Numerous credit cards provide travel protection benefits; however, these plans often come with lengthy exclusions and fine print clauses.
Coverage offered varies by card, but most include either luggage or flight accident coverage as well as trip delay/cancellation insurance and rental car collision damage coverage.
1. Trip Cancellation
Travel card companies typically offer trip cancellation and interruption coverage. Unfortunately, such policies typically don’t offer “cancel for any reason” options that many travelers find appealing in traditional policies.
Credit card policies often exclude events beyond a traveler’s control, including work obligations, legal duties and medical needs. Furthermore, most policies contain age limitations and require charging your entire trip onto one card for coverage to apply.
Travelers seeking comprehensive protection should consider purchasing their own policy; however, credit card travel protection benefits can provide solutions to some common travel problems and may be worth paying the additional costs – it may even save money depending on which benefits are provided and coverage levels available.
2. Trip Delay
Credit cards that offer trip delay insurance can reimburse your expenses like meals, hotel accommodations and transportation if your journey is delayed due to covered events, such as travel delays on common carriers such as airlines, cruise lines, buses or passenger boats; it can even provide coverage in cases such as civil unrest or severe weather events.
Coverage limits depend on your specific policy; most require that delays of a minimum amount of time qualify for reimbursement and some even specify a daily maximum coverage amount; it’s essential to read carefully as the fine print varies widely among insurers and cards with this feature may not provide as much coverage than dedicated travel policies but still could provide value-conscious travelers with protection.
3. Baggage Loss
Credit card travel insurance offers additional coverage against lost and stolen luggage, acting as a secondary policy alongside your homeowners or renters policies. Review your benefits guide to learn about coverage limits and terms.
Most credit cards provide this benefit when purchasing tickets on common carriers such as airlines, trains or buses with their card – it covers up to $10,000 per person in case their bags are lost, stolen or delayed; keep receipts for expensive items in case they need to file a claim. Some cards also offer rental car damage coverage to save you money by waiving costly rental-car company insurance plans.
4. Medical Expenses
Credit cards often offer benefits designed to aid travelers with medical costs and unexpected misadventures on trips covered by them. Policies often cover accidental death and dismemberment (AD&D), loss of speech or sight as well as accidental deaths caused by travel-related mishaps for cardholders and immediate family members traveling together on covered trips.
Some credit cards offer rental car insurance, enabling you to avoid expensive car-rental agency policies by filing claims directly against your card instead. However, this type of coverage usually acts as secondary protection, meaning any claims must first be submitted with other policies before your card kicks in. Other cards may offer emergency medical evacuation insurance that covers expenses for travel-related injuries and illnesses that require air or cruise ship evacuation.
5. Emergency Medical Evacuation
Credit card travel insurance benefits often provide medical evacuation coverage, although its scope is often not as comprehensive. To use it, an on-site physician must certify the severity of an injury or illness warranting evacuation. That’s where medical transport memberships like Medjet come in–they take over where insurance and platinum level credit cards with evacuation coverage leave off, arranging bedside-to-bedside transport and repatriation home as needed.
Independent travel insurance plans typically offer much higher limits than the ones provided through credit cards, particularly plans with hospital of choice coverage – which allows you to select where you would prefer being treated in case an emergency medical situation arises while abroad.
