P&O Cruisers - What are things like where YOU are?

[twotravellersLondon]

A belated Happy New Year to one and all who've been so considerate, kind, amusing, informative, warm and generous hearted over the past year.

 

Most of us have a "Happy Place"... this is one of ours. I was brought up on the coast, my first memory is of the sound of the sea moving the beach pebbles, my "kinder-garden" was the rocky sloughs. 

 

So we always go to the coast when we need a boost, when we want to celebrate life, when we want to thank our lucky stars and when we want to contemplate "life the universe and everything." (A glass or two of good claret usually helps in that quest!)

 

So "Happy New Year!"

 

Padstow at the New Year without so many tourists....

 

[terry2]

On 1/2/2023 at 10:49 PM, wowzz said:

Let us know how you get on, as we are renewing our annual policies as well.

Looks like Avanti are in the running, plus they have a 20% discount if you look at their press ads.

Weii, just for information, and something else to look at.

 I was advised by a friend to look into the nationwide flexplus account - so I did.  It  basically has a 70 age limit but that can be increased for £60/yr, and then the medical conditions add-on was a reasonable price, so even including the monthly fee it was still cheaper than my previous  staysure annual policy. So it might be worth looking at.

I haven't had it for long enough to claim against it. However I am interested  to know if anyone has.

[yorkshirephil]

8 hours ago, terry2 said:

Weii, just for information, and something else to look at.

 I was advised by a friend to look into the nationwide flexplus account - so I did.  It  basically has a 70 age limit but that can be increased for £60/yr, and then the medical conditions add-on was a reasonable price, so even including the monthly fee it was still cheaper than my previous  staysure annual policy. So it might be worth looking at.

I haven't had it for long enough to claim against it. However I am interested  to know if anyone has.

There were a few posts related to Flexplus earlier in the year, this being one of them which may help. 

 

[Splice the mainbrace]

8 hours ago, terry2 said:

Weii, just for information, and something else to look at.

 I was advised by a friend to look into the nationwide flexplus account - so I did.  It  basically has a 70 age limit but that can be increased for £60/yr, and then the medical conditions add-on was a reasonable price, so even including the monthly fee it was still cheaper than my previous  staysure annual policy. So it might be worth looking at.

I haven't had it for long enough to claim against it. However I am interested  to know if anyone has.

I had to claim on the Flexplus travel insurance 3 years ago when we had to cut short an organised tour and rush back from Vietnam at the start of covid lockdown. They were very efficient, after online claiming I had a call from them to confirm details and thought oh no they’re going to wriggle out of it but after a few minutes of the call they agreed the payout. They do allow one ‘free’ medication condition so declaring my statins didn’t increase the cost.

 

Since we claimed and in common with other insurance companies nowadays, they seem to stress more to try and initially get money back from the travel company or credit card company (I don’t know how that works!) first for cancelled or curtailed holidays.

[bobstheboy]

9 hours ago, terry2 said:

Weii, just for information, and something else to look at.

 I was advised by a friend to look into the nationwide flexplus account - so I did.  It  basically has a 70 age limit but that can be increased for £60/yr, and then the medical conditions add-on was a reasonable price, so even including the monthly fee it was still cheaper than my previous  staysure annual policy. So it might be worth looking at.

I haven't had it for long enough to claim against it. However I am interested  to know if anyone has.

This is certainly something I am going to look at when my current annual policy expire in June. I will be 77 in April but I believe they cover until 80 for a supplement. The other query, if someone knows the answer I would be grateful, is do they cover for a 35 night cruise ?

[Splice the mainbrace]

I think that the limit is 30 or 31 days, we go on a 28 day QM2 cruise next year and when we add flying out to Cape Town and staying in Sydney for a few days at the end will put us over the max time away. I will call up when renewal is due to pay an extra premium to extend the amount of days away covered, I called up last year to increase the cost limit as we have an expensive holiday coming up next month but will knock that off at the next renewal.

