Jump to content

RCI/AON travel insurance claim for nonrefundable Air2Sea penalty?


 Share

Recommended Posts

Just had to cancel our cruise (boohoo!) for June for a valid reason per Royal Caribbean's Travel Protection. We'd purchased our flights through Air2Sea as well. Since our airfare was nonrefundable, there is a penalty of $215 per person.

 

Question - is this penalty something that can be claimed through the policy (which is administered by AON)?

 

The policy states that if we cancelled for ANY REASON, we'd receive 75% of our cruise amount - minus Air2Sea - towards a future cruise, but makes no mention of Air2Sea in the Cancellation Penalty Waiver Program, e.g. for a valid reason.

 

So, I'm wondering if anyone has been able to get back the nonrefundable airfare penalty.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just had to cancel our cruise (boohoo!) for June for a valid reason per Royal Caribbean's Travel Protection. We'd purchased our flights through Air2Sea as well. Since our airfare was nonrefundable, there is a penalty of $215 per person.

 

Question - is this penalty something that can be claimed through the policy (which is administered by AON)?

 

The policy states that if we cancelled for ANY REASON, we'd receive 75% of our cruise amount - minus Air2Sea - towards a future cruise, but makes no mention of Air2Sea in the Cancellation Penalty Waiver Program, e.g. for a valid reason.

 

So, I'm wondering if anyone has been able to get back the nonrefundable airfare penalty.

 

You need to check with the insurer to be sure about what *your* particular policy covers (or doesn't).

 

We can give opinions here, but we don't know the specific terms of your specific policy.

 

But it it's a "valid" reason, why wouldn't you get back 100%?

 

Good luck.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks, I know that it's hard to comment without seeing the policy, which is why I mentioned that it's Royal Caribbean's policy through AON ... in case anyone had specific experience with their policies.

 

In general, though, has anyone had a nonrefundable airfare refunded without penalty under trip insurance?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks, I know that it's hard to comment without seeing the policy, which is why I mentioned that it's Royal Caribbean's policy through AON ... in case anyone had specific experience with their policies.

 

In general, though, has anyone had a nonrefundable airfare refunded without penalty under trip insurance?

 

There is no guarantee that a policy *you* purchased at some prior time would have the exact same terms/conditions as a policy that someone else purchased.

 

Why don't you call them?

Then you would have a precise answer for *you*.

 

BTW, I could give you an answer about *our* experience with non-refundable airfare with trip insurance, but who knows if our policy was anything like yours?

 

You also mentioned "ANY REASON" and "75%", all of which make it even more difficult to compare.

It isn't even clear what your coverage is to begin with.

(We had 100% coverage because we didn't need to use "Cancel For Any Reason", although we did have such a clause.)

 

??

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Can you explain the penalty a little more? I am not familiar with the exact offerings of Air2Sea, and it may be different than what I am going to mention here.

 

If the cruiseline acted as your booking agent, and your air ticket is a typical non-refundable economy ticket, then might you be talking about the rebooking fee? A non-refundable ticket cannot be refunded, but it can be changed (rebooked)....at a cost. The rebooking fee is the cost of this change, and there are often time limits and city pair restrictions, as well, depending on the airline and ticket terms.

 

If your 'penalty' is actually the rebooking fee, that may be the only portion of the ticket cost covered by the insurance at this time, as the ticket value is still usable for a different flight. You may also have to refile the Insurance claim once the flight ticket expires and seek the rest of the reimbursement. As others have said, you need to contact your insurance claim processor to ask the specific questions that apply to your case.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yes, it is the rebooking aka change fee. $200 per ticket on Delta with a $15 per ticket add from Air2sea. This is the amount in question as to whether the insurance will cover it.

 

The contract is specific that it will not cover this if the cancellation isn't for a covered reason but doesn't say whether it is (or not) if cancellation is for a covered reason (which ours is ).

 

Sent from my SM-G900V using Forums mobile app

Link to comment
Share on other sites

SInce you booked your air through Royal, and you have stated your reason is a covered reason (one of the five specific reasons listed in the DOC), then your 'insurance' is actually a cancellation penalty waiver. The first paragraph says:

 

The Cancellation Penalty Waiver Program offers our valued guests the opportunity to receive a refund from RoyalCaribbean International (beyond the standard refund policy published in our cruise brochure) for those otherwise non-refundable cruise vacation-related costs prepaid to Royal Caribbean International, should you cancel or interrupt yourcruise vacation for the reasons stated below.

