Tips for arranging cancellable travel? CFAR trip insurance?

[Samuel]

I've never been very savvy on all the nuances of booking travel arrangements with an eye for flexibility. I've always just bought the cheapest economy plane tickets and accommodations (with no cancellation or changes allowed) and gone.

I'm now trying to plan and book my first solo international trip since Covid came on the scene but also have a family situation that could throw a wrench into things as the trip gets closer (a beloved, but not immediate, relative's health is declining and should the end stage look likely to coincide with the 10 days I plan to be away I would choose to cancel the trip with a few days or weeks notice).

I'm trying to figure out how to minimize the money I would leave on the table if I had to cancel late and am getting a bit bewildered by all the fine print.

For example: I found plane tickets for $650, basic economy. For $800 the tickets are regular economy and can be changed, but in the fine print is a $200 change fee for international flights. So I'd be spending $350 for the option to avoid losing $650 (and even then I'd be stuck using that airline and have to pay any difference in fares). Different airlines all seem to have different versions of this calculation. Accommodations, trains, and activities also have varying levels of flexibility. Usually very little.

So either I'm looking at a whole lot of effort to cobble together as many refundable options (often at a premium) as I can, or perhaps just booking as I usually do and look into Cancel For Any Reason (CFAR) trip insurance, which is more expensive (adds 50-60% onto the cost of regular trip insurance, per some light research) and only covers 75% of the non-refundable costs.

Given potential Covid problems I did plan to get regular trip insurance, so maybe expanding it to CFAR would be the least trouble and at least guarantee I recoup most of the money?

Any suggestions or wisdom to share here?

[yachi]

If you're planning this trip like 6 months to a year ahead of time, the plane ticket example is outrageous.  For insurance, a reasonable cost is the value of the insured trip multiplied by the chances of the covered event.  You can see how cancel for any reason trip insurance would not be very cheap.

I was looking at travel insurance here and their coverage does include a health emergency of a non-traveling family member that requires you to come home.  Allianz travel insurance explains that they cover many (but not all) family members, and used the example that health emergencies of Aunts and Uncles is a covered event, but not cousins.  Have you found the particular family relationship is not covered most places?

Another insurer provided this list they consider family:

Insured’s, Traveling Companion’s or Spouse’s:
child;
parent;
sibling;
grandparent, great-grandparent or grandchild or great-grandchild;
son-in-law or daughter-in-law;
brother-in-law or sister-in-law;
parent-in-law;
step-parent, step-child or step-sibling;
aunt or uncle;
niece or nephew;
legal guardian;
foster child or legal ward;
step-grandparent or step-grandchild;
step-aunt or step-uncle.

A way to get around the limits on family would be to invite someone else along.  If your Beloved Relative has one of the above relationships to your Travel Companion, you would both be covered for the trip expenses if the Beloved Relative passed or had an extended hospital stay. 

[snic]

If you're planning this trip like 6 months to a year ahead of time, the plane ticket example is outrageous.  For insurance, a reasonable cost is the value of the insured trip multiplied by the chances of the covered event.  You can see how cancel for any reason trip insurance would not be very cheap.

I was looking at travel insurance here and their coverage does include a health emergency of a non-traveling family member that requires you to come home.  Allianz travel insurance explains that they cover many (but not all) family members, and used the example that health emergencies of Aunts and Uncles is a covered event, but not cousins.  Have you found the particular family relationship is not covered most places?

Another insurer provided this list they consider family:

Insured’s, Traveling Companion’s or Spouse’s:
child;
parent;
sibling;
grandparent, great-grandparent or grandchild or great-grandchild;
son-in-law or daughter-in-law;
brother-in-law or sister-in-law;
parent-in-law;
step-parent, step-child or step-sibling;
aunt or uncle;
niece or nephew;
legal guardian;
foster child or legal ward;
step-grandparent or step-grandchild;
step-aunt or step-uncle.

