Holiday warning as tourists banned from flight after Covid test blunder

TWO women were banned from boarding their flight after making an easy Covid mistake.

Jessie Carr, 22 and her sister Angie, 23, were travelling from Australia to Bali to see their dad, who they hadn’t been able to visit for months.

TikTok/ _jessiecarrJessie Carr and her sister Angie were stopped from their flight due to making a Covid test mistake[/caption]

To enter Indonesia, all arrivals must take a Covid test 48 hours within departure.

However the sisters took their tests too early by accident – meaning they expired two hours before they were due to check in.

They took the test 50 hours before their flight, and got their results 40 hours before their flight.

Jessie said in a TikTok video to her 32k followers: “When you get denied to catch your flight to Bali because the PCR test expired two hours before check in.”

She explained that it wasn’t made clear that the test had to be taken within the 48 hours, as they thought it meant they needed the test results within the 48 hours.

A text from the airline said: “Requirement include RT-PCR negative test results within 48 hours before departure for all passengers.”

There was an option to do another test at the airport, but the results came in 1.5 hours – too late as they would be on the plane.

They then managed to move their flight to a few days later, but were left out of pocket for new tests and accomodation, as well as an airport hotel and taxis, losing almost AUD$700 (£394).

Jessie told the Daily Mail: “We also had already paid for accommodation in Bali for that night so we lost our money for that as well, $70 (£39) for one night.

“Plus, by that point our PCR tests would be expired before the new flight so we had to pay again $79 (£44) each for new ones, after already paying $150 (£84) for the first ones. 

“Therefore we lost about $700 (£394) overall due to the unclear information provided.”

Jetstar has since updated its advice to avoid any confusion, with a spokesperson saying they had “changed their SMS” to make it clear about the testing rules.

Covid restrictions can be confusing, and the sisters are not the first this has happened to.

Last year, a couple were banned from their easyJet flight after being told their Covid tests had been taken 40 minutes too early.

And a family were stopped from boarding their flight to Croatia after they were told that they had taken their Covid test just 15 minutes too early.

Brits heading to Bali could also be caught out by another rule not related to Covid.

Bali has strict passport rules regarding the condition of the documents, with a number of people banned from boarding m their flights.

GettyThere are strict rules when visiting Bali right now, which has reopened to tourists[/caption]