Rip-off travel websites charging up to £72 for free passenger locator forms

In some cases, Google ranked the rip-off form filling offer higher than the free government website link

Passenger locator forms are required for most countries around the world (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

Travellers are being warned to be vigilant about rip-off websites which are offering “help” with passenger locator forms in exchange for cash.

“Instead of leaving travellers to use official government websites for their holiday paperwork, companies are offering to ‘help’ people fill out passenger locator forms (PLFs) on their behalf for a fee,” reported Which? Travel, noting that many of the offers pertained to foreign travel forms.

Researching the trend for travel websites offering assistance, the consumer champion found sites charging up to $99 (£72) for the service.

Of six countries’ forms they’d seen offers of paid assistance for, Which? found that all six were in fact free to access and fill in online.

“To check how many sites are offering this service, we performed separate PLF searches for the UK, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Italy and Turkey,” the brand reported.

“In total across all searches, just on the first two pages of Google results, 19 non-governmental results were returned, which included 12 different URLs, offering to apply for PLFs for a fee.”

Furthermore, Google ranked two of these rip-off results higher than the actual government website link to the free form.

For many, Passenger Locator Forms are a cumbersome stipulation of Covid-era travel - depending on the destination they’re for, they often run to several pages long and require access to everything from your flight numbers to the booking reference for your day two test order.

Earlier this month, Eurostar’s strategy director Gareth Williams called the UK’s form “a list of redundant questions for six pages”.

International Air Transport Association (Iata) chief Willie Walsh has also criticised the complexity of the UK form that every traveller and citizen arriving into the country must complete.

“I seriously doubt anyone’s looking at it,” he said.

Ministers have said the UK version of the PLF will remain indefinitely, but industry figures have predicted that it will become more user-friendly.

Last week, Heathrow Airport bosses called for a review of the forms at the next Global Travel Taskforce meeting, as part of efforts to simplify international travel and help the industry recover.

A statement from Heathrow said: “Despite clear signs of recovery, passenger levels remain 56 per cent down on pre-pandemic levels.

“With air travel at other major European airports recovering faster, ministers should reassess testing requirements for fully vaccinated passengers and the Passenger Locator Form at the next Global Travel Taskforce review, to ensure the UK is aligned with its European competitors.”