yoyosma

OP, Maybe I missed it but were you able to recover your bags for you flight home? I guess the real question is if you cancelled your flight for a refund would you get your luggage back at that point?

highops

My experience is that this is much easier to claim than the price match benefit with Chase. I do not believe it will cover a new ticket on another carrier, however.

jmgriffin

No, Southwest's policy is to put your bags on the next non-stop flight out. So my bags made it to Charleston the very next morning while we remained in Chicago for another 2 days trying to get home.

Southwest, fantastic at transporting bags...humans, not so much!

MKE-MR

At least for my insurance, you submit the new itinerary they give you (even if it isn't what you take), then the claim is based on that, with the amount that the airline gives you in refund compensation subtracted (if you are honest and report it correctly).

For instance, last week:
Scheduled to fly AAA-BBB-CCC on Friday. Was notified on Thursday that AAA-BBB was cancelled; was given the option of flying from DDD-BBB-CCC with transport from AAA-DDD at my own cost, or flying a day later. Rejected both options, was promised a refund for the segments, and booked my own way home from AAA-CCC.

I send my insurance company the old itinerary, new itinerary, and my replacement itinerary and they pay out up to $500 based on the 24 hour delay on the new itinerary, minus the refund amount given by the airline. I then use that to pay for the replacement itinerary and come out reasonably close to even--but home instead of stranded.

I love travel insurance, especially because they pay cash, not reimbursements, on delayed bags as well. They lose money on me every time

rsteinmetz70112

What insurance do you have? How much does it cost?

yoyosma

Thanks for the info and the good chuckle.

jmgriffin

Yes, I'm a bit interested in the same question. And also, I'd be very worried travel insurance would have too much fine print with exceptions that let them off the hook in situations like this.

mike64b

OP did southwest end up reimbursing you anything for your trip costs (other than vouchers/coupons/points)? If not, you should know that it is possible, I just got reimbursement, see my note in the meltdown thread: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/27091606-post433.html

Good luck!

MKE-MR

It's just a generic travel policy--I've had a few providers over the years as the industry is quite competitive so I go with whoever has the cheapest promo that meets my needs. I pay between $200-300/year for a full international policy. They have cheaper options for regional policies.

Often1

There is nothing to worry about in terms of "fine print". "Fine print" is simply an excuse for not bothering to read the policy.

There is an easy solution. Read the policy.

If all you want is a simple travel disruption policy for domestic flying, don't purchase a policy which includes worldwide air ambulance evacuation back to the US. If you only fly 3-4 times a year, consider whether an annual policy is really worth it, especially if only 1-2 of those trips involve connections at out-of-the-way locations.

Lastly, it is all about risk tolerance. If you regularly travel and your routings are largely on nonstop flights with multiple flights per day, is it really worth spending $200-300/year so that once every 3-4 years, you get a hotel reimbursed and have to spend $75 for some place near an airport which provides what you want, e.g. a bed and a cup of coffee in the AM?

joshua362

An entire profession ("legal") exists because two people reading the same fine print can't agree on its meaning.

This is very, very good advice. You shouldn't insure everything just because you can. My pet peeve is life insurance peddlers selling to single young people with no dependents....

toomanybooks

Or people putting life insurance policies on newborns. One of the dumbest things imaginable.