Not an insurance guy (nor do I play one on TV), but have used it before, and my thoughts below:
Originally Posted by
arma5
I'm trying to wrap my head around the delay coverage when it combines with all these Future Flight Credits I'm accumulating (in the context of United flights, no more change fees, and the flight prices continuing to drop lately).
(1) It seems clear that even if I buy most of the flight with credits, so long as I buy a little bit of it with the Chase card, I'm covered. Great.
Correct.
Originally Posted by
arma5
(2) Then if I do 'change flight' and end up with a residual, it's not clear which original payment is getting converted to the residual, but it seems plausible that my flight is still tagged internally as 'paid for with Chase card'? And that's true for repeated changes, since the flight always costs *something*, so we can imagine the last dollar is still Chase's dollar?
(3) Whereas if I cancel the flight and apply the credit to a new flight, I bet that new flight loses that internal tag, and I'm not covered? (Even though I never got any money back, so the Chase money obviously went *somewhere*, I expect I'll have a tough time convincing them that it went to this new flight.) So in that scenario, my safest option would be to spend a little bit new on the Chase card.
I don't think this works as you describe. For one, there is no 'internal tag'. If you file a claim, Chase is going to ask for a bunch of documents, including the card statement showing the charge to the card (or Chase points redeemed), the ticket/itinerary, receipts, etc, and that's the way they know that you used the card to pay for this. Also, 'changing' and 'canceling' essentially works the same way - the difference being whether you choose to book a replacement itinerary right away, or choose to leave the PNR open with the funds still in it, and book the replacement flights at a later time. In either case, the PNR remains the same, and the ticket number will update at the time of change, as it needs to be re-issued. But also, the card statement will show your [original] ticket number in the details, and your receipts from United will show any changes. Just keep all these documents so you can 'connect' the original ticket purchase to the updated itinerary. Then you have the documents for when you need them. You should be able to describe this in the relevant area of any claim, and again, provide the docs as backup showing how it connects to the original ticket, which connects to the charge on your statement.
Originally Posted by
arma5
(4) And with that in mind, if I have an expensive flight I want to cancel, my best bet rather than getting one huge credit is to change-flight it several times to a progressively cheaper flight, so I end up with manageable-size residuals to recombine with small Chase payments over the next year, so everything counts as covered?
I accept that I might be overoptimizing here, but if I can't do that on Flyertalk, where can I do it.
Yes, I think you are over-thinking. You could do what you describe in point 4, if you are really that worried about it. But again, it shouldn't be that complicated...,like I said, if you just show the evidence in a claim of original charge, and then it connecting to those changes you make, I'd be confident any otherwise eligible claim would continue to be so.
Interestingly enough, I was thinking about how to get a bit of $ on a ticket to pay for with the card, when my ETC was more than the amount, and tried to add an E+ seat purchase to one of the flights, thinking that would do it. Apparently that doesn't work anymore (at least if the ETC value exceeds it), because while in the past, UA didn't allow FFC or ETC credits to pay for things like that, it now does. Who knew they would add this during the one moment I was hoping to sue the fact I couldn't pay for it with an ETC to my advantage.