CBA complementary travel insurance with Platinum and Diamond credit cards

[arabella]

Hi All

Has anyone had recent experience with using the CBA credit cards that offer "free" travel insurance? I have a Diamond CBA cc and am thinking of using it for an upcoming trip to 4 cities in Asia as part of a cruise. I'm interested in any negative claims experience, big omissions in cover, probs with the spend on the card to become eligible to claim on it..........you know the sort of issues. Anything I should know about before I make a decision not to pay someone (as ever before) for travel insurance?

Thanks

Arabella

 

[dalereardon]

Hi,

My wife and I travelled from Melbourne to Europe in 2010 and used the CBA Diamond card that I have to act as our travel insurance.

We booked the flights as premium economy classic award flights with Qantas so under the conditions we had to spend $900 each on accommodation etc to activate the insurance. We just carried our credit card statements with us as proof.

We had 2 causes to make a claim and both were handled magnificently.

Qantas flew us Sydney to Hong Kong and we were then transferring to a BA flight to London - had to route this way to get premium economy seats. BA suddenly called a strike if you recall. Air France business class was cheaper than the cheapest premium economy so the travel insurer (Zurich) allowed us to transfer to Air France business class. We reached a mutually agreeable value on the BA points we received back (based on gift voucher values in the QF shop) and they paid us the considerable difference.

When we reached the end of our holiday in Paris we were met by the Volcano and couldn't travel for 7 days. Again the travel insurer paid for ongoing accommodation, meals, even a champagne dinner cruise (they didn't ask but we could have justified on basis of standard of rest of holiday which is policy wording).

The only thing you might want to consider is that Zurich required us to pay the expenses ourselves and then claim them back. We have a large credit limit just for emergencies so this was no problem and in fact us extra credit card points. However if you don't have spare credit then you might want to check with them as to how they would handle that.

The claims process was very smooth though a little slow - from memory they took 4 to 5 weeks to pay out but I imagine there were a lot of claims at the time.

So a very good value policy and we are relying on it again this year for another European trip.

Dale.

 

[yo yo ma]

I have a Diamond CBA cc and am thinking of using it for an upcoming trip to 4 cities in Asia as part of a cruise.

I used it for a recent trip but didn't need to claim so no feedback about that. Just be aware of the minimum spend of AUD$1k per person to activate the insurance. I was travelling as a family of 5 and got some flighhts on points. To activate I needed to prepay for the hotels to ensure I met the minimum spend of $5k. Have a good read of the PDS for more detail.

http://www.commbank.com.au/personal/apply-online/download-printed-forms/ADB3892.pdf

 

[chooms]

Further to this, I have CBA Platinum Award Amex and MC. I have flights book through QF for a trip to coughet early next month, but my partner has had an accident and the doctor has advised us not to travel.

QF dont want to refund ticket, but have offered a credit. The fares are a combination of B and T class BNE-SYD-SIN-BNE and cheapie 3K SIN-HKT-SIN that were purchased as part of the PE sale earlier this year.

These flights were booked entirely using the CBA Plat Amex and were around $1.5k x 2, so meet the $950/90% criteria.

Would anyone know if I would be able to go through CBA/Zurich for a claim (keeping in mind the $250 excess) or should I park the fare with QF and stump up the $150 change fee (x2) plus any upgrade in fare when rebooking?