What is Trip Delay Coverage, And Does My Card Have It?

Important note

Chase Saphire insurance will NOT cover the purchase if another flight

I had a 12 hour delay PVR to MSP in February (Sun Country)
I thought they were going to just cancel the flight and I had to get back

So I bought last second ticket on Delta for $500 or so
Was reimbursed $200 by Sun Country

Submitted $300 claim to Chase (actually the insurer Chase uses)

It was denied

Kind of silly because $300 is less than I would have submitted had I got a hotel and food

The Citi Expedia Voyager card has trip delay coverage as well. From the benefits page:

"From meals to hotel rooms, you may be covered for expenses you incur because of the delay. When you pay for a trip on a common carrier with your Citi card and you’re delayed at least 12 hours, you may be reimbursed up to $500 per covered traveler, per trip for reasonable and necessary expenses."

Will the coverage on the Citi ThankYou Premier card be better then on the Prestige after 7/29 (4 vs 6 hours)?

What if I purchase a one-way airline ticket with a return train ticket? Would that count as a return trip eligible for trip-delay protection?

Can I file a trip Delay claim with multiple credit cards? What stops me from doing so ?

What about a typical scenario where you have bought a flight US - Europe on award, one-way. Then have a bunch of flights within Europe, each booked seperately on RyanAir/EasyJet, and then have a completely different ticket coming back to the US, maybe as part of a cheap EU-US-EU business class fare?

That's several different tickets bought across different airlines, maybe with different credit cards (to help with minimum spend), some on points some with cash.

What happens if the outbound flight delays? If one of the intra-europe ryanair flight delays? If the return flight delays 3 days due to AirFrance strike?

At some point the whole thing becomes so complicated, that its just not even worth the hassle trying to figure out reimbursements, and just get on whatever the airline puts you on.

I made a claim with the Citi AAdvantage Executive World Elite card, when I had a forced overnight in Dallas, but got quite a runaround and gave up. They required me to demand reimbursement by AA, and to provide documentation of a denial. I could never get AA to give me a clear denial in writing. Ended up giving up (and cancelling the card as a result).

We are in the process of filing a Chase Sapphire Reserve claim for an overnight delay. They have committed to covering a one way car rental (but not the gas), the hotel, and food during the delay for me, my wife, and my 16 year old. We will see how it goes, but so far, so good.

Wait--I thought with Chase preferred and reserved you just needed to pay part with your chase card-is this information about using their portal new? Does this apply to other benefits of the Chase cards? I previously called them prior to booking a cruise and asked them about travel coverage and they did not mention anything about needing to book through their portal, and they told me it covered award flights as long as I paid some charges on the card.

Be aware that even though Chase states that itemised receipts are not required for amounts under $50, they may deny claims for not providing the itemised receipts.

I had a claim for $8.28 denied for a 7 hour delay on Kenya Airways because I only had the credit card sales slip (paid with my CSR card) from the snack kiosk rather than an itemised receipt for a sandwich and bottle of water.

We went back and forth for almost 3 months on the issue (me stating that the T&Cs say that no itemised receipt is needed and them advising me to contact the vendor to obtain an itemised receipt if I don't already have one) before I eventually gave up.

Costco Anywhere Visa by Citi, Citi Double Cash, and probably other Citi cards have a very limited form of coverage according to brochures. Their coverage is a 24 hour delay due to weather, which is very rare except for severe winter storms.

AA (Citi) and UA (Chase) have better coverage, as described in the article, but if one just wants the sign up bonus and already did the required spend, then the dilemma is whether to get coverage and a lower mileage credit from using the card or forfeit such coverage and get higher cash back from other cards. My feeling is to get higher cash back from other cards (Citi Dividend with a 5% cash back for 3Q 2018 or Costco 3% all the time) except for non 3Q2018 AA travel (use AA/Citi card) or UA travel (use UA/Chase card)

A few things to add:

The recent consensus on Flyertalk is that the Citi coverage is worthless for connecting flight delays. If you have a 2 hour connection, and your incoming flight is delayed 2.5 hours causing you to overnight and get to your destination 12 hours late, Citi will say that is only a 2.5 hour delay that does not trigger coverage. As far as I know, Chase does not do this type of thing.

Credit card companies send you a paper guide to benefits when your card first arrives. You should keep that for cards you might actually make claims on.

Re: Award travel, I think Chase's "using your account" refers to your credit card account and has nothing to do with what mileage currency or portal you use. I made a claim on a trip booked with AA miles once and taxes paid with Chase card. No problem.

You talk about keeping receipts less than $50, but I've never seen anything that says alcohol is not considered part of a meal. It's not like this is a government expense report. Anyone have a different experience getting alcohol reimbursed?

You also missed the Bank of America Premium Rewards card which provides $500 of expenses per ticket if your flight is delayed for more than 12 hours.

Hello and happy fourth, for those from the U.S.! In order, from the top:

@JRMW - Sorry that you had to deal with that, and agreed that it's ridiculous; thanks for sharing.

@Danny - whoops! My bad! It's supposed to read 12 hours, not 4 (I was updating an old table and must have missed that field.) Fixed.

