riv

As I understand it, for travel to England from Portugal now ( mid October ) there is no longer any requirement for a pre travel Covid test / certificate. Just the NHS Cert of Vaccination suffices. ??

However, when booking the 'plane ticket, one must also book a DAY 2 ( after arrival ) Test and provide proof of having done so at UK Border ?

Anyone confirm or disagree ?

Shanorme

NHS vaccination certificate plus you do have to Book the Day 2 test and you record the test registration number on your PLF (passenger locator form). Mr Shan is going to the UK on Monday. He's booked his test and received an email with the number to put on his PLF.

morro

I am going to the UK on 21/10/21, the Govt cannot give a date on PCR day 2 test yet, why? It is only 2 weeks away! You can travel to Portugal without a PCR day 2 test. A minister in that department must have a million shares in a testing company!!!!!! Just give a date, any actual date!

Pistolpete2

I travelled on Easyjet from Madeira to Gatwick two weeks ago. ALL of the checking is done at check-in or in Madeira prior to departure - line by line cross-checking of details, so much so that the flight was delayed a few minutes while two passengers struggled to access their UK test confirmation numbers for their PLF on their phones - they had presumably somehow gone straight to the gate and on to the plane.

Ultimately they couldn't actually find the numbers after fifteen minutes of struggling with the assistance of Easyjet dispatch (LOL!) - if indeed they ever had any - and the captain ordered them off the plane. IMHO hard-copy is the way to go.

At Gatwick there is no checking and you can go straight to the Border gates with your passport so presumably the PLF and passport check is an online integrated system, once the proper data has been loaded and the UK expects this to be done at the point of origin.

Of note was the fact that SEF Police asked us if we lived in Portugal because we were 'at' 88 days in Portugal and when we said no, she asked us to be careful.

riv

You mean the Police KNEW without asking that you had been in the country 88 days ??

riv

Can I ask with whom did you book your day 2 test and what did it cost ?

Also - what exactly is the nitty gritty of how the day 2 test is done ? They send it to your designated address by post ? Courier ? Then you do it at home and send it off in the post ? or what ?

Pistolpete2

Our passports were stamped when we arrived in Porto on 27th June but the stamp needed ink so wasn't legible so I can only guess the SEF Police looked in the system - don't recall but they must have scanned them, as one would now expect.

Pistolpete2

As has been discussed, there are a number of covid testers who are either friends of the Government or are using the 'need' for covid testing to gather data for their own purposes and some of these are behind the airlines who offer promotion discounts.

However, as a result, I chose a not-for-profit entity called Testingforall and they charge 48 pounds for day 2. They deliver priority mail (next day) on the date of your arrival, so it is there for you in good time on day 1. We made sure that our arrival date allowed for easy testing and return (just in case we also had to do day 8) so we arrived on a Wednesday and prepaid-mailed our samples (easier than I thought) in a standard priority mail post box Friday afternoon - we had emailed results on the Sunday.

So the only thing you have to do is open the box, take the sample, put it back in the sealed container in the box and post it. And check your emails. And make sure you enter the testingforall number on your PLF.

riv

Do I find the PLF - Passenger Locator Form - somewhere within the Ryanair site ? Or somewhere completely different ?

Pistolpete2

https://www.gov.uk/provide-journey-c...fore-travel-uk

riv

So it turns out...........I cannot complete the PLF until 48 hrs before travel??

What on earth is the point of that restriction I wonder ? It means I cannot complete all the stuff on Ryanair either, which needs the PLF .

And I can't print stuff out until it's all completed.............Sunday...bla bla...........where to find a print shop on a Sunday ?

Do they need to make it SO difficult ?

And then at the end of all this...........there is no supervision of you even doing the day 2 test.............so anyone so minded could submit another person's samples................the whole thing seems to be devised by idiots.

robbie20

I am sure when I was going to Tavira twice in the Summer, I completed the Portuguese passenger locator form in long before 48 hrs before my flight.

It is a fact that you cannot complete the UK passenger locator form in until exactly 48 hrs. I found the Portuguese form much simpler than the UK form.

robbie20

I did not print out my passenger locator form. Just showed the saved form on my mobile phone. That was accepted.

dingg

Shambolic isn't it?
The ONLY thing Boris and Hancock got right was buying up vaccines before anyone else. Its a pity that there's no credible opposition or these clowns would have been gone by now....

riv

did not print out my passenger locator form. Just showed the saved form on my mobile phone. That was accepted.

But............the complaint is that you cannot even create the PLF until 48 hrs prior to travel.................so you cannot save it to a 'phone or print it out till then, or upload it to Ryanair ( which also means you cannot print the Boarding Pass ?? ) .

There seems to be zero logic to the time restriction on filling in the PLF.

This is the first time I have tried to do it for returning to the UK ( as opposed to travel to Portugal two months ago ), so I had no idea there would be such a restriction. If they want people to fill in the PLF why on earth not give them plenty of time to be able to do so ? Indeed most people with fixed travel dates would probably like to have it all done before they even depart the UK for their hols.............Some things just are really really difficult to understand...............Yet the UK's Civil Service is supposed to be 'Rolls Royce' etc etc............

So are millions and millions of holidaymakers doing this PLF business on their PHONES ??? all in the last day prior to returning to the UK ?