Holidaymakers pay thousands to scramble home from Balearics to avoid quarantine

British holidaymakers have paid thousands of pounds to race back from the Balearic Islands before they joined the UK’s amber list, triggering mandatory quarantine.

The Spanish islands, which include holiday favourites Mallorca and Ibiza, were previously on the government’s green watchlist, meaning arrivals from there could forgo self-isolation.

But on 14 July, the Department for Transport announced the islands would be downgraded as of 4am on 19 July.

From the same date, Brits who have received both vaccine doses at least two weeks prior and accompanying under 18s can swerve quarantine when they enter England from nearly all amber list countries.

However, the exemption won’t apply to the majority of younger travellers, who are unlikely to have had both jabs.

In response, many holidaymakers engaged in a mad dash to make it home before the deadline.

Father and son Miller and Cameron Fitzgerald paid more than £1,000 in order to return in time to swerve quarantine.

“Cameron has had his first jab but has his driving test booked so didn’t want to quarantine,” Miller, 53, from Leicestershire, told The Times.

“I paid £600 for the tests and £400 for the flights. I wasn’t too surprised that it changed because it’s been pretty chaotic. So we just had to be ready. There’s no doubt that what should have been a cheap holiday hasn’t been.”

Mia Brien, 18, who was on holiday with friends, said they all had to pay out to race back a day early.

“I dread to think what we’ve spent on all the flights and PCR tests,” she said. “It’s well over £1,000 each just to go on holiday for five days.”

Meanwhile, more confusion was added to the travel traffic light system over the weekend after the government effectively added an “amber plus” category by declaring that arrivals from France would still have to undergo 10 days of quarantine, even if fully vaccinated.

Fears about the Beta variant of the virus have led the government to exclude France from the blanket lifting of mandatory self-isolation for double jabbed travellers from amber list countries.