Travel Insurance will not help with War
Travel Insurance does not help with war
So, somewhere, an unethical travel professional may read this and be mad at me.
But the Truth is the Truth.
On every policy I have ever seen, Acts of War are big, fat Exclusions on travel insurance.
Which means if you try to get money back for cancelling a vacation due to War, then too bad.
Here are examples from three policies from three large carriers.
I wish I could say that you could book with confidence right now with a Travel Insurance back up, but you cannot.
You can, often, still work he established rates to be refundable or even better, on guarantees with no penalty until closer to departure.
Some people don’t know, but ‘classically’ this is how hotels have been run for the most part for a long time. Online Travel Agencies, Tour Companies and Package Companies have made prepaypment seem almost normal with leisure travel, but it isn’t. What is normal is that a valid credit card is put down to lock the room in. The room can be cancelled with no penalty so long as it’s outside of a certain amount of time (often 24 hours, but read the fine pring").
But insurance? Not for this Ukraine thing. This comes just as Travel Insurance was starting to work for Covid19 reasons ( to some extent).
Watching the hopeful end of the Pandemic 3
There is so much good news here I stopped recording it. And I’m too upset about Putin’s invasion of Ukraine to make a big deal of it, but. Here are some good things about covid at least.
Watching the Hopeful End of the Pandemic
I have some more news articles I’ve snipped. I also have narrowed down since Mid January when the first of the restrictions started to lift.
***-Added one day after blog creation on 23 Feb.***
EU recommends lowering restrictions to member states.
This one goes the other way. We should watch Puerto Rico and Hawaii. If rates do start to go up, will they stay down in this US territory and State?
Japan lightens restrictions (a little)
Austria is easing restrictions.
Aruba, Sint Maarten, Saba, Puerto Rico and Bermuda all ease restrictions. This is a podcast.
Jordan lifts pre-testing restrictions, Like Israel, maybe even for Unvaccinated travelers?!?!
Lithuania is changing, Maybe for US travelers too? I’m getting competing info on this.
Driving in Iceland with Elfis
I’ve been running loose destination guides in Iceland. I asked my followers what they wanted to see next and it was… Iceland.
Iceland is great to drive and hard to deal with in any other way. It does have quite a bit of special considerations. Among those is insurance on cars which is more complicated than other places. Volcano coverage and other special coverages are a thing in Iceland.
But just for Safety, I couldn’t do a better job than Elfis the Elf here.
Tracking the end of the Pandemic 2
What do the numbers say?
The Numbers
In the past few days, I haven’t seen much in any more countries jumping onto the loosening of Covid Restrictions. Now that some countries have opened up for nearly a month. A look at the data seems to be warranted.
At First glance, just looking at case counts, things do not look good. (keep looking it gets better).
If you look at my previous blog, many of the countries featured in those articles are featured in these metrics from ourworldindata.com . In much the same way I state that I am not a health care professional niether am I a statistician or other expert in looking at numbers. However, I do love data. The data is looking good.
Case Counts are up, but mostly still going down. Omicron spikes are really something, aren’t they. It’s not just the way they spike up, but also how they come crashing down.
But hospital patients do not appear to be increasing with the lightening of restrictions.
Hospital Admissions are also mostly going down also. Hopefully Denmark will keep going down
I think this is becoming the most important metric. ICU Numbers, restriction changes does not seem to be a factor.
And the death data… Also shrinking.
Tracking if the Pandemic is ending
Tracking news to see if the Pandemic is ending/ changing, at least as far as travel is concerned.
Here is more news with what I’ve been talking about. It’s turning on. These are news articles I’m collecting about the shifting tide away from covid restrictions
Somebody is going to say “Why is this so expensive.” And I will say, “I’ve been seeing this coming for a long time, here are my blogs about it.”
Is that mean? I guess we will see.
Hey folks, also, if you see any news of restrictions going back. Please let me know.
Portugal and Greece relaxing restrictions
Lots in this article, but for 4, I am also seeing airfares start to jump.
The UK, with its easing of restrictions iis seeing a vacation (holiday) rush.
Added 9 Feb:
Scandinavia is unifying with lifting restrictions.
Greece Is dropping negative covid testing for travelers with a European Vaccination certificate. (I *think usa paper certs are ok.)
