Dear all,
here is my travel experience from Aberdeen to San Francisco, on the 16th of June. A bit of a lengthy message but hopefully will be useful to others.
There were 5 of us, 4 with US passport and 1 (myself) Italian, but spouse of a US citizen.
We did Qured for Covid testing, £33 each. Went well, but at first Qured could not see the emails with the picture of the outcome, after a few email interactions, things worked out well. We use VERIFLY, at first it would not verify the covid testing documents for my wife and my daughter, then tried adding them with their second nationality (Italian rather than USA), and they were approved. However, at check in in London the app would not display everyone's picture, only mine (they were all under my name as companions). Luckily I had a hard copy of all relevant documents with me, and they took those. We purchase health insurance via insubuy, ($500 for 5 of us, for 40 days) a bit expensive but the only option really, given that UK based standard travel insurance would not cover us because we were travelling against FCDO advise
Apart from these relatively minor issues with Qured and VeriFLY, our main problems were that my two boys US passport expired two months ago. Now the US Government allows people with expired passport to travel back home nonetheless, but it was not easy. Then the other issue is that I was Italian, although a spouse of an American. Because of the problems above, in Aberdeen (Scotland) they would not print out boarding pass for the London - San Francisco flight. They said there were issues that they were unable to resolve, and to try again in London. Once in London, they let us a through the terminal but we were told to go immediately to customer service to get the problem sorted. At customer service, the British Airways personal almost laughed at me, when I presented two expired passports and mine Italian. It took some 30 minutes of different phone calls to eventually get the go ahead. They wanted the marriage certificate (of which I had a certified translation in English, being it originally in Italian), a copy of my ESTA, all 3 kids birth certificate. We were really grilled, and everything was checked multiple times, but eventually they let us through.
Flight Aberdeen London was full, many people not wearing masks properly, which annoyed me a bit, given that on internal flights people are not even requested to get a negative covid test.
In London, most personnel, esp BA customer service people, did not wear a mask at all.
Flight London to San Francisco was almost empty, I would say one seat out of 5 taken, no more. Everybody being really careful/respectful in terms of wearing masks.
Once in San Francisco, we were told before disembarking that inspectors were at the gates random checking negative Covid tests. So make sure you definitely have a printed copy of whatever test you take, Passport control was a breeze, although they did ask for my marriage certificate again.
Very glad I can now enjoy a bit of Californian sun and spend time with my wife's family. First thing to do today is to get the passport of the boys sorted. Hopefully the way back will be less stressful!
Enjoy your travel, if you decide to go, and good luck with it,
Matteo
