Someone posted in a Facebook group about this ill-managed quarantine process
"
The agent right away started asking for
number of travellers/rooms, my name, contact number, email, city of arrival, date of arrival. I stopped the process to ask questions. Found out:
We HAVE to use this phone line to book. Right now they don't have an online option, but the agent said something like "it's early, things may change".
They DON'T know ANYTHING about the cancellation or rebooking policies of individual hotels. For that, we would need to call the hotels individually to ask. (e.g. I asked what happens if my flight is rebooked again and I need to change my room booking, will it be additional charges? The agent couldn't answer)
Booking through the phone line is NONREFUNDABLE. That's it. Don't waste your time calling if you're not ready to confirm a non-refundable booking.
You have to call the hotels to ask about their policies, then call this 1-800 number to book, then call the hotels again directly if anything changes.
- RATES FOR VANCOUVER: at the time of my call, per night (inclusive of 1 single room, taxes, 3 meals):
YVR Fairmont Vancouver Airport- 463 CAD per night
YVR The Westin Wall Centre, Vancouver Airport - 525 CAD per night"
This took so long to announce and roll out and it was still so poorly done. Would also assume taxpayers are paying a large amount for this phone service which makes the situation even worse. People would start protesting if Canada stopped issuing permits and visas. There have been delays and there were petitions, twitter campaigns, protests, etc. when processing was stopped or slowed down in the spring/summer. International students contribute a lot to the economy and school budgets so many schools pushed hard to have international students enter Canada even if studying online. Temporary workers are vital for certain industries so there would be serious consequences to things like our food supply if visas/permits were not processed . There are minimal private refugee applications being processed/being approved at the moment. Most are stuck in processing for various reasons like not being able to do interviews.
