We'll be flying SYD-LHR in July as part of a 280K J One World Award and doing a cruise that visits Norway, Iceland and Greenland. When we return to the UK we fly LCY-ZRH on the same day the ship arrives back in port at Tilbury but we booked that flight separately in case of any delays so the rest of our flights on the OW tickets are not affected if there is a delay with the ship arriving back in port at the correct time. After travelling around Switzerland we'll be travelling by train to Venice to join a cruise that finishes in Rome. The port on the day before the cruise finishes is Naples, so not a long distance to travel on the last night of the cruise before we arrive back at Civitavecchia, the port for Rome, so hopefully it will be on time, and if there was a delay arriving in Naples that made it appear we could be late arriving back in Rome we could always ask to leave the ship there and make our own way to Rome.
We have taken a chance and booked for me to fly FCO-LHR-YYC on the day we finish the cruise and my wife is flying FCO-LHR-SIN-SYD, all with BA. I am spending time in the Canadian Rockies and there is something I wanted to do in Jasper two days later so I wanted to fly out of Rome that day. I then fly to JFK on a separate ticket and will finish the OW Award ticket flying CX JFK-HKG-SYD. We have previously finished cruises in Europe and flown home the same day without any problems but I know that delays can happen so want to be prepared.
I have an Amex Platinum Charge card and have activated the cover by charging all of the QF taxes to the card so will have coverage for the trip. I also have an ANZ FF Black and a Westpac Earth Black card and have charged over $250 of other costs to the ANZ card, and over $500 to the Westpac card. The Westpac insurance only covers my wife if she travels the entire journey with me but she also has an ANZ Black card as a primary cardholder so we have charged over $250 to her card as well so she has coverage with ANZ for her trip. I phoned ACE Insurance a couple of days ago and was told that she will still be covered by the Amex Platinum Charge insurance even though she is not travelling the entire trip with me and that, as my spouse, she would have insurance coverage even if she was doing the trip entirely herself.
We have relied on the Credit Card insurances for all our travels for quite a few years now but have never had to claim. Someone I travelled with on a cruise in South America two years ago had to see a Doctor on the ship and the $700 charge was paid by his ANZ CC insurance without any problems.
After reading through the PDSs for all three policies and not seeing anything I have phoned both ACE Insurance and QBE, who provide insurance for both ANZ and Westpac, to enquire if there is any coverage if there was a delay with the ship arriving back in port that caused us to miss our flights and have been told by both companies that we would not have coverage for the air tickets for any flights that we miss and that would then also cause the airline to cancel the remaining flights on the itinerary. We would have coverage if a delay in one flight caused us to miss the next flight but not from a cruise. I asked at ACE if their paid policy would cover this situation and after he checked he said that no, their policies would not cover flights in this situation.
Does anyone know of any paid travel insurance policies that would cover this situation? I've had a look at 1Cover and reading their PDS it appears that they may, and I'll call them tomorrow and ask. Under "Alternative Travel Expenses" it says "We will pay your reasonable additional travel expenses to reach a wedding, funeral, conference, sporting event or prepaid travel/tour arrangements on time if your scheduled overseas transport is cancelled, delayed, shortened or diverted and that means you would not arrive on time". A lot of policies, CC and paid, provide cover for travel delays that pay for additional accommodation and meal expenses but there is no provision for paying for replacement flights.