@EZB and @B - I'm going through something similar (though perhaps not as complicated) right now - outbound on Delta, return on United. Return got canceled and I had to submit a claim. I'm still working through the process but haven't caught any flack (yet) for having two separate one-way itineraries.

I'll detail out my experience on here once the claim is finalized, but I imagine you would be okay provided you're not submitting multiple claims on the same card on the same trip.

@AI - You would have to go out of your way to make your purchase in question on two separate cards, since a portion of the purchase has to be on the card with which you are filing the claim.

Also, insurance fraud is bad 😉

@Jeff R - Wow, what a pain. Curious as to what the cause of the delay was, and whether that impacted their (obnoxious) requirement? I.e. weather vs. mechanical?

@tina - I think you're good, especially if you talked to someone previous (thanks @Tom for clarifying - their language is pretty nebulous so your firsthand information is appreciated).

I always try to grab the rep's name and date/time of call in those situations, though, just so that my bases are covered and nothing comes back to haunt me later.

@Sean M - Wow - not sure whether to be giggling at the $8.28 or banging my head against the wall on your behalf.

@derek - Agreed, always a dilemma, although most of the mid-upper range of Chase/Citi travel cards (airline co-brand and flexible points) offer a slew of travel insurance benefits beyond this one (cancellation insurance, baggage delay, rental car collision coverage, etc.)

@Tom - Thanks for your adds. Re: alcohol - not sure what others' experiences are, but I imagine that some adjusters might have a hard time filing it under "reasonable expenses." And of course, there's a huge difference between one glass of wine and five.

You could always grab both un-itemized and itemized receipts, and file the un-itemized first, in case you end up in a situation like @Sean M.

I recently filed a $250 claim with Chase Sapphire Reserve after being stuck in the Atlanta Airport overnight due to an airport power outage. After one month of back and forth with chase continually asking for more documentation they denied the claim. Multiple phone calls with multiple representatives did not help. The representatives sounded like uneducated attorneys by inaccurately referring to terms and conditions. Chase finally paid after I contacted them via Twitter. Happy ending but not fun.

Hi Steph, thanks for posting this. I was actually thinking about getting Sapphire Preferred for a similar reason. In the fall, I am flying to Europe and then doing a river cruise. Have you done a post about trip cancellation insurance? My father is 88 and I just worry that I could have to cancel if something were to happen to him. The travel agent recommended buying third-party trip insurance, but if I can get it via a credit card, that would be great. I am particularly interested in the Sapphire Preferred, or Marriott Rewards Premier Plus. Any advice would be much appreciated. Thanks!

So you could technically eat out very nicely and stay at a very nice hotel if you were for say stuck in Vegas and have it all covered..

Is there any card that covers buying a last minute walkup fare on another airline in lieu of a hotel night and meals

Wow, this is a first - in this area, Canadian AmEx cards are actually better than US AmEx cards (normally Canadian cards suck in comparison), as the travel ones do have trip delay coverage. I've used it twice to cover hotels on overnight delays.

@betsy Don't use Chase for trip cancellation insurance. They will cover prepaid expenses you missed, like hotel and tours, but they won't cover a flight for you to get back to the states, not even for their $450-fee sapphire reserve card. Citi is much better for this.

Great writeup, much appreciated. Especially the "military excuse" thing!

Was a very frustrating experience going through the insurer Citi uses. Claim denied initially, rude phone agents who talk like uneducated attorneys. Had a weather delay of 2 hours cause me to miss a connection and require an overnight stay. agents tried to say the initial flight delay had go be 12 hours and that common carrier referred to the specific plane. I had to point out that if that were the case, then I would have had to pay four common carrier fares for a round trip flight involving a connection each way. Ultimately, I think they assume people will just give up after a few attempts. True scumbags.

Well, here is one of the very few advantages Amex Platinum Canadian card holders have, is Flight delay insurance. It happened to me this past year due to snow storms. My hotel and meals were covered until I got on my re-scheduled flight - 1 day later. The claim process was easy and reimbursement didn't take long.

So confused with some of the terms - I had a flight delay for > 12 hrs, due to mechanical issues with Airline #1 resulting in a domino effect of missing the next flights with airline #2 & #3 - all on separate itineraries, all purchased on the same card.

Airline #2 was just super awesome & rebooked me on a flight next day for free but I had to purchase a new flight for airline #3. I submitted the claim to be reimbursed for #3 and got denied bc the trip interruption/ cancellation benefit doesn’t cover the flight cost?? Is that right? Then what’s the point of “travel insurance” coverage with the credit cards?

Does anyone know if you have trip delay insurance, would hotels be covered in your departing city, so long as you're getting a hotel close to the airport? Especially for those who travel a distance to get to the airport and/or the next flight out is at 6 AM, I'd be curious to know if the delay insurance would cover the hotel stay within the budgeted amount per the card.

I ordered food for breakfast. Total came out to $102 (including 20% room service charge) plus tax. We were charged room service fee even though we went downstairs to order/pick up food. Do I put in 4 itemized entries in the online form (putting in amount for each food item including ir's share of room service charge and tax)?