Holiday insurance with airline cover

homehunter

Hi,

Just booked a holiday to Lanzarote in Feb. We've hired a villaand have booked separate flights with Monarch.

I couple of questions, if anyone can advise?

1) any recommendations for insurance policies for a 1 week trip which includes cover for airline going bust on us? (we paid by debit card, no credit card)
2) Even though the trip isn't until Feb 4th, should we/can we get insurance which would cover us from the date of purchase, should anything happen before then?

Thanks all!;)

Quentin

You need to get insurance now - anything could happen tomorrow which would force you to cancel the trip (run over by a bus, etc!)

There is some MSE advice on covering against airline failure in this article:

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/insurance/cheap-travel-insurance

homehunter

Thanks Quentin. Had a read of that article too. I'm a bit confused over whether the Post Office's insurance with SAFI is enough (£40 for couple, single trip), or whether I should go for a general travel insurance policy and take out a protectmyholiday.com insolvency policy alongside...does this sound possible? Indeed, if the airline goes bust, would the post office also reimburse the money paid for the villa rental (consequential loss)?

homehunter

Cracked it - I hope!

Went with the Post Office. It's all in the small print it seems. In case it helps anyone else:

protectmyholiday.com cover scheduled airline failure and insolvency of the accommodation provider. It ONLY covers this so you must by a separate policy for everything else.

Multitrip.com do have SAFI but after much digging and asking them directly twice, they finally confirmed the following:

" [FONT=&quot]Scheduled Airline Failure is providing cover for the cost of your Flight in the event of an Airline collapse. [FONT=&quot]The section does not cover additional holiday accommodation cover."

So you have to watch out for the insurer only covering the costs of the airline, not consequential loss of money relating to the accommodation which you can't use if there's no flight.

The small print in the Post Office's policy is significantly different from Multitrip.com. Whereas multitrip are careful to say 'irrecoverable sums' lost as a result of airline insolvency, Post Office say this:

"Irrecoverable travel and accomodation costs paid in advance in the event of insolvency of the[/FONT][FONT=&quot] scheduled airline not forming part of an inclusive holiday prior to departure[/FONT]"[/FONT]

So....here's hoping for a trouble-free holiday!


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FH_Brit

Homehunter - I do not want to be the gloomy news here, but who will you be flying with to Lanzarote?

Many people confuse sheduled and charter and if you have SAFI and you fly charter then you may not be covered. And you cannot always tell by the Airline who may operate both sceduled and charter flights.

I work very closely with Travel Insurance claims (in Florida) and I HIGHLY RECOMMEND the Post Office travel insurance (Fortis Insurance) - they are not perfect but they give me less greif than anyone else by far, they are quick and I rarely have to follow up like I do in chasing claims for other insurers.

homehunter

FH_Brit wrote: »

Homehunter - I do not want to be the gloomy news here, but who will you be flying with to Lanzarote?

Many people confuse sheduled and charter and if you have SAFI and you fly charter then you may not be covered. And you cannot always tell by the Airline who may operate both sceduled and charter flights.

I work very closely with Travel Insurance claims (in Florida) and I HIGHLY RECOMMEND the Post Office travel insurance (Fortis Insurance) - they are not perfect but they give me less greif than anyone else by far, they are quick and I rarely have to follow up like I do in chasing claims for other insurers.

Oooo, tell me what you know! I'm flying with Monarch. I went with the PO policy in the end.

FH_Brit

Ahh! Monarch fly BOTH Scheduled and Charter, it depends on the route and flight number (it's the only way you can tell).

To be 100% sure, call Monarch and ask or go to

http://www.monarch.co.uk/timetable/flights

put your flight details (from to & month of travel) this is their scheduled list and if your flight is not shown, then it is probably a charter.

FH_Brit

Well done on the PO policy. Remember if your flight turns out to be a charter call the insurers and ask about charter coverage and they may cover it (and probably charge you) but worth asking.

homehunter

FH_Brit wrote: »

Ahh! Monarch fly BOTH Scheduled and Charter, it depends on the route and flight number (it's the only way you can tell).

To be 100% sure, call Monarch and ask or go to

http://www.monarch.co.uk/timetable/flights

put your flight details (from to & month of travel) this is their scheduled list and if your flight is not shown, then it is probably a charter.

Wow, thank you for the info! I checked and my flight on the 4th Feb (Birmingham to Lanzarote) and the return on 11th Feb DOES show on the calendar. So that means I should be ok then?

This is so useful, I'll know what to look for in the future too

luci

I believe the flight number for scheduled and charter flights with Monarch start with different letters. I think it's MON for chartered and ZB for scheduled, but I'm not 100% certain.

homehunter

luci wrote: »

I believe the flight number for scheduled and charter flights with Monarch start with different letters. I think it's MON for chartered and ZB for scheduled, but I'm not 100% certain.

That sounds about right, both my flights are ZB.