topic Re: Travel protection perks on award travel? in Credit Cards

Travel protection perks on award travel?

MrDisco99 — Thu, 26 Oct 2017 00:46:49 GMT

I'm pretty close to redeeming some points for award travel. I have a couple questions maybe you guys could help with.

If I use a card to pay the taxes and surcharges on an award ticket, will that trigger the travel insurance policies on that card (delay, lost luggage, etc.)?

Which of my cards (see sig) offers the best travel protection perks? I'll probably end up going through the fine print on all of these anyway, but I'd like to know immediate impressions from you guys.

Re: Travel protection perks on award travel?

Anonymous — Thu, 26 Oct 2017 05:51:22 GMT

@MrDisco99 wrote:
I'm pretty close to redeeming some points for award travel. I have a couple questions maybe you guys could help with.

If I use a card to pay the taxes and surcharges on an award ticket, will that trigger the travel insurance policies on that card (delay, lost luggage, etc.)?

Which of my cards (see sig) offers the best travel protection perks? I'll probably end up going through the fine print on all of these anyway, but I'd like to know immediate impressions from you guys.

I was wondering the same thing, I will take my family on a vaction using UR pints next year. And I love the travel protection the CSR has. I don't want to lose that when redeeeming points to pay for it.

Ironically I just had a flight cancelled and delayed 24 hours, unfortunely since its for work my CSR was not used.

Re: Travel protection perks on award travel?

MrDisco99 — Thu, 26 Oct 2017 07:45:21 GMT

I just read that the Citi TY Premier (and Prestige) travel protection benefits are effective if PART of the fare is paid with the card or TY points. Most issuers require the whole fare be paid. Trip cancellation only covers amount paid but delay and baggage protections are effective.

I know Amex PRG requires payment of the entire fare for their protection policies to take effect. Not sure about Chase.

Re: Travel protection perks on award travel?

fltireguy — Thu, 26 Oct 2017 11:37:19 GMT

The nice thing wth Amex MR points is when you book a flight using them, you get all of the protections on your PRG or Platinum, etc... since they charge you for the full fare and then refund it. But also with MR points the taxes are included in the fares as well

Re: Travel protection perks on award travel?

fltireguy — Thu, 26 Oct 2017 11:37:51 GMT

And there’s nothing better than earning 5x points on a free ticket too!

Re: Travel protection perks on award travel?

plastic_man — Thu, 26 Oct 2017 12:00:31 GMT

From what I remember , at least for the CSR, you get all the benefits regardlesss if you paid the trip with UR points or not, but I could be wrong.

Re: Travel protection perks on award travel?

pip3man — Thu, 26 Oct 2017 12:19:08 GMT

only if u had the Prestige, in my experience has the best travel insurance and perks. I once had to cancel a trip and was reimbursed the full $2k I paid (via check) and still was allowed to keep the ticket for later use. And I had a 24hrs flight delay in LAX and was reimbursed $500 which im waiting on the check to arrive any moment from now. You don't have to pay for the ticket in full using the card to get coverage. Just using TYP and/or partial charges to the card works.

Re: Travel protection perks on award travel?

MrDisco99 — Thu, 26 Oct 2017 19:03:57 GMT

If you book with MR points you only get 1 cent per point. I'm talking about transferring to airline partners and booking that way.

And what do you mean 5x on free travel? You don't get rewards when you buy with points, do you?

Re: Travel protection perks on award travel?

iced — Thu, 26 Oct 2017 19:51:41 GMT

@MrDisco99 wrote:
I'm pretty close to redeeming some points for award travel. I have a couple questions maybe you guys could help with.

If I use a card to pay the taxes and surcharges on an award ticket, will that trigger the travel insurance policies on that card (delay, lost luggage, etc.)?

Which of my cards (see sig) offers the best travel protection perks? I'll probably end up going through the fine print on all of these anyway, but I'd like to know immediate impressions from you guys.