Parts of this article is covered (Scandinavia and France)
Canadian airlines are pushing for it.
Added Feb 10th
The Calgary Travel Lady showed a little more insight into UK restrictions lifting. I agree with her about Cornwall too. She also mentioned what she thinks the Canadian ‘temperature’ is about lifting their own restrictions. Like me, the travel lady wants to see things lift, let’s keep an eye out also for retightening of restrictions, eh?
This article mentions Morocco.
Great Article about domestic restrictions falling in the USA
USA talks about the Caribbean here.
And something on the otherside, sorta. A number of state are lifting restrictions, but the CDC is still advocating caution. Two thirds of the countries on earth are still ‘very high’ covid risk.
I’m also looking for news showing a prolonging of Travel Restrictions, like this one from Uncle Sam and the CDC.
Added Feb 11th
On the bad news side, Japan is doubling down and has made restrictions TIGHTER!
On the good. Ireland, Israel and El Salvador (and 5 others otherwise mentioned) have dropped restrictions.
Return to Oz
I am keeping my ear to the ground for Travel Restrictions to certain places and one of those places is Australia. (Some of us call it “Oz” for short) . Last month, Australia did an utter about face on it’s previously strict covid restrictions within country, with the new policy being called “Let it Rip”
This is the first article I’ve seen announcing the allowing of foreign travel restrictions to Australia. I’m having a busy morning so I am yet to corroborate this information. Since changing it’s policy Australia has experienced its most pronounced, by far, explosion in new cases and death. Yet, like with other Omicron surges worldwide, levels are dropping.
A great article on business class travel
This article,is an article that I have considered writing many times and it’s done better than I probably could. Simpleflying.com is a great website for air travel nerds (and a huge potential timesuck) and they clearly have some ‘ins’ which shows up in the research in this article. As great as this article is, it has an intrinsic flaw, it’s out of date. At only 6 months old one of the airlines mentioned here is now gone (with details on its successor still forming) the article is also inaccurate at the features of two of the airlines mentioned.
The Travel Industry reflects the world, and as such, it is always changing.
I sometimes get the feeling when I’m helping people with their first/business/premium class purchases that I’m beleaguering a point. It may be a very fancy seat on an airplane, but at the end of the day, it’s just a seat on an aircraft, right?
No. The fact of the matter is that it’s possible to spend more for some of those seats on some of those trips than one might pay for a used car. When people are spending that kind of money, I want to do my best to make sure they understand what they will likely get. Likely, because the airline industry moves fast. If an airline has a broken aircraft on a day with lots of sold seats and they have a choice between sending an inferior aircraft or sending nothing they will do what they have.
Things are always worth a simple double check.
Predicting if the Pandemic stage will begin to end soon
I made a prediction in my last newsletter that the US Case Count would be Begin to rapidly drop in 4-6 weeks and. I was right. You never know what really will happen with this wily virus, but I’m goong to make another prediction.
It is my personal opinion that the next 4-6 weeks will be very telling for the fate of travel in 2022. Right now we are seeing several countries cutting back in country covid restrictions and even some, a few, Travel restrictions. Some of the countries that are turning about are some of the countries that hit covid restrictions with the most vigor.
Israel and the UK, Scandinavia and other countries including Australia. If you’ve been keeping an Eye on the land down under that last one is very surprising. Now, I’m not here to promote or condemn the loosening of restrictions. I find myself simultaneously worried and so sick of restrictions myself I feel nearly ready to let it rip myself. If I had a child under 5 I’d be less cavalier, my daughter is 7 and as vaccinated as a marine on day one of boot camp. OORAH, MADDIE, OORAH!
Anyway, while I’ve been watching Case Counts for literally years now I think it’s time to move to watch (this is cheery) Hospitalizations and Deaths. If those stay fare enough Pandemic peak levels, then I think we will start to see the travel restrictions come off.
And then my friends. The Travel Game is on and OMG. The prices are looking rough. Some countries are betting on it. I pulled higher prices in Paris for this summer than I’ve ever seen before.
I’m still a proponent of getting options that are flexible early, but if you are hoping to travel in 2023. Keep your ear to the ground. Tracking flights with Google is great. I’m going to take a little while soon to look for an article on strategies on this. I have a few small things I do like isolating certain routes and nonstop flights and focusing on key travel days. I may write one, but I bet somebody has. If you see one, send it my way please.
