# Boston-Qatar-Clark-hotel-home quarantine



## Alan Hill (Nov 26, 2016)

I apologize for the delay in posting but my wife and daughter have kept me pretty busy since I arrived home. This post will cover my experiences travelling and going through the Clark airport covid testing process. Your experience may very well be different than mine.

I flew Qatar airlines from Boston, layover in Doha and onward flight to Clark. The check-in process was much longer and more difficult than I had ever done pre-covid. I arrived at the airport 4 hours early, just to make sure I would have time. The airline set up a travel document check in station before even getting to the regular check in counters. My documents were checked 3 times, including taking photos of my tickets, passport, visa, marriage certificate and daughters birth certificate. The first person tried to tell me I could not fly because I did not have a copy of a negative covid test; I had to tell her that it is not required for entry into the Philippines, she passed me off to another agent because she did not have the authority to look it up. Second agent confirmed that I did not need a covid test, looked at all my documents including asking for my hotel reservation, ECIF (online covid registration) paperwork and onward ticket, taking photos of everything.

I passed the station and waited in-line for the check in counter. During my time in line, they did turn away several passengers for not having covid test results that were required for the country they were flying to. Every country seems to have different requirements and the agents have to refer often to the master book to make sure they have screened for all restrictions. The check in agent also looked at all of my paperwork including ecif, passport, visa, hotel reservation and onward ticket. Luggage was checked in same as usual, finally got my boarding passes that I was not able to get online.

Going through security was not bad, probably due to the huge decrease in travelers at the airport. Prior to boarding the aircraft, all passengers were given a faceshield that we were required to wear on the airplane except for eating/drinking. We were reminded several times to keep our faceshield for connecting flights.

Flight to Qatar was over half full, most of the aisle and window seats had passengers, most middle seats were empty. Free wifi was provided on the flight. Long layover in Qatar, got a $25 shower that was worth the price, spent my time watching movies. Free wifi in the airport was much better than I have had recently in Korea and Hong Kong airports. Flight to Clark was full but was the only flight landing that day. They handed out immigration paperwork, customs form and health card that were to be filled out on the flight.

The process at the airport was much better than I anticipated. Foreigners were seated in a separate section from the OFW's but we all sat through the same briefing, all in Tagalog. The briefing covered all of the same areas that are available from the Clark website, the only thing that I noted was different was that they were very strict that even spouses travelling together would have to be in their own separate rooms while waiting the test results. The briefer also told us that it could take 4-5 days to get test results back.

Once the briefing was complete, workers came to each person to check paperwork, they took the ECIF print out that I had gotten online, my Memorandum of Understanding stating that I would follow quarantine rules, and my health card. I was directed to the hospitality desk to show my hotel and car pickup reservation then to the back of the room to pay the P4000 for my swab test. A money changer station was open at P47.7 to $1. After getting my receipt for the test, I was directed to pick up my barcode at the desk and then downstairs for my swab test. The Red Cross worker jammed the swab as far up my nasal cavity as she could on both sides, then shoved another one half way down my throat and I was sent to immigration. 

The immigration officer asked to see my marriage certificate then grilled me on the date of my marriage, where we had gotten married and then wanted to know where my wife was. I have honestly never had an immigration officer ever speak a word to me in the Philippines before. This process took about 45 minutes so all luggage was already laid out on the floor. Picked up my luggage, dropped my customs form in the box (same process as always) and finally signed out of the airport. Hotel driver was there and brought me to the hotel.

Hotel was adequate, except for limited dining options and 4 tagalog tv channels. WiFi worked fine so I was able to watch movies. I expected a couple of days wait for my results but they came back about noon on Wednesday. I emailed the results to the hotel and they printed a copy off for me. The paperwork showed the results were collected at 4:45 PM Tuesday and showed negative at 7:22 am Wednesday morning, took the Bureau of Quarantine about 4 hours to email them to me.

Currently at home, have 1 week of home quarantine left. Nobody has come to check on me, but what I understand is, that is up to each barangay. If they find that you have violated quarantine, penalties can include fines up to deportation. After all it took to get here, I can do another week at home, it is not like there are alot of places to go.

Good luck to everyone else that is making the trip, hopefully this will at least give you an idea of what to expect until travel becomes less restrictive. I apologize for the length of the post but I figured it was better than putting all the information a piece at a time in response to probable questions.