Cancellation & Interruption Penalty Waiver.......................................Cash Refund Up To Total Cruise Vacation Cost

 

This Cancellation Penalty Waiver is an addendum to your cruise ticket contract. Through the Travel Protection Program,Royal Caribbean International will waive their standard cancellation provision and refund to you IN CASH the otherwisenon-refundable value of the unused portion of your prepaid cruise vacation, should you or your traveling companion needto cancel your cruise vacation for any one of the following reasons (subject to the restrictions noted below*). In addition,through the Travel Protection Program, should you or your traveling companion need to interrupt your cruise vacation(embark after your scheduled departure date or disembark before your scheduled return date) for any one of the samefollowing reasons (subject to the restrictions noted below*) you will be refunded IN CASH the otherwise non-refundablevalue of the unused portion of your prepaid cruise vacation.

The bolded part is the key to you.

 

Your air cost is part of your vacation cost paid to Royal Caribbean, so the entire air cost should be considered part of your refundable amount. Rebooking fees are irrelevant if you booked your air via Royal.

 

Also, I do not see a specific mention of rebooking fee coverage or exclusion; can you tell me which section that is in? The only mention of rebooking fee I see is under part C coverage, which applies to baggage loss only.

 

Since the air was purchased through Royal, the entire air cost should be part of vacation costs paid to Royal. As such, Royal will cancel the air ticket and receive any reusable funds. They own the ticket, not you, so there is no rebooking fee. Nor is there any residual value to the ticket for you to use.

 

This is the DOC I used, please advise if yours differs, or if you had some sort of unusual, custom air arrangement.

http://www.royalcaribbean.com/content/en_US/pdf/RCC_Version_4_9-2015.pdf

 

The current plan offered by Royal ( since 10/16) is now administered by Arch Insurance, not Aon, so I am just guessing this is your plan.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

An update: we submitted our 9 page claim via email on May 16, and received the following email response from Aon Affinity on May 18:

 

"Please be advised that we have received your Trip Cancellation claim form. We will be in contact with you should any additional information be required as we review your claim."

I sent a follow-up email inquiry as to the status on June 4, and received the following email response on June 6:

 

"We received your claim form and have completed our initial review of your claim. At this time we are currently working with Royal Caribbean to obtain additional information needed to finalize your claim.

 

Once we receive this documentation your claim will go into final review. On average the claim process may take up to 3 weeks after we review all of the required documentation for the claim. If any other documentation is needed we will notify you."

 

Late last night (June 15), I received two separate email responses (one with my name, the other with my spouse's name):

 

"Please note that we have completed our review of the Trip Cancellation claim for xxxxxx yyyyyyyy.

Within the next 2 business days a check in the amount of $z,zzzz.zz will be mailed, along with any applicable explanation of payment, to the following address: (deleted from the copied text). Once you've had the opportunity to review the explanation of payment, we invite you to contact our office with any questions you may have regarding your payment."

FWIW, the amount I claimed was equal to the Amount Paid on our (Final Payment) "Royal Caribbean Booking Confirmation - Guest Copy" minus the amount we were refunded by Royal Caribbean (50% Per Guest) per the Cancellation Schedule.

The amount per the emails received last night is exactly $738 less than the amount claimed. I suspect that $238 of this is the amount for the trip insurance which leaves $500.

I wondered in my original post whether we would receive our Air2Sea fees and penalties for non-refundable fares (which totaled $430 for the two of us); this would be most of the remaining $500.

I will update again after receiving the "applicable explanation of payment", supposedly within the next 2 business days.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We received our checks today, but no explanation as to the shortage.

 

However, I surmised that the remaining $500 is actually due to a cruise cancellation that I made during the same time-frame; I had booked, cancelled and re-booked an October, 2018 cruise to take advantage of a sale. Therefore, my credit card bill is littered with Royal Caribbean reimbursements and the agent (or the cruise line) must have lumped in the $339.44+160.56 (=$500) refund with the reimbursements from the cruise cancellation.

 

I have email my suspicion to AON (along with a screenshot of my credit card charges and refunds) in hopes to clear it up ... and receive back the $500, and will post the result in case anyone else will benefit from reading through my claims process;-)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Please sign in to comment

You will be able to leave a comment after signing in



Sign In Now
 Share

  • Forum Jump
    • Categories
      • Welcome to Cruise Critic
      • New Cruisers
      • Cruise Lines “A – O”
      • Cruise Lines “P – Z”
      • River Cruising
      • ROLL CALLS
      • Digital Photography & Cruise Technology
      • Special Interest Cruising
      • Cruise Discussion Topics
      • UK Cruising
      • Australia & New Zealand Cruisers
      • Canadian Cruisers
      • North American Homeports
      • Ports of Call
      • Cruise Conversations
×
×
  • Create New...