Originally Posted by
VegasGambler
Credit cards that provide good travel insurance tend to have high annual fees. For people who only travel once every year or two, I could see this being a reasonable purchase. It's not worth getting a travel credit card, and if you have to cancel you may not be able to use a travel credit before it expires.
Also a lot of people simply don't have the credit score to qualify for a good credit card. I'm sure that a lot of people are using debit cards, or credit cards with limited benefits, to buy tickets, because that's all that they can get.
And of course high-free credit cards tend to have high interest rates even by credit card standards, so they are a horrible idea for anyone not paying their balance in full every month or even anyone who's not completely confident they will pay their balance in full every month.
Self-insuring is absolutely a win for me based on the number of claims I've made against my CSR insurance (zero, although there's one claim I probably could have made but didn't because I expect to ultimately be reimbursed by the airline once a Canadian Transportation Agency appeal is completed in 1-2 years, but even if I make that claim I would come out ahead compared to paying ≈$20 per trip for insurance — the CSR insurance is no-extra-cost to me because I have the card for other reasons). There's a reason travel insurance companies push those so much and pay commissions to airlines: they come out ahead.