Alan


----------



## Gary D (Oct 28, 2013)

Alan Hill said:


> I apologize for the delay in posting but my wife and daughter have kept me pretty busy since I arrived home. This post will cover my experiences travelling and going through the Clark airport covid testing process. Your experience may very well be different than mine.
> 
> I flew Qatar airlines from Boston, layover in Doha and onward flight to Clark. The check-in process was much longer and more difficult than I had ever done pre-covid. I arrived at the airport 4 hours early, just to make sure I would have time. The airline set up a travel document check in station before even getting to the regular check in counters. My documents were checked 3 times, including taking photos of my tickets, passport, visa, marriage certificate and daughters birth certificate. The first person tried to tell me I could not fly because I did not have a copy of a negative covid test; I had to tell her that it is not required for entry into the Philippines, she passed me off to another agent because she did not have the authority to look it up. Second agent confirmed that I did not need a covid test, looked at all my documents including asking for my hotel reservation, ECIF (online covid registration) paperwork and onward ticket, taking photos of everything.
> 
> ...


Hi Alan, you mentioned separate rooms for you and you wife, I had heard this but have not seen anything official, at least not on the Clark website. We have just booked a double room at the Red Planet for initially 2 nights. We don't travel until 1st Jan so unless something changes I'll be going as a Balikbayan.


----------



## Alan Hill (Nov 26, 2016)

Gary D said:


> Hi Alan, you mentioned separate rooms for you and you wife, I had heard this but have not seen anything official, at least not on the Clark website. We have just booked a double room at the Red Planet for initially 2 nights. We don't travel until 1st Jan so unless something changes I'll be going as a Balikbayan.


Hello Gary,

I flew alone as my wife was already here. I had not seen anything about separate rooms, either, but during the briefing, that was emphasized. One person per hotel room, they repeated it and double checked at the Tourism desk where they check your hotel reservations.

Good luck on your trip.
Alan


----------



## hogrider (May 25, 2010)

Many thanks for your very informative post, most useful to many I'm sure


----------



## Gary D (Oct 28, 2013)

Hi Alan, how long did it take from having the swab test to receiving the result. I assume you only took the p4000 test rather than the p7000 or p10,000.


----------



## Alan Hill (Nov 26, 2016)

Gary D said:


> Hi Alan, how long did it take from having the swab test to receiving the result. I assume you only took the p4000 test rather than the p7000 or p10,000.


Gary, at Clark there is only the P4000 option. The test was taken at 4PM Tuesday and results were emailed Wednesday at 11:30 am. The workers in the airport will send you a test email while you are there to ensure that they have your correct email address. 
Alan


----------



## Gary D (Oct 28, 2013)

Alan Hill said:


> Gary, at Clark there is only the P4000 option. The test was taken at 4PM Tuesday and results were emailed Wednesday at 11:30 am. The workers in the airport will send you a test email while you are there to ensure that they have your correct email address.
> Alan


Thanks Alan. The information I've seen is that the 4000 is 48Hr, 7000 is 24Hr and 10000 is 12Hr.


----------



## DonAndAbby (Jan 7, 2013)

Alan Hill said:


> Gary, at Clark there is only the P4000 option. The test was taken at 4PM Tuesday and results were emailed Wednesday at 11:30 am. The workers in the airport will send you a test email while you are there to ensure that they have your correct email address.
> Alan


I know a guy who came into Manila with his wife in early November. Separate rooms were not required. They also got the results back in less than 24 hours, and just paid the normal Manila airport price. 4 or 5 k, I think.


----------



## DonAndAbby (Jan 7, 2013)

Alan Hill said:


> I flew Qatar airlines from Boston, layover in Doha and onward flight to Clark.


Covid impacts aside, how did you like flying Qatar over Doha? My friend says he likes Qatar a lot better than Emirates over Dubai. I have never flown either but thought about it. What was your total travel time, Boston to Clark?


----------



## Gary D (Oct 28, 2013)

DonAndAbby said:


> Covid impacts aside, how did you like flying Qatar over Doha? My friend says he likes Qatar a lot better than Emirates over Dubai. I have never flown either but thought about it. What was your total travel time, Boston to Clark?


Both Qatar and Emirates are my favourites although flying from the UK. I would say there's not much to choose between them. We haven't been on Qatar since they opened the new terminal but if it's anything like Dubai it will be very nice.


----------



## Alan Hill (Nov 26, 2016)

DonAndAbby said:


> Covid impacts aside, how did you like flying Qatar over Doha? My friend says he likes Qatar a lot better than Emirates over Dubai. I have never flown either but thought about it. What was your total travel time, Boston to Clark?


I have done both routes, Emirates to Dubai and Qatar to Doha, they are similar. Personally, I like Doha airport better as it does not seem as spread out as Dubai. I once spent 56 hours stuck in Dubai airport trying to get back to Afghanistan so I avoid it as much as possible.

Boston to Doha was 12 hour flight. 8 hour layover this time (first time about 7 years ago was only a 90 minute layover), then another 8 hour flight to Clark. So, 28 hours, comparable to the Boston-New York-Korea-Clark flight that was my other option.