A way to get around the limits on family would be to invite someone else along.  If your Beloved Relative has one of the above relationships to your Travel Companion, you would both be covered for the trip expenses if the Beloved Relative passed or had an extended hospital stay.

Keep in mind, though, that often there is an exclusion for pre-existing conditions. HOWEVER, some policies allow you to get around this by saying that if you buy the insurance within X days (often 15) of your FIRST non-refundable travel payment, they waive the pre-existing condition exclusion. You probably also have to buy the policy a certain amount of time in advance of travel. A good place to start with searching for travel insurance policies is squaremouth.com - they tend to provide nice comparisons and summaries. But I can't emphasize enough that it is VERY important to read the fine print (actual policy document) explaining what exactly is and isn't covered, and how much $$ is covered.

In the OP's case, I suspect that if they can get a pre-existing condition exclusion, then travel insurance will probably much more reasonable than buying more expensive changeable-with-fee tickets. I've insured $3000-$5000 trips for 3 people for around $200, sometimes less. You can get the cost down by choosing policies that don't have coverage you don't need (e.g., if you have good health insurance that covers you abroad, select a policy with zero or small medical benefit).

Edit to add: CFAR policies tend to be considerably more expensive than non-CFAR, and if the relative is covered and you get a pre-existing condition waiver, that is by far a better option. Also CFAR never pays the entire trip cost; usually it's 85% or so.

[Freedomin5]

Many of the expats living where I live just do last-minute bookings. Pre-COVID, when prices were cheaper and cancellations/changes were free, we would book our flights 6 months in advance. Now, we keep an eye on airfares but actually purchase tickets one month or less in advance. It might be a bit more expensive but not more expensive than having to cancel tickets or change tickets. And it’s less hassle. The easiest option is to wait to book until you’re sure your family member likely will be stable for the ten days you’re gone, then book the trip. Though the risk to doing it this way is that flights may or may not be sold out by that time.

[Samuel]

Thanks for the ideas.

Given that this is a preexisting condition with an unpredictable timeline and they're not an immediate family member by most definitions it looks like I have a lot of fine print reading in my future.

[Samuel]

Since people were nice enough to provide some suggestions I thought I'd circle back on this.

I ended up just booking everything via an online travel service I'd used a couple times for similar trip 8+ years ago that is cheap but inflexible and almost entirely non-refundable. Then picked up regular travel insurance with cancel for any reason coverage for $150 (the CFAR added about $50 of that price) so I can cancel for any reason more than 2 days before departure and get back 75% of the non-refundable costs. So I basically paid $50 to cap my losses at a max of $450 or so if I have to pull the plug at the last minute for a reason not covered by the standard trip insurance. That's likely right around what I would be paying for more flexible airfare and hotels, not even counting the additional effort of arranging all those details directly (and, if necessary, dealing with all the cancellations personally). And it's amount I'd happily pay to be with my family should the timing unfortunately work out that way.

Part of the problem is that my window for the trip was rapidly approaching (I booked about 6.5 weeks out) so airfare prices were bouncing around and the cheapest options were getting more expensive by the day.

Hopefully I'm just out $50 for the escape hatch and won't have to utilize it.

[Samuel]

That sounds like a good deal to me. Although I'm pretty clueless about that kind of travel hacks. But if it's really changeable and cancellable then it's worth the extra cost imho. Hope you do get to go. Sounds fun.bwhere are you going? Nosey minds want to know.

Spain. Corboda, Seville, and Granada by way of Madrid.

And yeah, hopefully I won't be able to report back on the experience of actually trying to use this option...

[Samuel]

An update in case anyone ends up finding this thread in the future because they have a similar question: Turns out I didn't end up needing to cancel the trip or use any part of the trip insurance I purchased so I have no experiences to share about that.

But I can confirm Cordoba, Seville, and Granada are all amazing, particularly if you luck into a stretch of perfect 78 degree weather during the few weeks a year when the blossoming orange trees blanket the streets in perfume.