Etp

Having a delayed flight is like holding a winning lottery for some people, and it is rationally so. For example, think about people with below average or about average income, who carry a premier credit card, like a Citi Prestige. Let's think I am one of them. My flight gets delayed from 3pm to 7pm. At 6pm, I feel hungry and need food. I would have eaten some nuts that I have in my briefcase, and gone home to eat a late dinner; Or maybe I would have grabbed something from Chipotle or Shake Shack for less than $10. I prefer to eat a steak but would not do so because a steak at that restaurant near my gate cost $40. But if I carry a Citi Prestige with Trip Delay coverage, the price of Chipotle, Shake Shack, and the $40 steak are the same. All of them cost $0. And interestingly it cost me more than $0 to eat my nuts and a late dinner at home. Isn’t it rational to consider possibility of reimbursement and change my behavior based on that, and go to the restaurant to eat a steak?

A similar argument can be made for deciding between booking a hotel room and going to a friend or relative’s place, or deciding between booking an expensive room or a cheaper one, etc.

mia

Not if you understand that insurance is not sustainable when there is self-selection. If the insured can arrange his affairs to increase the probability of a claim, or the amount of the claim, the aggregate claims expense will be larger than projected, and the policy will be withdrawn, or changed or re-priced.

It appears this is exactly what is happening now at both Citi and Chase.

mia

Important to also notify Citi, because they choose the insurer and the policy option. You can approach this as a request for help in a specific case, or in a different way to let them know that their insurer is interpreting the benefit differently than written, or differently than they did previously if you had another claim, and this will influence your choice of card.

seawolf

I have to disagree. That’s why a max limit is set by the benefit. It’s not like when a covered event occur, the insurer have no control whether the claim is going to be $100 or $20,000. The max of $500 is set by the benefit not the traveler.

Etp

It seems we have different understanding of rationality in economic behavior. "Not making insurance unsustainable" is not a metric of rationality in economic behavior. Self-selection (and also moral hazard) are rational behaviors, but can make insurance unsustainable.

flyershmlyer

Yes, but there are millions of travelers! i.e., potential claimants.

Think of it this way: the total amount the insurer pays is: $(Total payout) = (# of claims)x($Average claim payment). The average payment is capped by the max. And nobody questions that. Even now, restaurant and hotel bills aren't being debated, when they're being paid out.

But the whole issue is in the (# of claims). They're arbitrarily setting requirement to lower it, to lower total payout (perhaps because it's too high and not sustainable).

GarlicFlyer

I really don't get the drama in this thread. Citi does not pay for missed connections, which allows them to offer the three hour Prestige threshold. This is perfectly fine and logical to me.

seawolf

GarlicFlyer

In my readIng the answer is yes on both. I understand an "event" to mean that there is a three hour delay in the movement of the metal (common carrier).

A missed connection option would be easily manipulated by a travel hacker.

bookeew

Currently, flight 2 would not be covered (as per the interpretation of the language by some Virginia Surety agents).

A missed connection is one of the most important reasons to have the Trip Delay benefit for a majority of travelers, as you can also see from the interpretations of the benefit guide by Citi's customers (and hence the outrage in this thread).

I also don't see your point of it being easy to manipulate by travel hackers. Yes, it could be possible by booking flights that are almost always late, so that you miss your connection regardless of MCT, so that you miss it and can spend money on Citi's dime. But this takes somewhat of an effort and it is a gamble: You are possibly missing out on travel if you are not making your connection (thus, you can spend Citi money), or if you plan with the delay, you might arrive early at your destination and don't have a hotel (thus you need to spend your own money for it, which might be significantly more, particularly considering that lots of travel hackers like 5* hotels). To me, these are unreasonable grounds to not cover missed connections regardless of the language and its interpretation. Ultimately, there will always be some way to abuse a system, it is the cost of doing business.

Personally, without covering missed connections, the benefit is useless and I would not use the Prestige for booking travel.

seawolf

I agree there are always opportunities to hack even on non-stops. Just book an summer afternoon Northeast corridor flight especially on heavy business travel days and routes and it probably would be delayed by thunderstorms and/or ATC. You can further the odds by looking at the on-time stats for the flight.

An example, AA flies afternoon YUL to JFK and LGA. If circumstances present themselves, AA will delay or cancel the LGA flight before JFK due to connecting international traffic.

themicah

If I (1) had a question about whether an expense was eligible, and (2) wasn't going to incur the expense if it wasn't eligible, then I agree it would make sense to call and ask. If I was going to incur the expense regardless, however, then it makes no sense to call ahead (better to shoot first and ask questions later). And I didn't have a question about whether my expenses were eligible.

I was well aware that lately they've been denying coverage for folks who misconnected after a <3hr individual flight segment delay (which I still think is contrary to the T&Cs--see below). But I was on a nonstop flight that was clearly delayed more than 3 hours. So it never even occurred to me that they would say my one night in a hotel in YYY was ineligible for reimbursement because my "delay" ended upon departing XXX.

It would be perfectly fine and logical if the T&Cs said missed connections weren't covered. They could put "missed connections where no individual flight segment was more than 3 hours late" into the "what's not covered" section of the T&Cs and there would be no drama here. But the T&Cs don't say that. They say that you're covered if your Trip on a Common Carrier is delayed at least 3 hours by weather, and they say you're covered from Trip Departure Date to Trip Completion Date, and I think there are VERY few people who would read the T&Cs and conclude that getting stuck overnight in a connecting city (and arriving >3 hours late to your destination) is only covered if the incoming flight segment itself was >3hrs late.

mpeterson78

This benefit is now totally dead for the Prestige. No reason to use this card over the CSR for trip delay protection, especially with their recent shenanigans.

"Around March they made a change to the benefit and made it so that if the delay was caused by a miss connection unless your first flight was delayed by more than 3 hours. Another negative change is coming into effect on 7/29/18 unfortunately and a delay of 6 or more hours will be required."

https://www.doctorofcredit.com/citi-...-from-7-29-18/

dw

In all these years, it's been rare that I've been delayed by more than 6 hours and not have a forced overnight (which often ends up getting you in the 12+ hour category that some other cards cover). The change from 3 to 6 hours will still be good for those times when you have to get a hotel room (and really good for those times there is a winter snowstorm and you may be stranded for more than one night). However, one of the great uses of the Prestige's coverage was to pay for meals for more common delays of 3+ hours, so it's unfortunate that benefit is going away.

seawolf

For me, this does drive more airline spend to CSR.