My son was taking a vacation in South Padre Island this week with some old fraternity bothers. Since they already arranged the condo and he booked the air only 2 weeks before the trip, he didn't bother taking trip insurance. He left from NY on March 10 and was due to return on March 16.
A snow/sleet and ice storm hit NY on March 16. Luckily, I got word to him to pack a complete change of clothes in his carry on since he might be stuck in Houston. The flight from Brownsville Tx took off right on time and once he got to Houston, all hell broke loose. Continental couldn't tell them if they were going to delay the flight, cancel the flight or much of anything else. All they did was make them wait. In the end, they cancelled all the flights into the NYC area. There was not an airline seat to be had. My son had to find a hotel and spend the night (at his expense) so that he could then return to the airport at 6am the next day. He did finally get on a plane (standby) at about 2:30pm and just landed in Newark- with shorts on. By the way, it is 30 degrees outside.
Needless to say, had he taken out insurance for $50 or less, based on the cost of his trip, his hotel, meals and taxi fare would have been covered under the trip delay part of the insurance. In the meantime, he spent a night in a cheap motel, and had to pay for all of his meals and cab fare from his own pocket.
We all hope that we never need to use travel insurance but, it's always a welcome relief when we need to use it.
I offer my clients a number of different options on trip insurance but I always recommend. We ended up using it when my husband got sick on a Carnival cruise years ago and ended up in a hospital in Cozumel. You can read all about what the trip insurance covered on my website, www.myvacationlady.com. Click on trip insurance. The story is true.
P.S. If I could be a travel agent and never deal with the airlines, I would be thrilled. Once they cancel flights due to weather, there is little travel agents can do. I have clients in Punta Cana right now. American cancelled their return flight and doesn't have room for them until Tuesday (today is Saturday). I was able to find them a flight on an alternate airline returning on Monday but it was to Philadelphia and their car and dog are on Long Island. They decided to stay the extra day in paradise. I tried but there weren't 3 seats back to the NYC metro region at all because of 2 days worth of cancelled flights.
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