Travel insurance that reinstate FF points if trip cancelled etc?

[Smokie71]

Hi,

Does anyone know of any travel insurance policy that will reinstate any lost Qantas FF points due to cancellation or amendment of the trip?

So far I have only found QBE that offers this, but only if accessed via the qantas site. (I could not find this clause in the PDS when I went directly to the QBE insurance site).

I am booking a trip and will be using a lot of Qantas FF points for the flights, and don't want to lose them for any insurable reasons.

Thanks,

Smokie

 

[Fifa]

I am thinking of purchasing a discounted Annual Frequent Traveller policy with Toursafe which is underwritten by QBE inurance. Cover is for unlimited trips of a maximum continuous duration of 60 days in any
one year. Cover is for International and Domestic Trips and includes leisure travel.
The best price I have found so far is $435.50 for family cover with the excess removed. We do however, have be travelling together.

It appears to have excellent benefits including:

FREQUENT FLYER POINTS
"Where an airline ticket was purchased using frequent flyer or similar air

points, we will pay you for frequent flyer or similar air points lost following
cancellation of your air ticket".​

And as we ski overseas there is no fee for the additional snowsports cover like some policies and the policy also covers hire if our gear if delayed:
​

​

SPORTS AND ADVENTURE COVER
Most amateur sporting and adventure activities are covered at no extra cost on ALL plans. Activities covered include snow skiing, bungee jumping, para-sailing, water skiing, white water rafting, trekking, cycling, and hot air ballooning.
SPORTING EQUIPMENT​

Sporting Equipment is covered for loss or damage as part of your luggage up to the limit specified for any one item but is not covered when in use. Items included are surfboards, boogie boards, skis, snowboards and tennis racquets.

​

​

Golf clubs are covered at a higher limit of $3,000. We will also pay for the hire of replacement golf clubs and ski gear in the event that your equipment is delayed.​

And luggage is covered up to $15,000. ​

 

[Dave Noble]

Points bookings are cancellable prior to departure for a 5000 point penalty

Amendments can be made to bookings for 2500 points

If you think you might want to make an amendment, perhaps book 2 x 1 way bookings and then you can tinker with the return booking up till close to departure and even cancel if necessary

I wouldn't worry too much about getting expensive insurance ( and QBE is typically expensive ) to cover that level of point risk. If you have to cancel the trip the insurance is only going to pay you what they value 5000 points as being

If you have a reason which is covered by insurance which necessitates an urgent return to Australia, you can cancel the points booking and then purchase a ticket which you can reclaim the cost of from the insurance company

Dave

 

[Smokie71]

If you have a reason which is covered by insurance which necessitates an urgent return to Australia, you can cancel the points booking and then purchase a ticket which you can reclaim the cost of from the insurance company

Dave

Hi Dave,

That's an idea which I hadn't thought off. The only thing is the main trip I am worried about is using all points to fly international business class and my credit card limit wouldn't cover the cost of that if we had to cancel the points booking and purchase equivalent tickets and then wait to be reimbursed. But it's certainly something to keep in mind for economy points trips.

Also, the new "any seat any time" policy has fares that require less points than other fares, but the fine print states that if you cancel you forfeit the points.

I am not expecting to cancel (otherwise I would just spend the extra points straight off to get the 5,000 points cancellation penalty security blanket), but I need the peace of mind.
And the points we could possibly end up losing on one of the award flights are enough for a classic awards flight to USA and back, so I am figuring I would rather pay $100 extra on insurance then lose the equivalent of about $1,400 worth of ticket.

Fifa - I will be checking out Toursafe - the best quote I found from QBE (via Qantas) was for $506 (snowsports was an additional $20pp option)

 

[serfty]

I believe Travel Insurance Direct: Buy Cheap Worldwide Cover Online Now! provides for a similar pro-rate cash rebate of lost Frequent Flyer points/miles.

An annual policy is $340.

 

[Dave Noble]

Hi Dave,

That's an idea which I hadn't thought off. The only thing is the main trip I am worried about is using all points to fly international business class and my credit card limit wouldn't cover the cost of that if we had to cancel the points booking and purchase equivalent tickets and then wait to be reimbursed. But it's certainly something to keep in mind for economy points trips.

Do check with the insurance company before purchase. It may be that the company would actually pay the amount that they pay directly to airline.

If you have to claim for emergency return, you will find that the policies have limits and you may well be buying economy tickets for the unexpected return anyway.

I don't see that there is much difference between an insurance policy which covers points and one that doesn't in this case.

