azmmza

I know that amex offers some sort of trip insurance for tickets purchased on the card

With all the media coverage about the iceland volcano im considering buying trip insurance for my next trip to europe

if i use miles for the ticket but pay for the taxes and fees with AMEX will i be eligable for the insurance?

which card would be my best choice

amex plat BIZ
amex GLD personal
spg personal

or do i need to purchase separate trip insurance

if i do what company has the best reputation

my main concern is being stuck for an extra week and having to pay for a hotel (happened to 2 friends of mine in may in NRT)

thanks

mia

American Express cards issued in the USA do not include any benefit which I would characterize as trip insurance (unless you were to die in a common carrier accident).

The Platinum Card will provide some assistance as described here:

https://www217.americanexpress.com/c...lassisthotline

There is also an extra cost Travel Delay Protection feature, but it reimburses only 48 hours expenses:

https://www152.americanexpress.com/f...veldelay_ccben

Relevant article in tomorrow's LA Times:

http://www.latimes.com/travel/la-tr-...2.story?page=1

WBOTM

If you are using an award ticket, read the fine print of any trip insurance policy to make sure it covers an award ticket (e.g., re-deposit fees, paid one-way ticket for interruptions, etc.).

Some policies are based on how much you paid for your ticket/trip and not the "value" of the ticket/trip. Unless the coverage explicitly covers the award ticket, you may have a lot of out of pocket expenses if your trip is cancelled/interrupted.

SquareMouth and InsureMyTrip are two companies I use to research trip insurance policies/costs.

Amex Customer Care

Hi azmmza,

In answer to your question American Express actually offers numerous insurances when traveling. Our Global Travel Shield will be more than happy to help with the insurances that they have to offer as well as the fees. They can be contacted directly at 800-332-4899; M-F 8am-10pm, Sat &Sun 10am-7pm EST. You are also able to view this information online at: globaltravelshield.com

I hope the information is helpful.

Rachel
Amex Customer Care

divemistressofthedark

Hey folks, I just had a fairly disappointing experience with Amex CS over this issue.

Relevant facts:

* I transferred plus or minus 20,000 MR to DL about a month ago for use in securing an award flight

* I put about $40 on my PR Gold Card for a fee associated with ticketing

* None of the travel delay or other insurance products I'm registered for appeared on my PR Gold statement.

So I called Amex to see if I could get coverage, since I'd be out $250 in change fees to DL and at least a couple hundred dollars in hotel costs were I to cancel.

Long story short: CS agent had no idea what I was talking about, and wasn't familiar with the basics of transferring MR to airline programs for use in securing award trips. She first mentioned the Amex Global program, but then told me there was another program (she didn't know the name) that would cover flights purchased using MR for $500 per year.

?! I don't have a lot of time today to deal with this, so I'll be going third party (probably TravelGuard) - but I would really think Amex would have some kind of procedure in place to cover this type of event, since they promote MR travel so heavily.

(Any $.02 welcome, pretty much. Yes, I realize Amex is not on the hook to provide full trip insurance coverage, especially as it relates to hotel accommodations. But I'd like something other than the audio equivalent of 'blank look' when I call to inquire about the features Amex does cover.)

4aks

I agree that you should be able to buy the ~$10 AMEX travel insurance on any ticket, award or not, however I also see them not having any clean/obvious way of appropriately pricing award travel (retrospectively) (other than maybe covering ticket change fees)