I loved this podcast
I don’t want to sound like I’m a podcast reviewer. I do love podcasts and audiobooks. Anything that lets me learn when I’m exercising or driving is muy bueno. I’m the kind of person that if I’m not learning something, i’m at least somewhat uncomfortable.
So, I found this podcast and I WAS SO TICKLED!
I’m going to keep listening, this Jackie seems like a true lover of travel and somebody after my own heart and she has been doing something that Americans eschew… Group Travel.
I’m not going to say tour, you don’t even say “tour” in the travel business, it has a bad connotation to Americans. There are so MANY reasons to go on the right group travel experience (AKA tour). They are easy, they are fun and they are a tremendous value… again, so long as you pick the right one, that’s the only hard and most important part. This Jackie, by taking her audience, has a good thing going.
So, what I loved most about this particular podcast is that it showed something that I’ve tried to convince so many people of and I’ve seen proven over and over again. People make friends when they travel. Traveling with somebody is a powerful bonding experience. I’ve seen a few clients make friends in other countries (i tend to advocate tours with a multi-national pull) that they have kept their whole lives. If you listen to this podcast, you can hear that these people BONDED. They sound like old friends, but their aren’t, but you walk a mile with a person, you learn alot about them.
It also touches on the value. They talk about croatia. Croatia from the water… Well, it’s the only way to really do it, IMO. You can rent your own boat and do what these folks did, but they… split the price twenty ways. THey also got all of the brain drain taken out of it. I love planing my own travel (of course) but it’s something of a stress festival, Find this car rental depot, be at this hotel by this time, etc etc. A good group tour. You just have to show up and all of that is done for you.
It was so refreshing to hear a bunch of young people get turned on to group travel.
And I keep saying americans. It’s true, in my experience, most other nationalities love tours. It’s really easy to be the only american with a lot of group travel companies and I love that.
The Big Back Up
This is probably the most drastic pandemic travel plan I have helped with. The Back up.
Simply put, you book two possible trips, taking pains to make each one refundable or, even better, with arrangements that you pay for there such as on check out.
This is my latest example.
Imagine this. Let’s say you’ve only got one 2 week period in April all year in which to travel? You partially want to go to Kyoto, but you also have a dream trip to Madeira you’d like to take.
With the Pandemic, there are decent chances either place could get shut down for travel restrictions.
What to do?
In this case, There were two issues. One is that for Madeira, My client wants to stay in the Reid’s Palace. He wants the best and that hotel has to be cancelled at least one week prior to stay to hold a reservation and cancel it without having to pay any $$. In the case of Japan, the Ritz Carlton, you have to fly first to the west coast, because that’s what you have to do for refundable tickets. (Tickets to Asia get much more competitive in many ways where the Asian Carriers can compete)
He is set to leave April 9th, on March 30th, we have a meeting and on that date. We will cancel and refund in full the option he does not take. Also, hopefully, right before he leaves he’ll get about $5-7K added back onto his credit card from the refunded plan tickets (he flies business class)
The Pandemic Extreme Back Up plan is possible for economy travelers too. Refundable tickets are much cheaper and easier to get than ever. I’m never a fan of nonrefundable specials under the best of circumstances and for pandemic travel, no way.
Also, I keep having people say “I will get insurance.” Folks, for Travel Insurance, Covid is a big, fat exclusion. It’s not covered. Even when you get a CFAR (Cancel For Any Reason) policy, you still can’t say Covid. You have say “bad hair day” or “I suddenly find I don’t like Mexican food”
But, what you can do, for this, is just book trips leveraging items like credit card guarantees and fully refundability. You can’t find this in every case, but in many of them you can.
This is to the point that I have some clients planning two trips at the same time. It is seeming smarter all the time.
How Airfare is priced, at least in one case.
I just had a client book a trip for 8 couples and one of the couples had a slightly lower cost.
Of course, he asked why, and I had to say that the fare classes weren’t available for the rest of the group. What does that mean?
I will explain.
Airline pricing is exceedingly complicated and airlines also vary up their pricing structures with various strategies to get ahead. Since his flights were with JetBlue, which tends to price by individual leg, I thought it would be a good example for this post. Jetblue also operates a single cabin (no business, first or premium economy) which makes this also a little easier.
