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Trip Interruption using CC Insurance


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I used this board as a resource as I planned multiple trips this year. With four 85 year old parents still alive, we knew that our travel would most likely be interrupted by illnesses, hospitalizations or worse as the years passed. Add to that the fact that we now spend our winters on St. Croix in the USVI, and we knew we needed med evac insurance. For the previous four years (we only started cruising in 2012), we spent a lot of money purchasing trip insurance.

 

My research on this board had me reconsider purchasing trip insurance for each trip. We knew we needed med evac insurance for St. Croix and our other international trips. And we wanted trip cancellation/interruption insurance for each of our trips. Here's what we are now doing and saving ourselves quite a bit of money by not purchasing separate trip insurance.

 

We tried valiantly to purchase multi-trip medical plans that would include St. Croix to no avail. GeoBlue and others consider the USVI 'domestic' (which it is) and, therefore, don't offer multi-trip plans that include it. On the other hand, our medical insurance (we are private pay now that we're retired) won't cover St. Croix as it is 'out of network'. They do cover emergencies outside our network. So we have purchased a five year MedJet Assist plan for $1,600 for the two of us. Our hope is that we can get emergency care on St. Croix (or elsewhere in the world) and chose to be medically evacuated back to Boston if need be.

 

For trip interruption and cancellation, we are now using the insurance offered by our credit cards (Citicard Visa and MasterCard). We have learned that each of our major cards will provide us with $10,000 in insurance for the two of us as long as we charge some portion of the trip on the card. For our recent trip to Asia, we charged our airline tickets on our Citicard Mastercard and our land portion on our Citicard Visa so that we had each total amount covered by the $10,000 of insurance.

 

Sadly, we have now had two 'opportunities' to submit insurance claims to Citicard. The first was caused by the sudden death of my mother-in-law while my daughter and I were flying to California for a girls weekend in August 2017. After trying to get as much of the trip refunded as possible, I submitted a claim to Citicard for the approximately $1000 we had lost and within two months had my refund.

 

Sadly, again, we were called home from Vietnam halfway through our recent month-long trip to Southeast Asia. My father had been give 2 to 4 hours to live and we needed to get home (amazingly, he survived this crisis). I am now working on submitting the paperwork to Citicard to try to recoup about $5,000 in unrefunded money. I expect this claim to take longer as it far more complicated than the first.

 

If we do get refunded for the second trip, I will no longer even consider purchasing separate trip insurance. I will just continue to be careful to charge significant portions of any upcoming trip on different cards.

 

Hope this is helpful to others.

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My understanding of how credit card travel insurance "works" is that it wouldn't work for us, due to a combination of pre-existing conditions and the cost of the trip (usually too high).

 

It would be awfully nice if we didn't need to pay for it (no surprise!).

 

GC

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  • 1 month later...

Just wanted to loop back and say that we got word today that Citicard is fully refunding the amount of our Southeast Asia trip that we had to cancel due to illness. As I predicted above, this claim was harder to work through as it was more complicated (we paid through a travel agency, we got some portion of the rest of the trip refunded before we submitted the claim, etc.). So it was somewhat frustrating but a great end result and I saved a great deal of money not buying extra trip insurance.

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Thank you for sharing. We also subscribe to MedJet for medical evacuation home from abroad. However, we had not considered the credit card benefits and will definitely get out the extremely fine printed miniaturized documents and read for details.

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  • 1 month later...

Thanks for this valuable information. We have Citibank MC, and when researching travel insurance coverage for our cruise in the Fall I was surprised to find out about this coverage. I have tried to ask every question imaginable, but your information allayed my concerns that it is actually "real" coverage-although sorry you had to use it. I am all for saving $500 for duplicate coverage. Finally a real benefits from my CC !

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Thanks for this valuable information. We have Citibank MC, and when researching travel insurance coverage for our cruise in the Fall I was surprised to find out about this coverage. I have tried to ask every question imaginable, but your information allayed my concerns that it is actually "real" coverage-although sorry you had to use it. I am all for saving $500 for duplicate coverage. Finally a real benefits from my CC !

 

Which Citi card do you have? I have the Costco Citi Visa and I don't think this coverage is included.

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Check your extensive Costco Citicard travel benefits. Had a good experience with them this past summer.

 

Sent from my MHA-L29 using Forums mobile app

 

I had a major expense due to trip interruption. I called Citi and they told me that it would have been covered under the Costco Citi Visa but I have the Costco Citi "Business" Visa which does not cover trip cancellation or interruption. Pretty disappointing.

 

If you are a Costco member this is a significant distinction.

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I had a major expense due to trip interruption. I called Citi and they told me that it would have been covered under the Costco Citi Visa but I have the Costco Citi "Business" Visa which does not cover trip cancellation or interruption. Pretty disappointing.

 

If you are a Costco member this is a significant distinction.

