50ae

I had this same problem. Have the benefits book(online) in front of you and IIRC open to page 12 and escalate it at least 3 levels. Explain that you have trip delay and not flight delay protection and your trip was delayed 12 hours. Same exact thing happened to me a couple months ago DFW-ORD-AZO. It was resolved in minutes with that top supervisor.

SNA_Flyer

Amazing. Appreciate the advice. Did this (of course they refuse to escalate and promise callbacks which never happen) but I persisted in getting an actual manager on the phone. I conferenced in a Citibank representative that agreed with me and the correct interpretation of the rules as well. After reading things line by line, and providing some script that our contract attorney suggested, she relented and approved the credit.

Citibank has engaged a despicable organization to provide their travel insurance. Be warned.

50ae

I can't agree more. It seems like they wholesale disallow anything until one jumps through enough hoops that they know you are serious about getting paid.

howtofreetravel

If my trip was changed 1 day before due to a strike do I still get the trip delay? I am arriving more then 3 hours later now.

uclacolumbiaunc

I was one of the many passengers affected by ATL power outage this past sunday. Since my flight got canceled, i had to pay for two more nights of hotels in ATL area cuz they rebooked me to tuesday. My question is, is this situation covered by citi prestige travel protection benefit? Will I be able to file a claim with citi and get "up to" $5000 back for the cost of additional hotels and other expenses for the 2 extra days in ATL?

caseypl

I am currently fighting a denied claim that I thought would be an easy approval with my Citi Thank you Premier Card. On the return leg of a trip, my flights were JFK to ORD and then ORD to MHK. Due to a one and a half hour weather delay, my flight left JFK late and physically landed at the same time the ORD to MHK flight (last one out that night) was taking off (8:15pm) . I was rebooked on a flight the next day to depart at 1 or 130pm, clearly 12 hours delay in my trip, so I didn't think much of booking a night at the O'hare Hilton.

Citi didn't respond within 14 days to my claim, so I called and the phone agents became rude after a few minutes and stated my claim was denied because my initial flight was only delayed 1.5 hours and not 12, even though the overall trip was delayed more than 12 hours with the root cause being weather. Their benefits guide defines common carrier as a vehicle that’s licensed to transport any public passenger who pays a fare or buys a ticket, and is available on a regular schedule. Examples include planes, trains, ferries and cruise ships, but does not include taxis, car service, rental car, and rideshare service.

The guide defines trip as Trip means any pre-paid travel, tour or vacation when all or at
least a portion of the cost of the Common Carrier fare was paid using your Citi card and/or ThankYou® Points for all Covered Travelers.

I think as a reasonable person, I interpret this as my trip, which is defined as travel/vacation by Citi was delayed (cause being weather) and I was unable to get onto "a" common carrier, which the guide doesn't reference as a particularly unique vehicle for more than 12 hours later. I get that they are going to make it difficult for these to be approved and it's not always in their best interest to approve close to $400 per claim, as mine was, but I think I'm in the right here. Any thoughts? I am having my brother, who is a lawyer, look into the wording of their benefit guide to scrutinize it so I can file an appeal once their denial letter arrives in the mail soon.

mia

Welcome to Flyertalk.

I have moved your question into an established thread. Scroll back a FEW posts to #313 and read a substantially similar report, and then read forward. You will need to patiently work your way up the chain of supervisors to find someone who recognizes that a flight is merely one component of a trip.

StatusChallenged

Strike in Europe so they changed my flight the day before, and I was able to have airline reimburse me for about 90% of my hotel and taxi. Had Citi reimburse the rest.

Neither of them wanted to pay for my luggage storage (my overnight stay turned into a 10 hour layover so I didn't want to lug my things around).

themicah

It should be covered by the Trip Delay coverage, which is $500/person.

