Trip Insurance and Airmiles if interrupted

[mauimary]

We just booked trip insurance and decided on a Travelex policy. The reason we booked with Travelex is the lookback is only on the travelers. We do not make final payment until the end of March for a June Baltic Cruise.

 

Our situation is that we booked the trip using airmiles. I have a 92 year old mother who is in ok health but quite fragile. (She is not traveling with us). She however had a trip to the hospital for a fall a few weeks back ...but luckily had no broken bones. I have become increasingly uncomfortable traveling and leaving home.

 

Question: If you book with airmiles and you have to interrupt the trip and return home how is this handled since one obviously cannot get a last minute trip back using your airmiles. Does the insurance pay to bring you back on a regular airline ticket?

 

I understand that you can insure the non refundable fee for putting your miles back in your account if you have to cancel at the last minute and not even begin your trip. I have not looked into how the airline handles the miles if you cannot fly the return portion of your booked ticket using your miles.

 

One more question involves another couple traveling with us. Can they cancel their trip if we have to cancel at the last moment? They are my husband family members.

 

Any help with these situations would be appreciated

 

Thanks Mauimary:)

[cruiseco]

We just booked trip insurance and decided on a Travelex policy. The reason we booked with Travelex is the lookback is only on the travelers. We do not make final payment until the end of March for a June Baltic Cruise.

 

Our situation is that we booked the trip using airmiles. I have a 92 year old mother who is in ok health but quite fragile. (She is not traveling with us). She however had a trip to the hospital for a fall a few weeks back ...but luckily had no broken bones. I have become increasingly uncomfortable traveling and leaving home.

 

Question: If you book with airmiles and you have to interrupt the trip and return home how is this handled since one obviously cannot get a last minute trip back using your airmiles. Does the insurance pay to bring you back on a regular airline ticket?

 

I understand that you can insure the non refundable fee for putting your miles back in your account if you have to cancel at the last minute and not even begin your trip. I have not looked into how the airline handles the miles if you cannot fly the return portion of your booked ticket using your miles.

 

One more question involves another couple traveling with us. Can they cancel their trip if we have to cancel at the last moment? They are my husband family members.

 

Any help with these situations would be appreciated

 

Thanks Mauimary:)

 

#1 -- be aware that Travelex offers a number of different plans underwritten by several different companies, all with different coverages/benefits.

 

But in all cases you should be able to read through the plan wording and find a section titled something like "Trip Interruption Benefits". Here's from one plan:

 

"Post-Departure Trip Interruption Benefits

 

If you are unable to continue your Covered Trip for one of the Covered Reasons, we will reimburse you, less any refund paid or payable, for unused land or water travel arrangements, plus the following:

 

1) the additional transportation expenses by the most direct route from the point you interrupted your Covered Trip: (a) to the next scheduled destination where you can catch up to your Covered Trip; or (b) to the final destination of your Covered Trip; or

2) the additional transportation expenses incurred by you by the most direct route to reach your original Covered Trip destination if you are delayed and leave after the Scheduled Departure Date. . . . "

 

So with this plan, they would cover the cost of having to buy new air tickets needed to get home EVEN IF you had never purchased any airline tickets to begin with. Say, for example, you drove to Miami to start your cruise. Halfway through the sailing you had to leave the ship at some island to return home because of a covered reason. You're now stuck buying a last-minute, one way ticket to get there. This plan would reimburse you for that cost. The fact that you had not insured some estimated cost for a possible needed purchase of the ticket when you bought the insurance wouldn't matter. And the fact that you're left holding a worthless non-changeable frequent flyer ticket wouldn't either -- according to the plan wording you're entitled to be reimbursed for that additional transportation cost up to the plan's maximum benefit limit.

 

 

One more question involves another couple traveling with us. Can they cancel their trip if we have to cancel at the last moment? They are my husband family members.

 

That would depend on THEIR insurance and what it covers. Again, they'll have to look through their plan information (assuming they bought a policy) for something like this:

 

"Trip Cancellation and Interruption Covered Reasons

 

Coverage is provided for the following unforeseeable events or their consequences which occur while coverage is in effect under this Policy if there is a change in plans by you, a Family Member traveling with you, or Traveling Companion:

 

1) Sickness, Injury or death of you, your Family Member, Traveling Companion, or Business Partner. The Sickness must commence while coverage is in effect, require the examination of a Physician, in person, at the time of Trip Cancellation or Trip Interruption and, in the written option of the treating Physician, be so disabling as to prevent you from taking or continuing your Covered Trip . . . . "

[sirwired]

Question: If you book with airmiles and you have to interrupt the trip and return home how is this handled since one obviously cannot get a last minute trip back using your airmiles. Does the insurance pay to bring you back on a regular airline ticket?

 

I understand that you can insure the non refundable fee for putting your miles back in your account if you have to cancel at the last minute and not even begin your trip. I have not looked into how the airline handles the miles if you cannot fly the return portion of your booked ticket using your miles.

 

That's why Trip Interruption coverage is commonly larger than cancellation coverage; because they anticipate it's going to cost more. They will generally book whatever they need to get you home at the least cost to them. (To avoid any questions about "least cost" use the insurance co's agency in any emergency.)

 

You are on your own for the FF miles, as they won't pay out twice for the same leg.

 

One more question involves another couple traveling with us. Can they cancel their trip if we have to cancel at the last moment? They are my husband family members.

 

That would depend on THEIR insurance and what it covers. Again, they'll have to look through their plan information (assuming they bought a policy) for something like this:

 

"Trip Cancellation and Interruption Covered Reasons

 

Coverage is provided for the following unforeseeable events or their consequences which occur while coverage is in effect under this Policy if there is a change in plans by you, a Family Member traveling with you, or Traveling Companion:

 

An important thing to note here is that somebody generally only qualifies as a "Traveling Companion" if all of your names appear on the same booking. If you are merely taking the same trip, they won't qualify. (I'm sure you can see the anti-fraud reasons for this limitation.) But lucky for you, the definition of "Family Member" includes just about everybody you'd want to name except cousins and Great Aunt/Uncles.

[mauimary]

Thankyou to Cruiseco and Sirwired for all of your information. We are examining this policy closely. We bought the Travelex basic policy through Insuremytrip. We are still on the 10 day review period. So far all we have prepaid is our downpayment, tips, and the cost of the airmiles taxes. We do not have to make final payment until the end of March. We have bought this particular policy in the past on previous cruises. I did not realize that initially one should only insure their non-refundable costs at the time of booking vs the cost of the whole cruise.

 

Like many who cruise and have an elderly parent is that they are not getting any younger. Now after a fall it worries us any more. We also had to return a week early from a trip to Hawaii in which we had not purchased any insurance. We had to come back to coordinate a change of move to another higher facility. It was getting more than our children could handle with us so far away. We were lucky in that it only ended up costing us about $400 for the additional air change of tickets. It could have been much worse.

 

Thanks again

Mauimary