Here, we see flights as I see them. I’ve asked for flights on JetBlue (B6) from Salt Lake City (SLC) Via New York City (JFK) to Nassau, Bahamas (NAS)
All of those letters on the aircraft are “fare classes” So when a travel pro says “fare class” in respect to flight availability, they aren’t talking about a better seat, they are talking about the components that determine price. Now, sometimes, an airline would need to have the same fare class all the way from the origination to the destination, in this case, from SLC to Nassau, or it could be, like Jet Blue, where each leg can be priced separately and combined with the others.
Here we have the flights back. That is Nassau to JFK via Orlando.
And here we have how these price for two.
And how do we get the fares.? Well, you have to look at what we call “fare ladders” and here are two, SLC to JFK on the 1st of february and JFK to Nassau on the send
In the case of Jet Blue, they assemble tickets based on the cost of each flight. On the NYC to Nassau flight alone, Jetblue has over 250 fares or ‘prices’ possible for that flight alone on the 2nd of February, yes, the specific date matters too. (keep reading below) Each of those codes is called a “fare basis code”. That is the code the fare is based off of.
The below is what we call a “Fare Calculation” and if you look at these enough, they read like sentences. This one reads.
From Salt Lake City on Jetblue to New York, the fare is 160.93 with code OI4QBEY5. From New York on Jet Blue to Nassau the fare is 75.00 with code PL4AUEY5. Returning via Orlando the fare is $100 with fare basis UI4AUEY5. From Orlando to Salt Lake City the fare is 261.40 with fare basis RH7AUEY5. The total fare is $597.33 and with the accompanying taxes (each two letter code is a different tax) for a total fare of $771.77 per person.
So, here is one example of how plane tickets are priced. I’ve been considering doing a post like this for some time, but I wanted to wait until I got asked the question again “why is this price the way it is?” I have to thank the client that asked me this time. So often I have to waive my hand and be a little mysterious. It’s not that I don’t know or I think that you can’t understand, it’s just that it’s so complicated, I’d literally have to teach a class to have people understand it industry wide. Even just one example, with one airline, on one route, took a whole blog post.
Keep flying. This is high on the list of reasons why if you are serious traveller, you also have a serious travel professional working for you. To answer my client’s question on why one couple has a slightly different price is simple, slightly different fares were available. He also should know that these flights are BOOKING and moving a lot. I could’ve tried to have cancelled the first six to get the lower price and I did look at it, but by the time I did. One of the flights had booked out and the price would’ve gone up for the remaining six, even if I would’ve broken them into twos.
I originally titled this post “air fares demystified’, but somehow even after explaining it, that doesn’t seem appropriate.
To my client that asked, I hope it helps.
What an Email between GDS Pros looks like.
Even though I am independent, I am with a larger (and great) association called “The Travel Society”. They have some truly excellent staff . One of them, is probably even better at GDS than I am. Here is a reply to her. We are talking about possible seminars and here are my ideas and a big thank you. The newest GDS ‘Smartpoint’ for Travelport has some features that are new. One is an improvement of using a #. She turned me onto that, which I am loving.
******
YES! That hashtag is exactly what I was looking for. It screens out all but the actual airline I am looking for.
The FS part I've long adapted to. That's to the point that a fairly standard look at a ticket to Europe for me might look like FS2DEN20MAYPAR¤C--LON30MAYDEN¤W//SO/RMC0445/+/*A/PE25
But the hashtag is AWESOME!!!!! When availability is truly hard to find, FS commands hit a limit and many times I'm back to looking for specific fare classes on specific airlines. The Hashtag in an FS or Availability search takes out other airlines. Wow. I've looked for a solution like that on MyTravelport, where did you find it?
If you wanted to do a timesaver seminar. Here are some of my favorites with FS, I feel like taking a minute to write this out is the least I can do, I'm very grateful for that new command key!
FS2DEN20MAYPAR¤C--LON30MAYDEN¤W//SO/RMC0445/+/*A/PE25
This Line is FS for 2 from DENver on 20 MAY to PARis (ORY, CDG and even in some cases XPG and XED on a train) in Business Class ¤C -- OPEN JAW from LONdon (LHR,LGW, STN, LCY and LTN) on 30MAY to DENver in Premium Economy ¤W//Stopping Once/Restricting Maximum Connection to 04 Hours 45 Minutes/+/*A on Star Alliance only with a maximum PEnalty // of 25% of the base fare
I hold your own GDS skills in a very high regard, but we all have our own ways of working in these systems. I realize you may know all of these commands, so here is my rational on a few points.