[bobstheboy]

29 minutes ago, Splice the mainbrace said:

I think that the limit is 30 or 31 days, we go on a 28 day QM2 cruise next year and when we add flying out to Cape Town and staying in Sydney for a few days at the end will put us over the max time away. I will call up when renewal is due to pay an extra premium to extend the amount of days away covered, I called up last year to increase the cost limit as we have an expensive holiday coming up next month but will knock that off at the next renewal.

As long as you can extend by paying a supplement, I would be okay with that.

[Splice the mainbrace]

22 minutes ago, bobstheboy said:

As long as you can extend by paying a supplement, I would be okay with that.

I seem to remember that we paid £40 to increase the holiday cost limit. I would imagine it would be much the same for increasing the duration days but it is variable and you will only be 4 days over the limit so maybe less?

Edited January 4, 2023 by Splice the mainbrace

[kruzseeka]

Had friends who had very recently taken out FlexPlus when he took ill at the airport and was advised not to fly.  Full payout from FlexPlus - no quibbles.  The flowing year he had an infection just prior to travel and again had to cancel their cruise.  Again FlexPlus paid out.

We had a claim this year for cabin confinement.  Very prompt full payout (having supplied P&O evidence of period covering claim).    

FlexPlus insures over 80's too with appropriate age premium added on.  And if your account is joint, the monthly payment covers both of you which is excellent for Worldwide cover imo.  Of course both of you have to be screened for any additional medical cover but the age surcharge and cruise cover are  additional separate payments on the policy but covering you both.  

 

Edited January 4, 2023 by kruzseeka

[kruzseeka]

56 minutes ago, Splice the mainbrace said:

I seem to remember that we paid £40 to increase the holiday cost limit. I would imagine it would be much the same for increasing the duration days but it is variable and you will only be 4 days over the limit so maybe less?

Not sure of the amount involved but they do ask you to inform them of trips in excess of 30/31? days' duration so are prepared to cover for longer trips.  

[davecttr]

Bought the annual policy including cruise cover from AllClear. I estimate at half the cost of single trips. Took 3 goes to fill in the medical questionnaire as I added High cholesterol as a condition when it was already declared under high blood pressure. IT also had a problem with my credit card reporting a processing error. Nothing wrong with the card and plenty of credit so used the bank card with a single verification code sent to my phone from the bank. I think it might be AllClears form which wanted my first and surnames but my card has MR FIRSTNAME SURNAME which is what the Natwest verification process wants, exactly as printed on the card including caps.

[grapau27]

Good afternoon.

It has been sunny and 10°C so we went to our local retail outlet.

This was our lunch today.

[yorkshirephil]

31 minutes ago, grapau27 said:

Good afternoon.

It has been sunny and 10°C so we went to our local retail outlet.

This was our lunch today.

Looks like a couple of interlopers there Graham

[grapau27]

[zap99]

32 minutes ago, grapau27 said:

Good afternoon.

It has been sunny and 10°C so we went to our local retail outlet.

This was our lunch today.

Glad the post Christmas diet worked Graham. Back to normal now. 🤣

 

[wowzz]

Just to round off a thread that I started earlier,  I have just sorted out our annual insurance-went with Avanti in the end. Annual multi cover for the two of us was £440, just for Europe. That included a 20% discount on the base cover.

I have no medical conditions ( must be the red wine ! ) but Mrs W has a few, none of which are immediately life treatening. Just as well, as it is surprising how many companies would not give cover at all (Holiday Extras for one). Goodness knows how much we would have to pay if she had something more serious wrong with her.

 

[Snow Hill]

Good start to 2023 a Premium Bond win, not the big one though, just a 3 figure sum. 
 

New car still on schedule to arrive at dealers on Monday, 🤞just under half a tank of fuel left, not planning on going anywhere far this week, so should not need a top up. My wife is currently averaging almost 65 mpg in her new car, almost 300 miles done and still 55% of tank full.

