ON TRAVEL : Expedia now offers travelers any-reason cancellation policy
Posted on Sunday, September 24, 2006
Add Expedia to the list of agencies that sell travel insurance that allows you to cancel for any reason. Although the program falls short of a full no-risk guarantee, many of you will welcome still another opportunity to avoid losses when you have to cancel a trip for which you’ve already paid.
As I’ve often noted, many vacation expenditures are either totally nonrefundable or carry a big cancellation penalty. Whenever the nonrefundable portion of your upfront payment is more than you can afford to turn your back on, you need trip-cancellation insurance (TCI ). Basically, TCI repays you for whatever you can’t recover if you have to cancel a trip or interrupt a trip for a “covered reason.” For many years, TCI policies limited you to a set of “covered” reasons that was pretty much the same no matter which company you selected: illness or accident to you, a traveling companion or a close family member who remains at home; getting called to jury or military duty; your house’s burning down; or even missing a departure because of a traffic accident on your way to the airport / cruiseport. But until recently, you couldn’t buy any insurance — at any cost — that covered you if you had to cancel a trip for business reasons or because you didn’t like something happening in your destination area.
The first big change came last year, when TravelSafe (www. travelsafe. com ) added policies that cover cancellation for any reason at all — a competitively priced policy that repays 75 percent of your nonrefundables and an expensive option that covers 90 percent. Next, just a few months ago, Access America (www. acces samerica. com ) added a modestly priced “BizPack” option that reimburses you when you have to cancel for a specified business reason. I’ve covered both in previous columns.
The latest innovation comes from Expedia, the big online site. When you buy a package from Expedia — air plus hotel — you can buy an extra “Package Protection Plan” that includes the usual covered reasons for TCI but adds cancellation for any reason at all. The cost is a flat $ 39 per person, regardless of trip length or your age. The usual fine print requires you to buy the insurance at the time you book your package; you can’t buy it after you’ve paid. The policy also incorporates the usual exclusions about self-inflicted injuries and such. And you can cancel a trip only once.
The Package Protection Plan also bundles other coverages common to TCI policies: sickness / accident medical expenses, emergency transportation (medical evacuation ), trip delay, baggage loss / damage / delay, and worldwide (nonmonetary ) assistance. The dollar values of the medical extras, however, are much lower than you find with more conventional — and more expensive — TCI policies.
The biggest caveat with Expedia’s new program is that it does not repay you for the costs of air travel when that travel is at published fares. Instead, it simply waives the fee — usually $ 100 per ticket — that an airline charges to re-use the dollar value tied up in your ticket. If your air travel is at an unpublished Expedia contract fare, however, you do get the refund.
The program is limited to Expedia’s air-hotel packages. It does not cover cruises booked through the agency.
Is Package Protection Plan a good deal ? Maybe, depending on how you assess your risks. You can usually cancel hotel reservations, for any reason, at no cost, so if you’re booking your air and hotel separately, you usually don’t need the hotel protection. However, if you fly on anything less than a full-fare coach or first class air ticket, you stand to lose up to $ 100 in exchange fees if you have to cancel a trip. Moreover, many hotel deals entail a cancellation fee, typically the cost of the first night, and Expedia charges fees on its own hotel cancellations. On balance, I’d say that the extra $ 39 feature is probably a good buy, if (1 ) you buy an Expedia package rather than booking hotel separately and (2 ) you don’t need more expensive, more comprehensive TCI coverage. Take a look at www. expedia. com. Send e-mail to Ed Perkins at eperkins@mind. net
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