Students planning for Spring Break travel are out thousands in travel costs amid coronavirus concerns

BOSTON — With fears spreading further than the virus itself, a lot of people are wondering what they need to do about travel.

Spring break is a time of the year many students look forward to as a nice, relaxing break with their friends often times at a beach in a different country. But what happens when there’s a global viral outbreak?

Boston 25 News spoke to students who say the novel coronavirus has all but ruined their spring break plans, which was supposed to start tomorrow for many of them.

Fears of the virus spreading has been costing students thousands of dollars.

“I was going to be there for about 11 days, I was going to take classes, take cultural visits to different places around Barcelona and end up in Paris as well,” said William Osler, a Providence College student.

Osler and dozens of classmates had to cancel their spring break trips to Europe as the virus continued to spread, where Italy has seen a rapid expansion of the outbreak within the country.

“I spent around $2,700 in total, I’m trying to get that money back, I tried calling the different airlines,” said Osler.

The college is trying to figure out how to recoup some of that money but students realize the airlines may not budge.

“They said they didn’t follow the CDC and didn’t care about it and that we should’ve canceled sooner,” said Osler.

Travel agents have had their hands full dealing with similar cases, saying the scenario changes with every new day and new information comes out and travelers are told to check in with the CDC.

“It’s every day that they are giving us updates so we have to go to the CDC and see what other countries are affected and from that we have to advise our clients or we call the airlines,” said Tammy Levent, a travel advisor with Elite Travel.

Levent says she’s been able to help a lot of clients get waivers to adjust their trips, but she says the cheaper the ticket and the cheaper the airline, the less likely you are to get a waiver - especially if you don’t have insurance.

“March 15 is the day they say they are willing to make changes to itineraries without a cost or to make changes with waivers for people are going to affected areas, so if you were traveling April 5 it may not be covered at that point,” said Levent.

As for Osler, he says since he couldn’t go to Europe, he scheduled another trip this weekend to go down to Tennessee.

“I scheduled another trip, hopefully going to Nashville tomorrow, hopefully nothing changes in the next couple of hours [but] we’ll see,” said Osler.

On Thursday, Boston officials announced a Tennessee man who tested positive for the coronavirus after attending a conference in Boston before returning to Nashville.

“It’s definitely a concern traveling now because it could affect me having fun down there or trying to leave or any other places that I am trying to visit while I’m on spring break next week,” said Osler.

For anyone planning a trip in the near future, Levent says they should do their research and see which places you can and cannot go right now.

“There’s a lot of places you can’t go to right now if you want to be safe and not have any issues,” said Levent. “Personally, I would not go on a cruise.”

But, no matter where you go, Levent says, “You have to get insurance, I tell everyone every time to get insurance.”

Levent also advises this is the best time to book a deal, especially for the end of the year or even next year, because the flights will likely be cheaper.

© 2020 Cox Media Group