GUWonder

The licensed agents to handle this benefit — or to even explain the benefit — only work Monday to Friday between 8am and 8pm EST. They may have eventually expand operating hours for this benefit section, but they haven’t yet staffed up for more than these limited hours/days of operation.

Their number is +1-844-933-0648..

Some foreign home residence insurance policies provide better coverage and may not even cost more than two Amex Plat annual fees.

GUWonder

Does Amex benefit covered trip include the following:

Leaving home on a flight ticket purchased using Chase UR points but flying back home on AA/DL/UA mileage ticket with its taxes paid for with Amex Plat card when hit by a weather-related flight cancellation while on the return (to home) part of the trip using the AA/DL/UA mileage ticket?

Seems so.

coltonatx

Is there a thread of people posting their experiences with this new benefit?

OC_Matt

Last week I paid for a round trip on Volaris TIJ-SJD taking off Saturday 1/25 and returning 1/26. I was moved from the 9am to the 6pm because of cancellation due to fog. By the time 6 rolled around, it was also cancelled due to fog. At this point there was really no point in moving forward with the trip as I would potentially arrive and depart on the same day. When I contacted Volaris they said they were not responsible for weather issues and there would be no refunds. This seems absurd as the flight I paid for never happened so why should I cover their loss? Anyway, I am trying to determine if I should dispute the charge or take advantage of this new delay/cancellation policy from my AMEX Platinum. Any thoughts?

mia

You need to read the airline's Contract of Carriage to understand their weather cancellation and refund policy.

https://cms.volaris.com/globalassets...arriagenat.pdf

...and also their Customer Service Plan:

https://cms.volaris.com/globalassets...erviceplan.pdf

OC_Matt

I had read it and sent FB messages, tweets, and emails. All responses from Volaris were boilerplate. I'm not sure if their policies prevent success via dispute as I received nothing in exchange for my payment. If that doesn't work I'll make a claim under the AMEX cancellation coverage. I am hesitant to do that first out of principle. Why should they get paid for a flight that didn't happen?

Eujeanie

I guess not all airlines have "trip in vain"?

notquiteaff

I don’t see how an airline can postpone a flight to a future date without offering a refund alternative. I would file a chargeback with Amex arguing that the product purchased was not delivered and that the substitute product offered (flight on another date) was not a valid substitute for the purpose of the original purchase.

aumis93

I just called to get clarification on what "Family Members" means as far as whose illness or death would trigger the trip cancellation insurance to pay out. It turns out it is ONLY spouse and dependent children. If your parent or adult child is not traveling with you and they are hospitalized or pass away it does not cover that. Does this seem unusually restrictive? I haven't used trip insurance a lot but am currently in need of it with aging parents. If this is true, I would have pay for other insurance anyway. I just signed up for the AMEX Platinum card so I'm trying to decide if I should just cancel before my annual fee is charged. This benefit was a big reason why I got it.

akr1970akr

They're basically taking a nuclear family approach, versus an extended family approach. The latter would multiply the possibility of claims, and drive up expected losses for offering the coverage.

And with that extended approach - such as covering elder parents - that's not only extending the number of covered lives but those risks that are much more likely to come to ill fruition than a young child.

Considering that other issuers are cancelling the coverage, and Amex has added it, I would look upon it as a nice but narrow benefit that may help in unusual cases.

But if your in a situation where you have to really plan around hospitalization/death of parents its a risk you'll have to wear (and hedge against) yourself rather than offload to Amex.

richarddd

I have the same concern. That's an advantage of the CSP and CSR, if I'm reading correctly.

mia

If you cancel the card before 12 months it is likely to trigger an algorithm that will deny bonuses on future American Express applications. I realize you may cancell for a reason that has nothing to do with rewards, but American Express is a mass market company and the explanation will not matter.

aumis93

I actually asked about this on one of my many calls with them today and they said I would not qualify for the bonus on the Platinum card in the future even if I never actually receive one this time, but would for other cards. I'm actually trying to see if there are other ways I can cover for the lack of insurance instead of cancelling, for instance, using my $200 airline credit for the change fee if needed.

I did let them know that the Summary of Benefits that came with my card says "Sickness, Accidental Bodily Injury or loss of life to the Eligible Traveler, Traveling Companion, or an immediate Family Member of the Eligible Traveler or Traveling Companion." Ultimately it is whatever the insurance company says it is but I'm afraid most people would read this and stop there thinking it was actually going to cover an illness of any immediate family member. If nothing else, maybe they will fix the Summary of Benefits and the other documentation to make this very clear. I'm sure a lot of this is due to it being a brand new benefit.

richarddd

These appear to be the terms of the trip cancellation insurance: https://www.americanexpress.com/cont..._Insurance.pdf which I got from https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/31905184-post129.html

For whatever it's worth, I read the link when mia first posted the link and thought it included parents (likely with an Immediate Family definition), but looking today it does not. Either I'm misremembering or they changed the terms.

BigFlyer

Kind of interesting that the linked PDF does not even name the insurance carrier.

However, if you look in the metadata of the PDF you can find the name of the author of the PDF. If you then google his name, it appears he is an account manager with AIG.