You know those things you know that you should pack, but choose not to and then kick yourself later? I notoriously pack light, but sometimes leave out the essentials. Like these other travel mishaps, I now know that it is essential to buy travel insurance.
For example, ‘I’m going to Texas in September, I’ll never need this umbrella.” or “It’s warm in Spain in June, I won’t need the extra jacket.” My personal favorite: “I’m going to travel for several months in Southeast Asia. What could possibly go wrong that I would need to buy travel insurance for?” *Rolls Eyes
I have always had a similar attitude toward whether I should buy travel insurance. You know, the ‘for all the times I don’t need it and pay for it, then I’m losing the money I could spend on an incident when I do end up needing it’ mentality. But here’s the thing: I have been stuck paying for last-minute international flights twice in the last 4 months after unforeseen cancellations.
What would I do differently? Probably pay for travel insurance.
Why Would I Buy Travel Insurance?
Let me be clear – when I say travel insurance, I don’t mean the add-on that pops up when buying a flight. That is typically extra assistance from the airline in the case that you have issues making your flights or need to change them. The instances that I ran in to were completely out of my hands, and that’s where travel insurance would have saved me over $1500 this year.
Here are the two stories:
Beirut:
I was flying Cyprus Airways from Beirut to Larnaca. They operate one flight a day. However, due to a small number of travelers between the two countries, flights often get canceled. In this case, the flight was canceled and I was not notified until I arrived at the airport. With only one flight per day, there were no airline representatives working. I asked around to other airlines and the service desk, and nobody could find the Cyprus Airways desk. In fact, several employees told me that Cyprus Airways didn’t even fly out of Beirut. That wasn’t true, but I couldn’t make an international call to Cyprus to work things out, so I was stuck.
Eventually, someone at a ticketing counter sent me down a hallway, past several security checkpoints, and onward to find the Cyprus airways office. To be clear, I, a white, curly-haired, relatively innocent midwesterner with limited knowledge of Arabic, went down the long, gray, poorly lit hallways and corridors of the Beirut Airport.
It probably should not have happened. Seriously- in no way should security have let me just slide right past them the way that I did. But I suppose that if I walk like I own the place, people think I do. I did not.
I walked down cement corridors and eventually saw plaques on doors that read, ‘Emirates’, ‘Qatar Airways’, and ‘Air France’. Eventually, I noticed half of a piece of printer paper with ‘Cyprus’ written on it in pencil. This ‘sign’ was taped to a closed door. This had to be a joke. I was alone, tired, and confused as to what to do next.
Total cost to me: $350 including an extra night in Beirut and last-minute flight for the next day.
Hong Kong:
I was slated to fly from Hong Kong to Shanghai and then back to the US. I had a one-way ticket on August 12 at 8 pm. Because of the protests going on around the city, I went to the airport early. My bus arrived at the airport at 4 pm. The protests that day were in the airport, and it shut down right as I arrived. That whole story is here.
My flight was canceled and my booking website, credit card, the airline, and the consulate couldn’t tell me anything about what to do. I searched online, but had no resources. A political uprising is relatively unprecedented in tourism. The fact is, next time, I want to have someone available to ask.
Total cost to me: $1200 including a last-minute flight, additional night in Hong Kong, plus incidentals.
What I could have done differently:
This is the part where I admit that I was wrong.
In both of those instances, I could have had someone in my corner if I had an insurance policy. I could have had someone tell me the right things to do, and my trip would have been protected.
As I head off on my nomadic life at the beginning of next year, I will buy travel insurance. I haven’t purchased a plan yet, but it looks like I’m going to use Allianz Global Assistance. At $450 for the year, it’ll help me if I run into similar airline issues and other silly things like:
- When I had to go to the ear doctor in Thailand, it would have been covered
- If I had gone to a doctor when I had a stomach bug in Vietnam, the bill would have been reimbursed.
- When Spirit Airlines lost my bag with my work computer and shoes in it, I could have used baggage protection.
- If for any medical reason I had to be transported home, it would cover that cost as well.
I’m learning a lot of things about travel as I go. However, I am definitely finally going to take the advice of the experts and buy travel insurance.
Do you use insurance when you travel? Who do you typically use?
