Crystal generated a good amount of PR when they announced this week that they will be giving customers free Covid19 insurance.
However, every news outlet reporting this development appear to have simply ‘copy and pasted’ the press release without reading it.
Crystal may not operate any ski holidays this winter
While the ‘Crystal Holiday Promise’ includes free amends, cancellations and cash refund guarantees, the small print suggests that Crystal may operate very few ski holidays this winter.
In their press release, Crystal state:
“Crystal won’t operate holidays to resorts where it’s known customers will need to self-isolate or quarantine when they get there or when they get back home.”
The key phrase here is ‘…or when they get back home’.
No ski holidays if quarantine still in place
Based on current quarantine regulations, this means that in winter 2020/21 Crystal would not operate to France, Austria, Italy, Switzerland, Andorra, Bulgaria, Canada or the USA.
Additionally, even though the other two countries that Crystal offer – Finland and Norway – are on the travel corridor list (at 21 October 2020), both countries require UK citizens to quarantine on arrival and so these holidays would not operate either.
UK’s largest ski company may not operate in 2020/21
Essentially this means that unless quarantine stops for these respective countries, the UK’s largest ski company will not operate a ski programme at all this winter.
The company announced in September that they would not offer any chalet holidays, but this would affect their entire programme.
When we followed up with Crystal Ski to check we had the facts right, they verified that we had understood this correctly.
“If the government advice is still to quarantine on return from a country, we won’t operate there.”
Ruth Bishop, Senior Press Officer, TUI
Quarantine unlikely to be dropped
Tui also said:
“At the moment we are still a couple of months away from the start of the season, so we are not cancelling holidays this far out as the government advice may well change.”
While we hope that the (ridiculous) quarantine rules are dropped, the UK government’s ‘Travel Task Force’ seems to be favouring a ‘Test and Release’ programme to start in early December.
Our Advice: If you’re prepared to quarantine, don’t book with Crystal
Research by the Mountain Trade Network suggests 55% of skiers would quarantine for up to 7 days.
If you are in this group, we recommend that you do not book with Crystal Ski this winter, however tempting their ‘Holiday Promise’ may be.
There are many other ski companies that will operate, even if a quarantine is in place.