Spent the last hour on a webchat with my ISP to try and get a solution to the continued dropouts both on WiFi and wired connections, the remote technicians said they could see no issues, but our devices kept disconnecting. I had a chat with a firmer work colleague who is a networks expert, his view after seeing the information I supplied is that the ISP provided Hub was possibly faulty and it should be changed, the issue has been going on fir 2 months. After selecting the Complaints option, I finally got them to send out an engineer tomorrow to resolve the problem. Oh and before anyone asks they gave be £25 compensation for not fulfilling their contract with me in terms of support, I didn’t ask for it. 😁

 

[davecttr]

1 hour ago, Snow Hill said:

Good start to 2023 a Premium Bond win, not the big one though, just a 3 figure sum. 
 

New car still on schedule to arrive at dealers on Monday, 🤞just under half a tank of fuel left, not planning on going anywhere far this week, so should not need a top up. My wife is currently averaging almost 65 mpg in her new car, almost 300 miles done and still 55% of tank full.

Spent the last hour on a webchat with my ISP to try and get a solution to the continued dropouts both on WiFi and wired connections, the remote technicians said they could see no issues, but our devices kept disconnecting. I had a chat with a firmer work colleague who is a networks expert, his view after seeing the information I supplied is that the ISP provided Hub was possibly faulty and it should be changed, the issue has been going on fir 2 months. After selecting the Complaints option, I finally got them to send out an engineer tomorrow to resolve the problem. Oh and before anyone asks they gave be £25 compensation for not fulfilling their contract with me in terms of support, I didn’t ask for it. 😁

 

I had similar problems 3 years ago, my BT hub kept dropping out. A friend suggested buying an Asus one. Apart from a brief exchange problem the hub has given rock solid performance since.

[grapau27]

3 hours ago, zap99 said:

Glad the post Christmas diet worked Graham. Back to normal now. 🤣

 

 

[terry2]

14 hours ago, bobstheboy said:

This is certainly something I am going to look at when my current annual policy expire in June. I will be 77 in April but I believe they cover until 80 for a supplement. The other query, if someone knows the answer I would be grateful, is do they cover for a 35 night cruise ?

 As far as I know, there isn't an upper limit on age, once you have paid for the age upgrade. 

 The default is for holidays of up to 31 days - however they say you can pay more to increase it but I don't know the cost  ( NB you can get cover for a trip up to 184 days). 

[kruzseeka]

I should have mentioned too that for anyone interested in the FlexPlus account that you don't need to have it as your main current account.  It's not one of those where you have to have a minimum monthly deposit and at least 2 Standing Orders or similar requirements so it's quite possible to hold it and just ensure there is sufficient in the account to cover the monthly cost which gives you the basic travel insurance (but you may have additional age/cruise/medical supplements to pay).  It does have some other benefits too like breakdown cover. 

[bobstheboy]

10 hours ago, terry2 said:

 As far as I know, there isn't an upper limit on age, once you have paid for the age upgrade. 

 The default is for holidays of up to 31 days - however they say you can pay more to increase it but I don't know the cost  ( NB you can get cover for a trip up to 184 days). 

I went on the Nationwide site and put in all my details, including medical history and cruise cover and 35 night holiday and was quoted just under £200, which with the annual cost of the account was a total of £354. This is at least £250 less than the cheapest quote for a worldwide holiday I have found. I shall be opening an account in June.

[Harry Peterson]

6 minutes ago, bobstheboy said:

I went on the Nationwide site and put in all my details, including medical history and cruise cover and 35 night holiday and was quoted just under £200, which with the annual cost of the account was a total of £354. This is at least £250 less than the cheapest quote for a worldwide holiday I have found. I shall be opening an account in June.

Might be worth considering opening one now, just in case they pull the insurance. Sometimes that happens, but only for new accounts.

[kalos]

Good morning hope your all OK🙂

Todays our day to take down our Christmas decorations and store away until later this year.

Funny how you after stop yourself saying next year .

5 days into the New Year and my resolution not to make any is working for me .

The only other thing to do today is return a gift to a shop as I got a pair of gloves for Christmas

,but they were both left handed 
Which is fine on one hand, but on the other hand it just not right. Take care !

 

                        

 

[bobstheboy]

2 minutes ago, Harry Peterson said:

Might be worth considering opening one now, just in case they pull the insurance. Sometimes that happens, but only for new accounts.

You have a point. The added cost for 5 months I don't need is worth it and still saves money.

 

Thanks.