I feel strongly that City Codes should be used over Airport Codes in cities with multiple airports. Whenever there is a national Airline and National Rail Service(LH in Germany, AF in France, LX in Switzerland) it's not uncommon for a train connection to be available. Sometimes these can be very convenient and very well priced.
Note: PAR, pulls Orly, Charles Degualle, Gare De Nord and Disneyland Paris. The other TGV trains you can connect to flights are not in paris. LON is for Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, City and Luton. For reasons uknown to me Southend has to be brought up on it’s own.
In Leisure Travel that has multiple legs, I nearly always try for Open Jaw Itineraries, the value is proven.
Business class is really nice going to Europe on an overnight, but on the way home, it's a bit more optional as that flight is more like a really long day than an overnight. Premium economy is usually combinable with Business class. People should always price both ways, sometimes it really is cheaper to just do business class in both directions
Nobody wants to stop more than once and if we were in a gateway like NYC or LAX, I'd likely replace the /SO with a /D for Direct. I should point out that, of course, if the aircraft stops without a change of flight number, there really can be another 'stop'.
Nobody wants a really long connection so I restrict the maximum connect time using max of just under 5 hours.
Most of my clients have get a lot of value out of their Frequent Flyer programs, so while I do try to ticket on their preferred Carrier, I start the search by merely restricting to the their consortium.
Given this age of Cancellations and rampant schedule changes, Refundable or mostly refundable tickets have gotten more valuable than ever and often, also for better prices. While a completely refundable ticket is best, there are multiple carriers that have a relatively small administrative charge only. I set at 25% maximum base fare penalty as a way of winnowing down a bit to go for a completely refundable fare.
Again, Thanks so much for the Hashtag command key. I feel like that has to be new! Thanks so much!
Pandemic Pricing may be coming to an end.
However, in the last week I’ve repriced a few things that I priced earlier in the year and came to some suspicions. I will do the Africa posting at a later date.
I’m starting to think what we will have in the near future of pandemic related hurdles will be replaced with cost related hurdles further out this year and beyond. I’m not a fortune teller, but if we assume the pandemic is abating, then I think we are looking at travel being hit hard with serious price hikes in the wake of coronavirus..
I have been seeing a very predictable pricing structure during the whole pandemic. Basically, the further out travel is, and the safer it is, the more expensive it is. As those dates fall closer and travel gets more precarious, the cost goes down.
This is generally opposite of what happens in the Travel industry at peak times. This is going back to almost Normal but what is abnormal is how much.
For a few examples.
In Denmark, in June, a hotel priced in June, the Lovely Falsed Kro, had gone up over $100 a Night.
Back in August, the 3 bedroom Villa at Kea Lani on Maui, for 3 adults and 2 children, 5 nights, priced in a Package with airfare included at just under $28K. I had to tweak the dates to get that room available, but for 5 nights in June, $42K That is Hotel only. No Airfare.
I Just priced the lovely Fullerton Hotel namesake Fullerton suite for a week in March for $21,1138SGD. I booked it for a client of mine back in May for $12,171.34SGD. $1SGD currently equals $1.35USD. So that’s a BIG difference.
I’m also seeing odd things on the airfare side as far as space available. They all amount to an airline ‘propping up’ their prices either in allowable fares or in how much space they ‘appear’ to have available on an aircraft. Finally, the very low-priced refundable airfares I have been seeing for the past 18 months are getting a little harder to find and a little more. For quite a bit, Some carriers were offering fully refundable business class for just $200 more, Now $400 is becoming more common. I’m starting to wonder when I’m going to start seeing refundable being triple the price as it often was pre-pandemic.!
But the SPACE!
Let me show what I mean. The below is a business class fare ladder for the summer for Air France. The base fare (without taxes) is $2k. In theory, If “z” class is available and it isn’t a weekend and if the ticket is purchased more than 90 days out, it should be around $3700-$3800 (taxes are alot)
But… As you can see, for June 8th (when my client is going) it is showing Z Class isn’t available. And the next cheapest tickets “I” only have 2 left!
