You Panning Travel Or Just Dreaming About It?
While the status of travel in the short-term and even long-term remain up in the air, I am dreaming about all the places I’ll go, but I’m not actually planning specifics.
I did take advantage of the cheap Air France First Class fares from Algeria…maybe I’ll dedicate a post to that after the dust has settled. But that was a very exceptional circumstance and I’m not looking into the details yet (like visas, hotels, or side trips to Libya). To assume that everything will be back to normal so I can go to Cuba and fly the IL-96 or fly from Copenhagen to Greenland after visiting the Faroe Islands this summer is too speculative at this point. In fact, I’m not even booking my Christmas travel to Germany yet…it may be that I’ll still be locked up in California.
I don’t think so. I hope not. But airlines like Lufthansa and United–my two go-to airlines–don’t exactly incentivize bookings when they won’t even (expeditiously) refund tickets for cancelled flights.
And even once flights resume borders may not re-open.
All of this puts me in a strange position, a position I’ve never been in since I started traveling regularly over 15 years ago. We are seeing airlines destruct before our eyes, with load factors that make continued operations, even at reduced levels, simply unsustainable. I’m not counting on anything returning to “status quo” at this point.
I still have quite a nest egg of miles and I wonder if some of them will still be valid once this is all said and done (I’m looking at you Korean Air). But I cannot bring myself to book a speculative trip, even in 2021, since I really don’t know how much our world will change…or indeed what financial position I will be in once this plague finally passes.
CONCLSUION
I’m dreaming about Singapore Suites, Korean Air Kosmo Suites 2.0, and even being barked at in American Airlines first class. But despite many great deals right now, I’m holding back on pulling the trigger.
How about you? Are you in the dreaming phase or actively in the planning phase?
You can “plan” but I would be very, very wary of actually booking flights or hotels right now. I just have a feeling that the economic destruction is going to be far worse and longer lasting than anyone wants to admit. Thus, there’s a very strong chance that even if the virus is largely gone by June, whatever flights and hotels you book won’t exist. That doesn’t even factor in the tourist infrastructure wiped out (restaurants, bars, tour guides, etc.) that will take many months to rebuild. You could probably do something off-the-cuff in the spring or fall, but personally, I’d wait at least until late this year before locking something in in advance.
Sorry, SUMMER or fall.
My blog is the last place you need to correct spelling errors. 😉
Nice picture at the top. Whitsun islands?
Looks like it, but that was a stock photo labeled as Maldives.
Plan and have options, but pulling the trigger? Everything is so protean right now, it would be like trying to build on quicksand.
But why not just start listing options? Or gosh forbid, drive-able destinations within the US? The latter will be feasible to plan in advance far earlier than air travel.
The chaos is here till mid-May. Things won’t loosen till June and travel will be nowhere normal for six months to a year and many routes will simply be gone.
Planning trips – yes. Spending $ – no.
Same here. 3 vacation weeks left this year. May (too close-in so staying home). October (maybe) and December (hopefully).
I can’t wait for all of this coronavirus business to be over, for one selfish reason. I miss the flight reports. I travel mostly in Y class, only travelling in J class when I have enough points. Which means, not a lot of J class trips. But I love reading about what airlines offer what, especially in relation to meals. I find it incredible that meals in J are often “inedible”, or that FAs on US airlines on seem as having “attitude”. Rest assured that when you start flying again, I’ll be perusing every trip report you do. I miss them so much…
I’m pretty sure travel (especially the non-essential one) will never be the same after this. I’m expecting / hoping that countries will come up with measurements that make something like this pandemic less likely …and that means also controlling travel and traveler.
This could very well be for general human interactions what back then HIV was for sexual interactions.
Still have one cruise down the west coast booked for September, a family reunion in Texas scheduled for June and a week of a time share to be used before the end of 2020 on the books. Also 25% off a Cunard Cruise and 75% off an NCL cruise as yet to be scheduled this year. Afraid these will all end up turning to dust in the wind. Expecting travel may be reduced to car trips and I will have to settle for visiting a few new counties instead of a few new countries. My educated guess is that the ripples from Covid-19 will still be felt 7 years from now and that the travel demand and supply curves have been permanently shifted. The ripples are also going to be felt in foreign real estate investment. The wisdom of globalization, offshoring, illegal immigration, sanctuary cities, open borders, homeless and migrant encampments – all will have to be rethought in light of public health risk. As with computers, antivirus measures will become the new norm. For years America concentrated on reducing the threat to our country from large terrorist cells from the middle east before we found a small terrorist cell from the far east was a far greater threat.
I typically travel to Rome in the early summer for work. On that trip, I usually bring my family with me, and we then spend some family time together somewhere else in Europe (the current plans are for Provence). I have booked their flights (award tix through United), but not mine because work is involved. This would be late June/early July. I have not yet canceled those plans. I think it’s too soon to do so; June is a long way off. But with every passing day the more I wonder how likely it is that we can carry out this plan. And the one thing that I *haven’t* done is booked accommodations, as I am far less certain that I will not lose money doing that.
Im grateful that you found that air France deal and posted it. Did it for next year. It’s nice to have something to look forward too. We have a trip to Japan this summer. But I think that is not going to happen. Okinawa was calling us, but not this year probably.
Hopefully we don’t get cancelled by AF…
I spent the last of 2019 and all of 2020 dreaming and planning my upcoming trip to the Seychelles, to where I should be heading this Saturday. Of course, in the current state of things, the water in my bathtub is the closest I will get to a beach. I had two other trips “planned” (but not booked) for this year (Jordan in June and Australia + Fiji in October). I still have faith that I will be able to travel this year, but I don’t want to think about travel for now. I don’t want to dream about new places only to become disappointed when the trip doesn’t happen. I’m putting that part of my life completely on hold for now.