When it comes to paying for the ticket, it'll likely come down to the individual card/bank. Some are good about covering insurance on the flight if you paid the fees for it with that card, others may want to see the full airfare. Some also see award ticket fees as paying the full price (since that is what the airline charged you, after all) and are fine with it. Advice is to read the fine print on each card.

I only have ever owned one card in your profile (TY Premier) and I have never used its insurance so I can't really comment on that part.

It's also key to read the COC for the airline you're flying with. Some airlines will reimburse hotels for overnight delays, depending on the circumstance, fare class, and/or location. For instance, if you're in the EU when you have a delay, the airline may be required by EU law to reimburse you up to a certain amount. Read your airline's COC to know just what they do and don't cover. Many airlines also reimburse delayed and lost luggage.

Other than the occasional hotel/meal reimbursement, the standard CC travel insurances for airfare aren't really doing much for you. Where CC insurances start becoming useful is with rental car and medevac.

Re: Travel protection perks on award travel?

Anonymous — Fri, 27 Oct 2017 16:50:40 GMT

If I'm not mistaken, I believe you have to pay the entire trip with the card, not just taxes and fees.

But again, I just used my AMEX Delta Platinum to pay $45 in taxes and fees and used 30,000 miles for a trip to Vegas and received my $100 statement credit. Previously, the rep told me taxes and fees do not count towards the credit....but i got it...so...yeah.

Your best bet is to call and ask.

Re: Travel protection perks on award travel?

wasCB14 — Mon, 30 Oct 2017 04:26:06 GMT

The official policy (based on what the CSR said when I called to ask this) is that Prestige (and, by extension, Premier) will only cover trip cancellation on award travel booked directly with TYs, or with miles/points from a TY transfer partner and a paper trail showing a previous TYs-to-miles transfer for those miles/points.

Chase is the same way for UR partners, though apparently no paper trail of a transfer is necessary. All that's necessary is that the award chart be a UR transfer partner. I expect to swap my Prestige for a CSR if retention offers dry up because the partners are more practical for me, and I'm hence more likely to be booking award travel with a Chase partner.

Partial payment is enough for delay insurance from Citi, but getting delay-related expenses reimbursed is little comfort if you have a lot of other points and miles go to waste due to the lack of cancellation insurance.

Amex offers fairly little coverage outside of luggage, even on Platinum. One upshot of Platinum is that the medical evacuation coverage is not dependent on using an Amex card to book the travel, whereas Citi and Chase require it.

In practice, exactly what will be covered can be YMMV. Buying a policy for a specific trip may be advisable.

Re: Travel protection perks on award travel?

xenon3030 — Mon, 30 Oct 2017 08:17:55 GMT

In some cases, e.g. traveling with family or multiple flights per year, buying the travel insurance on tickets can be expensive. So, it is much preferable if the travel coverages would be covered by the CC card.

Re: Travel protection perks on award travel?

wasCB14 — Mon, 30 Oct 2017 23:46:55 GMT

Keep in mind that the travel protection benefits on ~$100 AF cards are generally watered down from what comes on a ~$450 card from the same issuer. 3-hour delays are more common than 12-hour delays, and one ~$450 card may be more useful than several ~$100 cards. Many AF Chase and Citi cards provide at least something, though. Your IHG card might be worth investigating. Since IHG is a Chase UR partner, the IHG card may cover cancellations or delays on award travel with other Chase partners (United, SW, etc). My Hyatt does, and I will use it for this purpose if I drop CSP. I don't have my IHG benefits guide to confirm whether IHG benefits are as strong as Hyatt, though.

@xenon3030 wrote:
In some cases, e.g. traveling with family or multiple flights per year, buying the travel insurance on tickets can be expensive. So, it is much preferable if the travel coverages would be covered by the CC card.

True, single-trip insurance can be expensive. But if a trip involves a complicated itinerary (or dealing with flaky people), the improved flexibility over what a CC offers can be worth it.

Re: Travel protection perks on award travel?

MrDisco99 — Tue, 31 Oct 2017 00:44:20 GMT

Thank you for mentioning the IHG card. I honestly hadn't bothered to look into that one since in my mind I only associate it with hotels. As it turns out, it has lots of travel protection benefits, similar to the Citi Premier, and they apply to partial purchases just like the Citi card.

I'll do a finer comparison between the two to figure out which one I might go with. It's interesting how similar the benefits packages looked at first glance. I'm wondering if that's because they're both MasterCard.

Re: Travel protection perks on award travel?

Anonymous — Tue, 31 Oct 2017 01:05:38 GMT

If you travel extensively and frequently, travel insurance is the biggest rip off that exists. If you travel twice a year or so, it might be valuable, but I'd do the math.

I travel all the time, and I sock away whatever travel insurance costs into a self-insurance fund. I've had flights cancelled and my fund was enough to rebook on another flight right away. I've had a few physical accidents and the self-insurance fund covered the band-aid or x-ray.

But I do travel a lot, so $29 here and $69 there adds up better for self-insurance than giving it to some conmen using scare tactics to generate mad profits.

Before assuming insurance is the right decision, do all the math to see. I know quite a few people who always buy insurance and when they needed it, it failed them miserably.

Re: Travel protection perks on award travel?

red259 — Tue, 31 Oct 2017 01:22:44 GMT

Here this should help. http://frequentmiler.boardingarea.com/2017/09/06/credit-card-travel-insurance-cover-award-flights/

Re: Travel protection perks on award travel?

MrDisco99 — Tue, 31 Oct 2017 04:32:53 GMT

Great info there. Thanks!

The one thing that bugs me though is he's specifically talking about the ultra premium cards like CSR, Plat, and Prestige. Some of the info is relevant to lower tier cards as well but some may vary with other cards from the same bank.

Re: Travel protection perks on award travel?

wasCB14 — Tue, 31 Oct 2017 06:15:31 GMT

@MrDisco99 wrote:
Great info there. Thanks!

The one thing that bugs me though is he's specifically talking about the ultra premium cards like CSR, Plat, and Prestige. Some of the info is relevant to lower tier cards as well but some may vary with other cards from the same bank.

Benefits mostly vary quantitatively within a card family (dollars of reimbursement, hours of delay, length of a trip, etc.). It's important to read and understand the guide(s) of the card(s) you'll actually be using, but once you understand the terms for one card, the terms for related cards are easier to understand. The hard part is decyphering the benefit language for the first card in a family.

Re: Travel protection perks on award travel?

xenon3030 — Tue, 31 Oct 2017 13:42:12 GMT

The new BOA PR provides some travel features like up to 500$ for 12+ h delay and up to 5000$ for cancellation, baggage delay/lost, while seems no coverage on some parts like medical on travel. How would this CC be compared to the other CCs for travel perks?

Re: Travel protection perks on award travel?

MrDisco99 — Tue, 31 Oct 2017 22:45:35 GMT

@xenon3030 wrote:
The new BOA PR provides some travel features like up to 500$ for 12+ h delay and up to 5000$ for cancellation, baggage delay/lost, while seems no coverage on some parts like medical on travel. How would this CC be compared to the other CCs for travel perks?

Chase and Citi's policies take effect after 6 hours delay.

Sounds like the BoA Premium card's travel benefits are slightly better than their base cards (Cash Rewards, Travel Rewards) but not by much.

Right now my best options appear to be Chase IHG and Citi TY Premier. The Chase IHG looks to have similar benefits to the CSP which are very good... trip delay/cancellation, baggage delay and loss, and emergency medical/dental. The Citi Premier has most of these, but reports seem mixed about their willingness to cover losses on partially paid fares. I'd much rather get the 3x Citi points than 1x IHG points on the purchase, though. Still weighing it.

Really surprised Amex isn't in the running. I expected their coverage to be better.