This creates a Basefare of $3500.00 or over $5100 with taxes.
But… There is only one seat assigned in business class. Seat A2 is full and you know what? It probably isn’t. That’s probably one that’s being held onto for Airport assignment.
This isn’t just a business class thing. Below is the Denver-Tokyo nonstop. See all the grayed out letters? Those are “sold out”
But! Like the Airfrance Business class, there are barely any seats assigned. This is resulting in an economy price of $2584.47. That’s because we can’t get lower than “U” class. Cheap United tickets, friends are booked in G,K, L and T.
Like I said, pricing has been weird during covid, but this… this is very odd.
If you are thinking of travelling next year, you may want to plan early, for a good price, this may matter more in 2022 than it ever has. I still think one should hunt and try tor options that are flexible, or better yet, *refundable*. Remember, the most flexible kind of travel credit is cash!
A trip to Italy-A clients POV
I Love it when clients do this. If you travel, I would love to share your trip either on my blog or social media, or both.
I have a client that goes to Italy nearly every year. She doesn’t need my help in Italy, because she’s gotten to the point that I may call her and ask her advice from time to time. She just calls me because she always likes to work the free stopovers and add a country or two on the way to or from Italy. If memory serves. Ireland, Turkey, Iceland and Portugal have been included on past trips for her to Italy. This year… I’m so jealous, she’s going to Malta. Anyway, when it comes to using airline tickets creatively, I'm unparalleled. I’m really good in Italy, but if for somebody that’s been going every year for many years… they pretty much have it all down.
She also refers her friends and family to me for a little help with the airfare. This year her brother went along and as it turns out, he made a lovely blog about it. I asked him about covid and if I could share his blog (Prima and Seconda), and he said:
“Jacob, as I was posting the blogs it occurred to me that I hadn’t addressed COVID--neither the effects we saw on the ground in Italy nor the complications of requirements for entry and flights.
I did need to be tested for my flights there and back, and the availability of free tests from the library with online evaluation made it much easier than I expected.
It did not seem that pandemic concerns have started to pass. Virtually all indoor places required us to show our vaccination cards, which they referred to by the EU name "Green Pass." Masking indoors was pretty universal, and they had the usual stations of disinfectant everywhere.
You are welcome to steer anyone who might like it to my blog.
--Bill”
Again, Bill, thank you SO MUCH for sharing this with me and as a shout out to other clients, feel free to do just as Bill did. Even if you don’t have a blog, I’ll post your images, words and experiences on mine!
Book Spring Break Before Thanksgiving!
This is just a little project I’m starting to finally prove my theory that October is the best time to start booking Spring break. Also, I’m sure some very desperate people will call me starting in Late January when prime spring break dates are already out of this world expensive.
This is mostly focused on families. If you can avoid mid-March through to Mid April and don’t need to take advantage of weekends. Then you have more time. Some…
Almost all Tropical in and around North America hits it’s sweet spot Mid-November through Mid-May. Holidays are hard, but aside from that November through January are a great time to get a good price. We want to say a week away from Major Holidays, after that, things are pretty good.
Around President’s day weekend, things start to surge, hitting their peak in mid-march when those of us that live in cold climes are climbing the walls for some fun in the sun. If you have kids are are banking on spring break, you MUST book early.
I have a sorry, not sorry with these screenshots.
Sorry, because they are very simple, with letters corresponding to available seats and it takes 3 screens to see them all per aircraft.
Not sorry, because most travel agents can’t even pull these seat maps without making a reservation. You need old school code skills to pull these seat maps. With names in a record I can pull fancier ones. That you can ‘click’ on to book.
I feel like airlines don’t want you to see these seat maps because they indicate actual availability fairly well, remembering that people who accept basic economy tickets have ‘space’ but no seat assignments, so all modern aircraft tend to be more full than they appear.
I will point out that I did the first of the real Surge Weeks, just because it overlaps with My Daughter’s School district’s spring break. Denver Spring Break is the following week and is likely worse than this already.
Also, I really wanted to show the Grand Cayman flight, but it’s not back yet. I sure hope that comes back, that’s a SWEET spring breakspot. This year, I’m heading to the Caribbean in December (St Martin and Anguilla) . I'm hoping to head back to Mexico in January with the fam.
Travel agents largely do not travel at peak times, nobody gives us free stays then.