It doesn't fit very neatly into the Trip Cancellation/Interruption coverage, which is $5000/person. That coverage is primarily intended to reimburse you for prepaid stuff that you miss because of a cancellation/interruption (e.g., if you had prepaid a weekend at Disney and got there two days late for a "covered reason", Citi would reimburse you for your first two days of prepaid hotel fees and park tickets that you didn't get to use). Trip Cancellation/Interruption coverage also covers reasonable accommodations and meals during a trip interruption or extension resulting from a "covered reason," which gets closer to what you're describing. But I don't think an airport power outage is a "covered reason."

uclacolumbiaunc

we have four travelers in our traveling party, but only one of the four flight reservation was paid for using prestige (separate bookings). Can 4 travelers' expense be reimbursed or only 1 can be reimbursed?

themicah

If only one ticket was paid for with the Prestige card, that passenger (assuming that passenger is the cardholder or his/her family member) is the only Covered Traveler. You can get reimbursed up to $500 for expenses that were reasonable and necessary for a Covered Traveler to incur in light of the delay. Practically speaking, if the Covered Traveler shared a cab or a hotel room with one or more of the other travelers, you can probably still get reimbursed for the whole cab ride and hotel room, since IMO it's perfectly reasonable for a delayed passenger to take a cab and stay in a hotel by himself (I wouldn't mention to the claims person that you shared it.) But you're not going to get reimbursed for multiple hotel rooms. And meals get a little tricky if you paid for four people at once.

jetsfan92588

I have a question - it's about baggage delay not trip delay, but that shouldn't be relevant to this question. I searched but wasn't able to find a dedicated baggage delay thread and didn't think it was necessary to create a new thread.

I bought a UA ticket with UA miles and paid the taxes (5.60) with the prestige card. Luggage is delayed over 3 hours so it would meet the terms except for this complication.

I purchased the ticket on Dec 0x and changed the ticket with no fee on Dec 1x. The receipt for Dec 0x shows the prestige card as payment, but the ticket for Dec 1x shows "misc document" in the payment type. I can't find anything which specifically mentions that the Dec 0x ticket was exchanged for the Dec 1x ticket. Anyone have any experience with this or thoughts on likelihood it would be denied based on this?

Second question - UA will probably reimburse me, but I don't know how much. Is the $500 Citi reimbursement limit the amount Citi is willing to pay, or is it the total amount of reimbursement and Citi will pay $500 minus whatever UA reimburses? I.e. assuming $800 in reimburseable expenses, UA reimburses $400. Will Citi reimburse $400 or $100?

joshwex90

Do both receipts have the same ticket number and/or PNR?

akr1970akr

I think Virginia Surety is actually some subsidiary of Citi that does this for them.

And I also think that something has changed in their claims procedures.

We had another trip delay claim maybe 2-3 years ago which everything went smoothly (with making the claim) and it was a pleasant experience.

Our experience this summer with a much smaller ($88) claim was much different. Everything with the attitude, unresponsiveness of the agents, etc.

I think they are experiencing a much higher rate of claims now that bloggers have chatted up how to use this, and anywhere/everywhere agents can push back, they are.

So even legit claims are getting tossed out.

mia

Virginia Surety is owned by The Warranty Group. The Warranty Group is one of the world's premier global providers of warranty solutions and related benefits, with operations in more than 35 countries and nearly 1,600 employees. With Virginia Surety Company and London General Insurance as our wholly-owned insurance companies, The Warranty Group is a single-source solution that provides underwriting, claims administration, and marketing expertise to some of the world's leading manufacturers, distributors, and retailers of consumer goods, as well as specialty insurance products and services for financial institutions. With more than 50 years of experience and over $5 billion in assets, The Warranty Group is the single source provider for your local or global needs

https://www.thewarrantygroup.com/about

The Warranty Group is owned by private equity investors. TPG of Fort Worth, Texas, said last week it has agreed to acquire The Warranty Group from Onex Corp of Toronto. TPG and Onex said the deal was worth about $1.5 billion

http://www.autonews.com/article/2014...te-equity-firm