alangore

Yes, today we use travel insurance to paper over deficiencies in customer service. Another way of looking at this situation might be to ask, "What would the bottom line difference be if airlines were nice to their passengers?" They might reply something like, "We would have to raise fares 20%..."

That differential is what we are paying for travel insurance that is needed to cover all the missing service.

Nevsky

One problem I have generally seen with the travel insurance policies I have looked at is they will only fly you back home economy fare, which if you have a business or first class ticket is not what you are looking for. In fact, given that, you might not even have a claim, as the economy fare might be less than the remaining value of the ticket. I would be interested in finding out which policies will fly you back in the same class of service (and the same question if one is on an award ticket).

Second, I am wondering if, given the enhanced testing, an airline will turn this into a marketing opportunity by promising to waive the fare difference for the passenger and accompanying family (or other companion). Emirates provided insurance to all passengers until recently. I wonder if they will resume that again?

xliioper

If you are talking about the flexible/refundable fares the airlines have been pushing more heavily recently, these typically allow same-day flight changes without having to pay fare differences. But if you want to change to fly on a different day, you will pay fare difference. However, there are often cases of fares that use the original ticketing date to measure the advance purchase time when you have taken the outbound flight and are only changing the return flight of a roundtrip booking. This can result in substantial savings over simply purchasing a new ticket on a flight as you can qualify for substantially cheaper fares with lengthier advance purchase requirements as well as cheaper fares that require roundtrip bookings (still prevalent on many international routes) since you still meet the roundtrip booking requirement.

azepine00

yes once the outbound is flown it is not a brand new ticket and assuming availability of same fare bucket and original fare rules it may end up being free change.. i have limited experience with those but on a couple of occasions pre-covid it was only the change fee... it does not need to be some fully flexible ticket for that...

SteveinA2

There always seems to be very vocal folks saying "Get insurance" which I don't understand

Never insure what you can afford to lose is a better rule. And let's face it everyone going on a vacation can afford to lose the non refundable piece. Logically speaking their loss isn't the money but the experience.

I've never bought trip insurance and over 100's of trips have had one issue. Net net I'm way ahead.

GlobalMatt

I wish I had your luck.

azepine00

my insurance for special cases i see as risky is usually booking a refundable award ticket..

with insurance spending a very significant amount out of pocket on some last minute change and then trying to claim that value seems very risky in itself (eg a trip in business falls apart on the way back - without insurance i'll book an award or cheap coach and make it back with minor inconveniences; with insurance i spend 5K in one way ticket and if my claim is declined for some reason i am out 5K or x4 if traveling with family)

Jean-Baptiste Legrand

Folks, if one needs to postpone one's return flight back to the US from overseas due to testing positive for Covid prior to departure, does AA charge tons of money to postpone the return leg? I am flying on a discounted business fare.

If so, will regular travel insurance (like Allianz or John Hancock) cover the extra charge under their "trip interruption" clause?

Antarius

1. AA will likely charge a fare difference.

2. It depends on what the travel insurance policy says. Some do, but id check to make sure.

ronin98syu

I've recently done a research on this issue for our Helsinki trip in January. After reading posts from Flyertalk, I used squaremouth.com to do my comparisons. Most of the travel insurance I searched would use trip/travel delay to cover the additional hotel and meals. However there is a daily and total limit. (For example: $2000 total limit with $200 limit per day per person.) We found a plan that would allow us to double the coverage in trip delay. I was under the impression that the insurance would not cover the fare difference, or it could be under a different category. Hope this helps.

Chan Hsu

Jean-Baptiste Legrand

Interesting ... So the trip interruption coverage is for hotel and per diem during those extra days then, and not necessarily for the fare difference?

Sometimes those fare differences can be so crazy it can be cheaper to just toss the ticket and buy a new one home on a different airline...

s777bg

It makes sense when you think about it. All trip delay/interruption insurances specifically say that don’t cover a new airfare.

JJeffrey

Definitely, although now that there are no change fees it makes more sense to change the return portion to a date in the future (that prices better) where you might be able to use it, rather than just throwing it away.

A short notice business class ticket will for sure be mega $$, however you can find walk up economy tickets ex-EU for reasonable amounts.

Ultimately if a positive test were to happen you'd have an extra 2-4 days or so to sort your new return, really a personal and financial decision of whether it makes sense to change the existing ticket, take a downgrade if necessary, book a brand new ticket, etc.

SeattleDavid

It is unusual for return tickets to be refared at current prices – the norm is (used to be) that they would be refared at historical prices from the date of last ticketing. Thus, as long as the same fare class (I probably) is available, and as long as you are returning later, not sooner, the worst that I would expect would be a small fare increase (for example, due to new flights being at a weekend and not midweek).

With no change fares, the cost of changing a return once travel has begun should often be nothing and occasionally a small difference, and very occasionally a lot (if your ticket has to change from I to J, for example).

pmarrsouth

“All” is quite a statement here!