Thanks for alerting us to that distinction. Just printed out the full "regular Costco Visa" benefits. They are extensive.

 

Paired with my Medicare Advantage worldwide emergency medical (including cruise ships), it appears I only need to supplement the package with ...

 

a medical evacuation supplement, either per trip or annual.

 

That package appears to cover everything except cancel for any reason.

Anybody see a flaw in what I've outlined?

 

Sent from my MHA-L29 using Forums mobile app

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We have been purchasing separate trip insurance for all of our trips for the last eight years. In 2011, we took out insurance for a very expensive Baltic cruise because my parents' health was starting to go downhill. To my surprise, I had a very unexpected surgery and treatment, so had to cancel. I was covered fully.

 

Now that we travel much more frequently, we decided to explore alternatives to trip insurance for each trip. Last fall I read every post I could find about multi-trip policies, credit card coverage, etc.

 

We now have Chase Sapphire Reserve and an annual MedJet policy. That should cover us for most situations, but I've been reading a few posts here and there on other forums (flyer t..) and now wonder if there is a significant gap in "onward travel" and "trip interruption" coverage.

 

Two situations I'm wondering about (using CSR) are:

  • I've scheduled a flight to Europe to arrive a day early, so I can spend the night. My flight is delayed significantly (such as a recent five hour delay due to de-icing in Seattle or other fiasco) and I miss a connection for a flight to Europe. There are other delays and the re-scheduled flight then arrives too late to board the ship on time. I would assume that catching the ship is my problem & expense, even though I allowed a reasonable amount of time for the connection and planned for an overnight stay?

  • I break my leg, knee, or hip in Italy (or wherever) and I'm released from the medical facility, but can't fly home on my original ticket and can't just resolve my return ticket because I can't physically fit into one commercial airline seat. My Blue Cross/Blue Shield [coverage similar to Geo-Blue] (or CSR medical) would cover getting me to the medical facility and get me patched up, MedJet would not help because I'm not "hospitalized," CSR would cover cancellation or change fees on the airline tickets, but does not appear to cover the difference between the original ticket and the new ticket price or "get you home" when you have to change your flight due to medical issues.

I don't see any policies that cover "onward travel" or "getting you home" when you can't finish a trip--without being hospitalized and without being packaged with medical (we have worldwide med & ambulance coverage through my DH's retirement plan).

 

Does anyone have any experience with CSR regarding the points above?

 

Also, does anyone have experience with your options (in general) to return home if you are physically unable to fit into a commercial airline seat, but are not hospitalized? Is evac your only option? If so, that would be very expensive and not covered by MedJet.

 

Thank you for any experience or insights you may have in these circumstances.

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  • 4 weeks later...
Which Citi card do you have? I have the Costco Citi Visa and I don't think this coverage is included.

 

Costco's Citi Visa limits recovery to $3000 per person so one has to be very careful if you rely on that card only

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I just processed a trip cancellation/interruption claim through Chase Sapphire and it worked! We had used our points to book a hotel and we had to cancel two days prior to leaving due to medical reasons, but the hotel was non refundable so I processed a claim with Chase.

 

Originally we simply requested that our points be reinstated, but that wasn’t possible because they use a third party to process their claims so we’re actually getting the cash equivalent of our points! It took about one month to process the claim and there was a lot of paperwork but it was a good test to see if the CC claim would work, and it did. But I do have a few lessons learned:

 

1) check the details of filing a claim now. There is a long list of documentation you will need and it will be easier if you know that before you’d ever need to process a claim. I printed the list and I keep it in my vacation folder.

2) they will expect you to try and recoup all or a portion of your expenses from any carriers (airlines, hotels, cruise lines); so be sure to make the calls and get documentation on their letterhead or email that specifically says what compensation (or not) they will give you. Since the CC is a secondary payee, they will only compensate you for anything the carriers do not. For example, I needed to obtain an email from Marriott stating that they were not providing me any compensation (I.e. refund or credit towards a future stay) for cancelling my reservation. It’s easier to get this documentation when you decide to cancel.

3) there are specific reasons they will accept, so read the fine print! You can’t cancel for any reason. And if it is medical, you will need their form signed by the physician, so just keep a blank physicians form in your vacation folder in case you ever need it. That will be easier to have handy rather than trying to locate it on line during a medical emergency.

 

But overall, the process was pretty straight forward and they approved our claim, so I feel more comfortable not purchasing additional travel insurance. Hope this helps others trying to decide. Happy and healthy cruising!

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I just processed a trip cancellation/interruption claim through Chase Sapphire and it worked! We had used our points to book a hotel and we had to cancel two days prior to leaving due to medical reasons, but the hotel was non refundable so I processed a claim with Chase.