Either way you will end up buying a ticket to get home, just that the insurance company will cover the 5000 lost points. When award tickets that used to have no cancellation options, insurance to cover this was more useful, but I don't see it as having much value now


Dave

 

[serfty]

... Either way you will end up buying a ticket to get home, just that the insurance company will cover the 5000 lost points. ...

Such loss may come to more than 5000 depending on the booking conditions.

14.8.2 Once travel has commenced on a Classic Award, the Award is considered used, even if the remaining travel is not completed. Points will not be re-credited to the Member's account for unused ticket coupons.

 

[Dave Noble]

Such loss may come to more than 5000 depending on the booking conditions.

Not if you book as 2 one-ways

Also, once travel has commenced, I don;t see that there would be many cases where there would be much in the way of a refund of points given by an insurance company.

if you have a repatriation situation, the company will repatriate you but won't also pay a refund on the value of the rest of the ticket

Dave

 

[serfty]

True, but for QFF oneworld awards this may be impractical. (I did state "depending on the booking conditions").

 

[Dave Noble]

True, but for QFF oneworld awards this may be impractical. (I did state "depending on the booking conditions").

Even with a OW award, they are cancellable before departure.

Once travel has commenced I cannot think of any case where an insurance payout is going to refund a ticket

Dave

 

[StevePER]

The insurance on the ANZ Gold card covers lost points.

If You have paid for Your Journey using frequent flyer points, or similar air travel points, and You cannot recover the lost points from another source, We will pay You the value of Your lost points. The way We calculate the amount We will pay You is to obtain the cost of an equivalent class airline ticket based on the quoted retail price at the time the original ticket was issued, less Your financial contribution, and multiply this figure by the total number of points lost, then divide by the total number of points used to obtain Your original ticket.

 

[Dave Noble]

The insurance on the ANZ Gold card covers lost points.

The key phrase though is

and You cannot recover the lost points from another source

Prior to departure, all you would lose is 5k which is wahat they would calculate on; after departure, can you give an example where an insurance would repay the cost of a ticket - they may repatriate , but still cannot see cases where a refund would be made

With other FF schemes where awards have different rules, I can see it being useful

Dave

 

[serfty]

... With other FF schemes where awards have different rules, I can see it being useful ...

The following may be slightly OT due to the OP referring to "lost Qantas FF points", but I feel is relevant.

We will pay you for loss of frequent flyer or similar air travel points you used to purchase an airline ticket following cancellation of your air ticket and you cannot recover the lost points from any other source.

I wonder how it would go for lost miles, say on AA where an upgrade was attained using Miles, but due to IIROPS one had to, stand by for another flight eventually travelling down the back.

This may have happened to us last month; we had used AAdvantage miles to upgrade to First but our flight was cancelled.

We had been put 1&2 on a standby list for another flight (out of 63) but decided to take the confirmed next day First bookings we had been re-assigned to.

 

[NM]

I wonder how it would go for lost miles, say on AA where an upgrade was attained using Miles, but due to IIROPS one had to, stand by for another flight eventually travelling down the back.

This may have happened to us last month; we had used AAdvantage miles to upgrade to First but our flight was cancelled.

We had been put 1&2 on a standby list for another flight (out of 63) but decided to take the confirmed next day First bookings we had been re-assigned to.

I believe that AA would reinstate the miles if you were unable to fly in the upgraded cabin due to irregular ops.

Now back to insurance of FF points/miles. How does the insurance company reimburse for lost points/miles? I expect that in most cases they cannot put points/miles directly into your FF account, so I assume they pay some nominal monetary value for the lost points/miles. It may be worth checking what their deemed monetary rate is for the points.

Many years ago QF used to offer travel insurance (not sure who it was underwritten by, but does not matter now). Their policy used to cover lost points and would reimburse points directly back into your account. That part of the insurance came directly from Qantas, not the underwriters.

 

[auriga]

A bit off topic, but...

How about any insurance which covers against loss of award tickets due to collapse of the issuing airline?

eg, redeem thru UA for a SQ flight, say next year, but before you get to fly, UA goes broke.....

 

[serfty]

TID have a pro-rata points to $$$ calculation defined in their PDS.

Qantas still sell such insurance, now via QBE (It was through HIH :shock.

 

[Dave Noble]

I wonder how it would go for lost miles, say on AA where an upgrade was attained using Miles, but due to IIROPS one had to, stand by for another flight eventually travelling down the back.

This may have happened to us last month; we had used AAdvantage miles to upgrade to First but our flight was cancelled..

You would have got the miles back from AA with no issue at all

Dave