0limits

Am looking at booking an award flight on AA.com from Europe to US one way and the taxes/fees are ~$400 because of it being a BA flight going through LHR (not using Avios, using AA miles). I'm ok with that because it is in J.

Seeking advice to which credit card should I use to pay for the taxes & fees with regards to travel insurance? Between my spouse and me, we have Citi AA Plat World MC, Chase BA VI, Chase Sapphire Preferred VI, Barclays Arrival Plus World MC. I'm leaning toward CSP but am not sure that Chase would cover any trip delay or cancellation if I'm just paying for the taxes & fees. I've read some reports that Chase does, but is this a YMMV thing?

Thanks for any help.

ETA: I've read a similar thread started 9-2-14 on this topic. Looking for any more information.

tjguitar85

If you book an AA flight rather than a BA flight from through LHR, it's a lot cheaper.

I booked LAX to LHR non-stop on American Airlines in November for 20k miles and (and Amsterdam to San Diego through Philly for 20k miles, combined it was only around $60-$70 in taxes

0limits

This is OT, but I did want to respond. I looked for AA flights, but for MileSAAver fares all I could find on aa.com were BA flights. The AA flights were only offered as AAnytime awards, which were far beyond my miles balance, like 135K miles vs the 50K miles I had available for Business. Wish I could travel off-peak but not doable with school schedule.

Anyway, I decided CSP was the way to go given my options.

opus2002

We are planning on booking a cruise trip and would like to figure out what is the best credit card to use as far as trip cancellation for medical reasons. What credit card provides this?

Some cards we have:

Barclays Arrival Plus
Chase Sapphire Preferred
Chase Ritz Carlton
Citi AA Executive
Citi AA Platinum Mastercard

JDiver

Others more knowledgeable about these cards will chime in, but I'm personally not familiar with any credit card that provides trip cancellation and interruption insurance for medical reasons by virtue of having a credit card alone.

There are annual policies that cover these issues, albeit some do not cover pre-existing or chronic conditions. There are also TCII policies available for specific trips - I use www.insuremytrip.com to see a selection of available policies and compare them (including the fine print), and you can purchase a policy there with no commission charges to you.

opus2002

The difficult part is figuring out which card actually has value, and which one will actually refund your tour cost.

There is what one card advertises:
If your trip is canceled or cut short by sickness, severe weather and other covered situations, you can be reimbursed up to $10,000 per trip for your pre-paid, non-refundable travel expenses, including passenger fares, tours, and hotels.

I haven't read the fine print, as it wasn't available online.

mintcilantro

I just posted in the other thread. My experience with CSP is positive. I'm going to make a claim with citi aa exec shortly so will let you know what I find.

I'd say go with CSP right now until we have data points for other cards.

mintcilantro

Here is an update.
Booked a trip to Istanbul, Flights with CSP, Hotel with Hilton Reserve.

Since my hotel was not booked using CSP, I thought I would make a claim with citi for the hotel portion. After sending a large amount of documents, I was told my claim is not qualified because a "hotel stay is not a trip". Looks like it is my mistake so I'll swallow the loss of a few hundred dollars.

claim was denied by citi's outsourced agency: AMPIDS Property Casualty Insurance Company
Benefits Assistance Center
c/o Program Administrator at Sedgwick Claims Management Services, Inc.
PO Box 89405
Cleveland, OH 44101-6405


So beware, if you had a road trip planned, and you don't have common carrier travel as part of the "trip", it is not a trip. Your non refundable hotel reservations are not covered. In that case I would recommend that you book a refundable air ticket to make this a "trip". That is what I should have done if I had known how they would interpret.

Anyway, the better solution would be to always book with CSP or other card. This is what their benefit guide considers a trip
The CSP insurance company called Crawford & Company was relatively easy to work with and honored our claim for the flight. We had a combo of paid and award ticket. They covered both of those flights. I'm extremely pleased with the way they handled the situation.

I have an electronic copy of the chase benefit guide for CSP and fairmont, citi's benefit guide for hilton reserve and executive club card as well. PM if you want that.

eajusa

This is very helpful information. Thanks for sharing as I often split trip costs over multiple cards.

CEONelson

How did they cover the award ticket portion? Did you somehow receive miles back to your account or did they perform some calculation of miles to dollars and then refund you in cash?

mintcilantro

they reimbursed me the award redeposit fees ($200 per ticket). The miles went back to my account. The original taxes back to CSP.

bobert24

I started this thread last year, and have learned a lot since then. Primarily, use a Chase UR card (either CSP or Ink) to book your award tickets. Our example:

Booked a Delta international flight using Sky Pesos, paid the taxes & fees (<$20) with my Ink Plus. Somewhere along the way, we had a Kindle that didn't make it off the plane with us. Filed a report with Delta, who of course never found it. Filed a case with Chase (Crawford & Company) who were happy to process it as lost luggage (the terms allow for both checked & carry-on coverage). Uploaded the requested documentation, and had a check in my hands 10 days later. The check covered every penny I asked for - the cost of the kindle, case, and sales tax.

I will note that there was no communication at all - I actually called in on day 8 to see what was going on, and was told a check had been printed the previous day. As easy as everything else in the process was, I'll let the lack of communication slide.

I know there are some slight differences between CSP & Ink insurances, and I haven't had time to check them thoroughly, so if you have both, you may want to check the terms for yourself. Either way, I'm more than impressed.

I did have a CSR last year tell me one thing that you may want to keep in mind, although I'm not 100% sure how true it is. For things like lost luggage, etc., they supposedly limit your coverage/their liability to the amount you charged on that card for that trip. So if you only charged $11.20 on that card for that trip, supposedly that's the extent of their coverage. If, however, you charged $11.20 for airfare, and $500 for hotel rooms, they'll cover you for up to $511.20. So I always make any additional reservations on that same card, just in case. Hopefully someone else may have a data point that confirms or denies this.