A few days ago, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the implementation, in the coming weeks, of a mandatory three-day quarantine in a hotel, at the expense of travellers, which could cost more than $2,000.
On February 8, 2021, the Government of Canada issued a call for bids from hotels interested in hosting travelers (see below for details).
On February 12, Justin Trudeau announced that the mandatory hotel quarantine will be implemented as of February 22, 2021.
These measures will be in place for those returning to Canada by air:
Over the land border:
Vaccinated persons will also have to comply with these measures.
Whether by air or land, all travellers will be required to submit their travel and contact information and quarantine plan to the ArriveCan application before crossing the border or boarding their flight.
For more information on the list of land ports of entry with testing facilities, please see the following link.
Here is the list of the 10 hotels that Ottawa would have selected near Montreal-Trudeau International Airport. This list will be subject to change as the situation evolves.
According to the JDM, travellers will be able to order their food from the hotel or from third party services such as Uber Eats.
This raises the question of the final cost for these hotel nights: the answer will be known on February 18, when the booking portal goes online.
It would, therefore, be possible for banner hotels to earn points and elite nights (provided that the reservation can be made directly on the hotel’s website, such as Marriott.com or hilton.com). Maybe even get 5 points per dollar with the Marriott BonvoyTM American ExpressMD Card!
A small compensation!
The selection criteria to become a listed hotel fall under 10 key areas:
The Government of Canada wants to reassure hoteliers who would like to participate in this initiative:
Generally, these hotels will be for people who are asymptomatic, have provided a negative pre-departure COVID-19 molecular test result, and are not close contacts of confirmed or probable cases of COVID-19. Travellers staying at these hotels while they await their test results may have symptoms of COVID-19 but previously tested negative on their pre-departure test or may have symptoms that are not related to COVID-19.
To summarize, the Government of Canada admits here in half-words that these travellers would not pose a great risk to Public Health or the hotels that would participate in this initiative.
The location less than 10 km away thus excludes many large downtown hotel structures which, in my opinion, were much better able to accommodate this type of visitor (for example, by dedicating entire floors to international travellers). These properties are empty at this hour, deserted for lack of business travellers/events.
Besides, airport hotels generally don’t have on-site catering services. Unlike the big banners downtown, used to hosting events.
Cover: Marriott Montreal Airport Terminal YUL – Credit: Marriott.com
Savings are here:
