Travel protection perks on award travel?

[wasCB14]

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.

[xenon3030]

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.

[wasCB14]

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.

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@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.

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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.

[MrDisco99]

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.

[Anonymous]

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.

[red259]

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

[MrDisco99]

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.

[wasCB14]

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@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.

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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.

[xenon3030]

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?

[MrDisco99]

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@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?

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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.