Chase Ultimate Rewards - Best travel protections for intl reward flight. Saphire, INK, or AMEX gold business

I will soon be redeeming AA miles for an explorer award and I'm wondering which credit card will provide me the most complete travel protections.

The cards I have are the Chase Saphire Preffered, Chase Ink Bold, American Express Gold Business Rewards, and Citi AA biz, AMEX, and Visa. Each provides some form of Travel Accident Insurance and Baggage Insurance.

Anyone know off hand which offers the generally stronger protections? Or if there are complications with the fact that i won't be purchasing a fare, but rather just paying taxes and fees.

p.s. I'll be visiting Spain, India, Thailand, Myanmar (on another ticket), China, Russia, and Poland. Thanks!

Technically you are not buying a ticket use the CC, therefore the insurance may not apply at all. Besides, I believe NONE of the cards offer meaningful medevec insurance or medical treatment / hospitalization while traveling - and that is what Travel Accident would most likely cause. Otherwise I dont know what you refer to by Travel Accident Protection.

Of your itinerary, India, Russia, China, and may be Myanmar, would be the most likely places a Travel Accident / Illness / Injury may occur.

Your best bet is to buy a separate Travel Guard type insurance policy if your travel is extensively long. AMEX offers a policy that has MedEvec included that is reasonably priced. You most likely can find it by google it or browse AMEX website.

Happy raises an interesting legal point which has been discussed in various forums without, IMHO, final resolution.

You get the award ticket for free using miles (although miles do have value) and pay for taxes, perhaps airline fuel and close in booking surcharges paid with a card. Do you get the "insurance" benefits of the card you would get if you were paying with dollars, not miles?

The answer likely varies between card issuers with Amex, likely, the most liberal. If someone has actually called Amex or another issuer and gotten a solid answer it would be interesting to hear about.

Meanwhile, as Happy suggests, you can buy an independent policy. I wonder if they would return your miles if you cancel the trip? :D

All good points. Thanks for the input.

I called Chase Saphire and Chase Ink Bold and received some really equivocating answers. Nothing helpful at all, but certainly gives me enough doubt that in the case of a claim I would not be feeling confident.

As a side note, would I get 3x points on my AMEX biz rewards gold for paying the taxes and fees?

All good points. Thanks for the input.

I called Chase Saphire and Chase Ink Bold and received some really equivocating answers. Nothing helpful at all, but certainly gives me enough doubt that in the case of a claim I would not be feeling confident.

As a side note, would I get 3x points on my AMEX biz rewards gold for paying the taxes and fees?

1) If you call them, most of them don't know and are not qualified to answer, 'no' is safe answer for them.

2) Yes, I have used AmEx gold card (personal) paying taxes and fees, got my 3x points.

I will soon be redeeming AA miles for an explorer award and I'm wondering which credit card will provide me the most complete travel protections.

The cards I have are the Chase Saphire Preffered, Chase Ink Bold, American Express Gold Business Rewards, and Citi AA biz, AMEX, and Visa. Each provides some form of Travel Accident Insurance and Baggage Insurance.

Anyone know off hand which offers the generally stronger protections? Or if there are complications with the fact that i won't be purchasing a fare, but rather just paying taxes and fees.

p.s. I'll be visiting Spain, India, Thailand, Myanmar (on another ticket), China, Russia, and Poland. Thanks!


I use saphire prefered card booked a reward ticket from UA.com. I did not receive my luggage when I got destination. I call sapphire customer service and they just checked the transaction and did not ask why I only less than $100 to buy this transcontinental ticket. First they do not know what kind of ticket it is. Second, airline tickets change a lot, some one even buy free ticket from some low price airline. They transfer me to insurance company and I then got instruction on how to fill the form and everything.

Eventually, airline find my lugguage later and gave me some interim expense rebursement. I did not call credit card insurance company again. If airline did lost my luggage. I believe the credit card insurance company will cover some of my loss.