 

Originally we simply requested that our points be reinstated, but that wasn’t possible because they use a third party to process their claims so we’re actually getting the cash equivalent of our points! It took about one month to process the claim and there was a lot of paperwork but it was a good test to see if the CC claim would work, and it did. But I do have a few lessons learned:

 

1) check the details of filing a claim now. There is a long list of documentation you will need and it will be easier if you know that before you’d ever need to process a claim. I printed the list and I keep it in my vacation folder.

2) they will expect you to try and recoup all or a portion of your expenses from any carriers (airlines, hotels, cruise lines); so be sure to make the calls and get documentation on their letterhead or email that specifically says what compensation (or not) they will give you. Since the CC is a secondary payee, they will only compensate you for anything the carriers do not. For example, I needed to obtain an email from Marriott stating that they were not providing me any compensation (I.e. refund or credit towards a future stay) for cancelling my reservation. It’s easier to get this documentation when you decide to cancel.

3) there are specific reasons they will accept, so read the fine print! You can’t cancel for any reason. And if it is medical, you will need their form signed by the physician, so just keep a blank physicians form in your vacation folder in case you ever need it. That will be easier to have handy rather than trying to locate it on line during a medical emergency.

 

But overall, the process was pretty straight forward and they approved our claim, so I feel more comfortable not purchasing additional travel insurance. Hope this helps others trying to decide. Happy and healthy cruising!

 

Thank you very much for your detailed account. Very important to know. That is a good point you made about recouping what you can. I made a claim to a standard trip insurance company in 2011. They didn't encourage me to try to recoup. I did get what I could, but didn't go to extraordinary lengths because they didn't encourage it and I had a lot to deal with with my surgery.

 

A couple of questions:

  • Any chance you can share your "valuable list of documentation?
  • Where did you get the physician's form?

Thanks,

Diana

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Thank you very much for your detailed account. Very important to know. That is a good point you made about recouping what you can. I made a claim to a standard trip insurance company in 2011. They didn't encourage me to try to recoup. I did get what I could, but didn't go to extraordinary lengths because they didn't encourage it and I had a lot to deal with with my surgery.

 

 

 

A couple of questions:

 


  •  
  • Any chance you can share your "valuable list of documentation?
     
  • Where did you get the physician's form?
     

Thanks,

 

Diana

 

 

 

Diana - I’ll be happy to post the list of required documentation when I return from my cruise. I will post it next week. But just be aware that it will be the documentation required by Chase Sapphire Preferred. There may be different documentation required for other insurance or credit card companies. But it will provide a good idea of what would be required. The physician form was obtained from the Chase Sapphire claims website. And finally, I just received the check for the final settlement of my claim yesterday. They reimbursed me 100% of the canceled “non-refundable” hotel!

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

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  • 1 month later...

We have an annual plan for medical/evacuation with a $5,000 cancellation benefit. We have a trip coming up with a much higher total cost and I don't need regular travel insurance with medical just cancellation/interruption coverage. Deposit was made with Costco Visa so I'm thinking we have $3,000 per traveler for cancellation. I also have an American Airlines Citibank card with $5,000 per person cancellation.

 

Has anyone split payments over more than one credit card and then had to file a cancellation/interruption claim?

Or does anyone know of cancellation/interruption only insurance that doesn't cost a fortune?

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Diana - I’ll be happy to post the list of required documentation when I return from my cruise. I will post it next week. But just be aware that it will be the documentation required by Chase Sapphire Preferred. There may be different documentation required for other insurance or credit card companies. But it will provide a good idea of what would be required. The physician form was obtained from the Chase Sapphire claims website. And finally, I just received the check for the final settlement of my claim yesterday. They reimbursed me 100% of the canceled “non-refundable” hotel!

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

Thank you. I'm looking forward to your information.

Diana

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We have an annual plan for medical/evacuation with a $5,000 cancellation benefit. We have a trip coming up with a much higher total cost and I don't need regular travel insurance with medical just cancellation/interruption coverage. Deposit was made with Costco Visa so I'm thinking we have $3,000 per traveler for cancellation. I also have an American Airlines Citibank card with $5,000 per person cancellation.

 

Has anyone split payments over more than one credit card and then had to file a cancellation/interruption claim?

Or does anyone know of cancellation/interruption only insurance that doesn't cost a fortune?

 

I haven't tried to split credit card coverage. You have a very good question. One issue could be whether one card requires you to pay for all of the expenses on their card. If not, then it would be interesting to find out if they would split coverage.

 

We went the credit card route this year (January) because we are traveling a lot and we have a Blue Cross/Shield plan that covers us overseas (similar to the Geo Blue coverage). We don't need the extra medical--just Medevac home (we purchased an annual MedJet policy) and cancellation/interruption insurance. I couldn't find any insurance that would cover just cancellation/interruption only.

