COVID-19 impacting travel plans for Minnesotans

Coronavirus is having an impact on travel across the world.

Starting Friday night, a 30-day ban on most travel from Europe takes effect. American citizens can still return from Europe as long as they are screened.

Most airlines are offering flexibility when it comes to changing or canceling your flight, but many are having issues when it comes to getting these companies on the phone.

Brad Traczyk and his family have an all-inclusive trip to Jamaica in about three weeks, but with the risk of not being able to return home, they tried re-scheduling.

"We’ve saved up for a long time for this family trip as a six-person family to go, so it’s quite a financial burden to us to lose out on that money," said Brad Traczyk, who is scheduled to take a trip with his family in early April. "We’ve been trying to contact Travelocity and get an answer from them for the last couple weeks and we just haven’t been able to contact them. We get put on hold for an hour and then get hung up on and it’s just a matter of finding out exactly what’s going on."

They say Sun Country gave them vouchers to fly at another time, but they can’t get Travelocity on the phone to get a refund on their seven-night hotel reservation. Time is ticking and they just want answers.

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"Now it’s just a waiting game and they always say we’ll call you back in two hours, and then they say there’s a glitch and nothing happens and it’s just a confusing time and we don’t know exactly what’s going on," Traczyk said.

Travel experts say what we’re seeing with airline flexibility is unprecedented. With six-hour wait times and sometimes no callbacks, one expert says it’s evident the companies are completely overwhelmed with requests.

"The volume of calls and messages, and emails is probably at a record high for almost every airline," said Kyle Potter, editor-in-chief of Thrifty Traveler.

Potter recommends reaching out to these companies on Twitter if the website is down or you don’t get through on the phone. But even he admits, travel is simply unpredictable right now.

"There’s a lot of anxiety out there. ‘Is my flight going to leave? Is my flight going to get canceled? If I go somewhere am I going to be able to get home?’" Potter said. "So there are all these questions, and it’s all coming to a head at a time when airlines just aren’t able to answer every single question that people have because there are so many questions to answer."

Many travel companies are encouraging people to hold off on reaching out to change a reservation until two or three days before your trip.

For more information on travel advice visit https://thriftytraveler.com/.

5 EYEWITNESS NEWS reached out to Travelocity for a comment but never heard back.