Autumn is a great time to plan city breaks, winter sunshine holidays and long-haul adventures. But red tape and Covid issues can still intervene.
Our travel correspondent did his best to help in the latest Ask Me Anything.
Q: Any updated on the Esta situation regarding Cuba for travel to the US? Seems a multitude of opinions on this across the web with no concrete answers from what I can see.
Holidaytravel
A: All you need to know is here. In one of his last acts as US president, Donald Trump added Cuba to the American list of nations that have “repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism”. However implausible a description that might be of the government in Havana, his successor, Joe Biden, has left the designation in place. It serves as yet another economic sanction by the Americans against the communist Cuban government. The idea is to harm Cuba – by punishing people who have been there and seeking to persuade other people not to go there.
Being classed as a “state sponsor of terrorism” (SST) – alongside Iran, North Korea and Syria – has several serious effects. One is to disqualify travellers who have been to Cuba since March 2011 from using the Electronic System for Travel Authorisation (Esta) scheme. Instead of a 10-minute, £18 online procedure for an Esta, they must pay £137 and wait months for an appointment for a visa interview.
Effectively, the Americans are saying that if you were foolish enough to take a holiday in the Caribbean’s biggest and most beautiful island at any time over the past 11 years, you have written off the chance of smooth travel to the US. And, in future, travellers will have to decide between travel to Cuba or easy access to America.
In practice, many British travellers who have visited Cuba during the offending decade have travelled to the US on an Esta without a problem. The current form does not mention the island. The main way a frontier official would discover a visit is from a Cuban visa stamp.
A new passport will “launder” that status, and there is evidence that even those with proof of a visit to Cuba have got through. But I must repeat the State Department insistence that: “Any visit to an SST on or after March 1, 2011, even if the country was designated yesterday, renders the applicant ineligible for Esta.”
I have pointed out to the American authorities that there is a lot of confusion and conflicting online information, but they reiterate that any visit since March 2011…
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