The rip-off shambles that is the UK’s track and trace system for international travel

I knew I was going to quarantine for the whole of my stay anyway. That’s fine, after a year of this I know the drill, and I was happy to comply with anything if it meant I could visit my parents at last.

So I waded through the complex instructions online, duly purchasing my day two and eight test kits, and completing my passenger locator form. And because the dates did not align, I had to book yet another test to re-enter Spain within the 72 hour window prior to my flight home. Finally, the only thing that was left was to book one more PCR locally before my outbound flight.

At this point my expenditure on Covid testing was already about three times that of the flights, even after various last minute chopping and changing there – my original travel plans had included a transit through Paris, which I panicked was about to hit the UK government’s red list. As this would have meant hotel quarantine for a longer period than my intended stay, I managed to find a direct flight two hours drive from home, and arrange a PCR test locally. All sorted.

Complex steps, carefully followed:

Certainly the local test was straightforward: they emailed me the antigen result before I left the building, and the multilingual…