UK hotel quarantine travellers who test positive for Covid from red list countries have to pay extra £1,200

Guests are allowed to leave hotel quarantine after 11 nights if they receive a negative Covid test result
Coronavirus - Mon Feb 15, 2021
PA

Travellers shipped to airport quarantine hotels will be landed with an extra £1,200 bill if they test positive for coronavirus, the Government has revealed.

This is on top of the £1,750 fee for entering the programme and will apply to guests required to extend their stay beyond the initial 11 nights.

Information about the £152 daily cost of longer stays was only published on the Government’s website on Monday, after some guests had already checked in.

From 4am on Monday, travellers arriving in England must quarantine in a hotel if they have been in a country at high risk of coronavirus variants in the previous 10 days.

Guests are allowed to leave after 11 nights if they receive negative results from tests taken on day two and day eight of their isolation.

A positive result from the first test will extend a traveller’s stay by two nights at a cost of £304.

If the second test returns a positive reading, the guest must remain in their room for an additional eight nights and pay £1,216.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson was asked at Monday’s Downing Street press conference what will happen if a traveller cannot afford the extra fee.

He replied: “It is currently illegal to travel abroad for holidays anyway.

“We would expect people who are coming in from one of these red list countries to be able to cover their costs.”

There are 33 countries on the Government’s “red list”, which includes Portugal, the United Arab Emirates, South America and southern Africa.

UK and Irish nationals and UK residents returning to England who have been in a country on the list in the previous 10 days must enter a quarantine hotel, even if they have travelled via the CTA.

UK Begins Hotel Quarantine Policy For Some Arriving Travellers
Passengers arriving at Heathrow’s Terminal 5 are escorted by security personnel
Getty Images

On Monday the first flight arrived at 6.20am but travellers found to be on the red list only emerged through immigration nearly two hours later.

Passengers reported big queues in the immigration hall with Border Force staff trying to establish who was on the red list.

Chun Wong told BBC Scotland he and his daughter flew into the country from the United States via Dublin, and went straight to a hotel at Edinburgh Airport.

Mr Wong told the broadcaster: “I received a call from reception saying a gentleman from the airport would like to talk to me.

“He said that since I landed in Dublin first and then got a connecting flight to here, I was not required to quarantine in a hotel.

“I still have to quarantine and do the self-testing kit on the second and eighth day, but they said it was an error on their part.”

Additional reporting by PA

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