 

Diana

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We have been purchasing separate trip insurance for all of our trips for the last eight years. In 2011, we took out insurance for a very expensive Baltic cruise because my parents' health was starting to go downhill. To my surprise, I had a very unexpected surgery and treatment, so had to cancel. I was covered fully.

 

Now that we travel much more frequently, we decided to explore alternatives to trip insurance for each trip. Last fall I read every post I could find about multi-trip policies, credit card coverage, etc.

 

We now have Chase Sapphire Reserve and an annual MedJet policy. That should cover us for most situations, but I've been reading a few posts here and there on other forums (flyer t..) and now wonder if there is a significant gap in "onward travel" and "trip interruption" coverage.

 

Two situations I'm wondering about (using CSR) are:

  • I've scheduled a flight to Europe to arrive a day early, so I can spend the night. My flight is delayed significantly (such as a recent five hour delay due to de-icing in Seattle or other fiasco) and I miss a connection for a flight to Europe. There are other delays and the re-scheduled flight then arrives too late to board the ship on time. I would assume that catching the ship is my problem & expense, even though I allowed a reasonable amount of time for the connection and planned for an overnight stay?

  • I break my leg, knee, or hip in Italy (or wherever) and I'm released from the medical facility, but can't fly home on my original ticket and can't just resolve my return ticket because I can't physically fit into one commercial airline seat. My Blue Cross/Blue Shield [coverage similar to Geo-Blue] (or CSR medical) would cover getting me to the medical facility and get me patched up, MedJet would not help because I'm not "hospitalized," CSR would cover cancellation or change fees on the airline tickets, but does not appear to cover the difference between the original ticket and the new ticket price or "get you home" when you have to change your flight due to medical issues.

I don't see any policies that cover "onward travel" or "getting you home" when you can't finish a trip--without being hospitalized and without being packaged with medical (we have worldwide med & ambulance coverage through my DH's retirement plan).

 

Does anyone have any experience with CSR regarding the points above?

 

Also, does anyone have experience with your options (in general) to return home if you are physically unable to fit into a commercial airline seat, but are not hospitalized? Is evac your only option? If so, that would be very expensive and not covered by MedJet.

 

Thank you for any experience or insights you may have in these circumstances.

 

I'm re-posting my April post (#14).

Can anyone answer my question regarding CSR or any credit card insurance getting you home if you are physically unable to fit into a commercial airline seat, but are not hospitalized? Is evac your only option? If so, that would be very expensive and not covered by MedJet.

Thanks,

Diana

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Thank you. I'm looking forward to your information.

 

Diana

 

 

 

Sorry Diana! I forgot. I will post the info when I get a chance. Been busy moving my daughter since we returned from our cruise. I’m finally getting some “down time” to get caught up with CC. [emoji483]

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We have an annual plan for medical/evacuation with a $5,000 cancellation benefit. We have a trip coming up with a much higher total cost and I don't need regular travel insurance with medical just cancellation/interruption coverage. Deposit was made with Costco Visa so I'm thinking we have $3,000 per traveler for cancellation. I also have an American Airlines Citibank card with $5,000 per person cancellation.

 

Has anyone split payments over more than one credit card and then had to file a cancellation/interruption claim?

Or does anyone know of cancellation/interruption only insurance that doesn't cost a fortune?

 

 

I'm the OP so you may want to go back and review my original posting. But I did use two different credit cards when paying for our trip (put flights on one and pre-paid tour/hotel expenses on another). Because the two credit cards were both Citicards (one a Hilton rewards Visa and the other an American Airlines reward Mastercard), I could put everything on one claim. I had one insurance adjuster for both claims.

 

But I would assume if you had two different cards with two different credit card companies that you'd just have to do two claims. I will probably be faced with this for our 2019 trip/cruise to NZ and Australia.

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I'm re-posting my April post (#14).

Can anyone answer my question regarding CSR or any credit card insurance getting you home if you are physically unable to fit into a commercial airline seat, but are not hospitalized? Is evac your only option? If so, that would be very expensive and not covered by MedJet.

Thanks,

Diana

 

I am trying to understand your issue. Cannot fit into an airline seat? We recently (April) had a situation where my DW needed evacuation from Japan and had to keep one of her legs elevated. The solution was a lay flat Business Class seat and our medical/med evac insurance company quickly agreeed to pay for her business class because otherwise she might have been hospitalized in Japan and cost that same insurance company a lot more money. But all the insurance companies will move heaven and earth to do evacs on commercial aircraft. It is only when this is not possible (for medical reasons) will they look at other options. But insurance companies can be frustrating with how they interpret issues. For example, ours had no problem shelling out more than $10,000 for a last minute Business Class evacuation. But they balked at paying the $272 taxi fare to get the patient from ship to airport (a taxi was sufficient since she could keep her leg elevated). If we had asked for an ambulance the insurer would have had no problem paying more then $1000 for that method of transportation. Go figure.

 

Hank

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