Alan


----------



## DonAndAbby (Jan 7, 2013)

Alan Hill said:


> Boston to Doha was 12 hour flight. 8 hour layover this time (first time about 7 years ago was only a 90 minute layover), then another 8 hour flight to Clark. So, 28 hours, comparable to the Boston-New York-Korea-Clark flight that was my other option.


BOS/LAX/MNL is not attractive?

I have been looking at flights to Texas and MNL/LAX/Texas seem like the only good option with my family. I prefer Clark but PAL does not have any Clark International flights yet. Maybe they will after the new terminal opens. That should be soon, I believe.


----------



## Alan Hill (Nov 26, 2016)

DonAndAbby said:


> BOS/LAX/MNL is not attractive?
> 
> I have been looking at flights to Texas and MNL/LAX/Texas seem like the only good option with my family. I prefer Clark but PAL does not have any Clark International flights yet. Maybe they will after the new terminal opens. That should be soon, I believe.


When I fly to Manila, my choice of flight goes through Detroit/Japan, or Boston/Hong Kong/Manila but the only flights I could find that get me to Clark were through JFK/Korea or the mid east route that I took. I wanted to land in Clark as its only 10 minutes from our apartment. I did not want to get stranded in Manila and end up paying double price for a car to drive me back to Angeles.

Alan


----------



## Gary D (Oct 28, 2013)

Alan Hill said:


> When I fly to Manila, my choice of flight goes through Detroit/Japan, or Boston/Hong Kong/Manila but the only flights I could find that get me to Clark were through JFK/Korea or the mid east route that I took. I wanted to land in Clark as its only 10 minutes from our apartment. I did not want to get stranded in Manila and end up paying double price for a car to drive me back to Angeles.
> 
> Alan


We're looking for flights for next year and prefer Clark as it's closer than Manila plus the traffic. What has surprised me is that Clark is about $100 cheaper than Manila, it's normally the other way around. Need the onward ticket as we travelled to the UK on a return ticket.


----------



## DonAndAbby (Jan 7, 2013)

Gary D said:


> We're looking for flights for next year and prefer Clark as it's closer than Manila plus the traffic. What has surprised me is that Clark is about $100 cheaper than Manila, it's normally the other way around. Need the onward ticket as we travelled to the UK on a return ticket.


When did you leave? Bataan has been one of the strictest places to move around the past few months. You have to have to have their QR Code app on your phone. I'm going to Dinalupihan Sunday so I will see what it is like.


----------



## Gary D (Oct 28, 2013)

DonAndAbby said:


> When did you leave? Bataan has been one of the strictest places to move around the past few months. You have to have to have their QR Code app on your phone. I'm going to Dinalupihan Sunday so I will see what it is like.


We left 21st July two weeks before they stopped BBs re-entering. We are returning 2nd January with the intention of spending June -August in the UK again.


----------



## Mok (Dec 16, 2020)

Alan Hill said:


> I apologize for the delay in posting but my wife and daughter have kept me pretty busy since I arrived home. This post will cover my experiences travelling and going through the Clark airport covid testing process. Your experience may very well be different than mine.
> 
> I flew Qatar airlines from Boston, layover in Doha and onward flight to Clark. The check-in process was much longer and more difficult than I had ever done pre-covid. I arrived at the airport 4 hours early, just to make sure I would have time. The airline set up a travel document check in station before even getting to the regular check in counters. My documents were checked 3 times, including taking photos of my tickets, passport, visa, marriage certificate and daughters birth certificate. The first person tried to tell me I could not fly because I did not have a copy of a negative covid test; I had to tell her that it is not required for entry into the Philippines, she passed me off to another agent because she did not have the authority to look it up. Second agent confirmed that I did not need a covid test, looked at all my documents including asking for my hotel reservation, ECIF (online covid registration) paperwork and onward ticket, taking photos of everything.
> 
> ...


Hi Allan, does qatar airlines mandate rt pcr negative test result to board a plane from USA to PHILIPPINES? I have read your post that the first rep had ask you but passed you on the other rep


----------



## Alan Hill (Nov 26, 2016)

Mok said:


> Hi Allan, does qatar airlines mandate rt pcr negative test result to board a plane from USA to PHILIPPINES? I have read your post that the first rep had ask you but passed you on the other rep


Mok,
The airlines did not require the covid test from the US to the Philippines. Most countries do require it, so it was a default question that the airline worker asked. When they looked it up in the rule book, they saw that Philippines only requires covid testing upon arrival at the airport.
Alan


----------



## Gary D (Oct 28, 2013)

We are flying Emirates 1st Jan who did until recently require a pre-flight covid test. This has now thankfully been relaxed but we still require a test on arrival. The rules can change daily.


----------

