rwbaustin

I have been accumulating miles and hotel points for a couple of years ... and just booked a trip using both airline miles and hotel points. So my actual out of pocket cost is very low.

Question: Because I had to book early to take advantage of the airline miles program, my trip is about 6 months from now. In the event that one of the travelers gets sick around the time of our trip... Is there a way to get some trip insurance that would compensate me for the miles and points I may loose if I had to cancel this trip at the last minute?

Happy

Probably not. Insurance has to be based on a certain value. Mileage ticket has no face value other than the taxes and fees incurred. Hotel award nights have 0 face value.

Most FF programs allow you to cancel the award and re-deposit your miles for a fee such as $150. Check yours to find out.

Most hotel programs allow you to cancel the award bookings BEFORE a deadline without fee. Passed the deadline the first night rack rate is charged. Or, in PEAK demand period, such as New Year Eve in Sydney, a deposit of $$$ is required to secure the award booking and the deposit of $$$ would be forfeited if canceled passed the deadline.

needtoescape

Some, but not all, trip insurance providers allow you to include the cost of the airline mileage redeposit fee in the insured amount, and then would reimburse that fee if you cancel your trip for a covered reason. I purchased travel insurance recently from TravelSafe through insuremytrip.com, and my policy included this coverage. The other company I was considering did not count the mile redeposit fee an eligible trip cost. I assume you can also include the taxes/fees you pay out of pocket in the trip amount you choose to insure.

Also, if your award airline ticket is roundtrip and you buy travel insurance for your trip, it might be worth making sure that the trip interruption coverage amount is high enough to allow you to buy a one way ticket home if necessary. TravelSafe sets their trip interruption reimbursement maximium at 1.5 times the "trip value", which I think is advantageous compared to other companies that use the same amount for trip interruption as your insured trip value (because it usually is more expensive if you have to make last minute changes and/or buy one way fares).

Having said that, the primary reason I purchased travel insurance for my trip was because my hotel was prepaid and non-refundable (through a provider that makes it clear that no changes are allowed). If you can cancel your hotel reservations without losing any money and redeposit hotel points back into your hotel program, the travel insurance might not be worth it just for the award airline ticket redeposit fee.

j3brooklyn

Some Travel insurance policies (Travelex, Travel Guard, Travel Insured and TravelSafe) will cover your redeposit fees if it's included in the trip cost: http://www.tripinsurancestore.com/3/...nt-flyer.shtml

As Happy indicated, the "value" of the trip (for insurance purposes) is $0, so that cannot be insured. If you're concerned about getting stuck after your trip has begun and being unable to get an available award seat back, you should over-insure your trip to cover the cost of a one-way ticket home.

84fiero

I remembered seeing an option for Award Travel plans through AccessAmerica on the AA website (probably available direct or through other partners, too) when looking at trip insurance awhile back: http://www.aa.com/i18n/productsGifts/tripInsurance.jsp Looks like they have a basic and more comprehensive option. "airfare" portion covers redeposit fees rather than a ticket cost. Either option is cheap ($13-$24/person).

Wish I'd thought to check on award travel ins. before our award trip to Maui last year. I had stupidly just assumed it wasn't available if I hadn't paid for the tickets. Not sure why I didn't spend a few minutes searching online like I do for anything else. Luckily nothing came up as far as illness, etc. but I would've felt better.

Astrophsx

Delta also allows you to purchase trip insurance on award travel, it's $25.

rwbaustin

Thanks to everyone that offered advice ... this gives me some good options to consider. The prices are low, but would cover the small fees I had to pay for the airline tickets (BA fees are higher than AA, and I used some of the BA 100K miles I recently received). There is also a $70 fee if I have to cancel the airline portion of the trip. Also, something I had not considered is the trip interuption part, if something happened if we had to fly back home and pay full fare in the middle of our vacation. Having insurance to cover part of the fees associated with trip interuption would be good to have for a small fee of only about $25 per person.

Thanks