Flights and Travel Insurance

Whenever we get ready to travel to a foreign country be it for a much needed vacation, business trip or studying abroad we try to prepare as best we can. Most commonly we have on the top of our lists appropriate clothing, guidebooks, a translator (or app for our smart-phones) and that’s about it. However more and more people are adding travel insurance to their lists, it is probably the most important thing you can do before travelling in my opinion.

I’ve had the opportunity of working in a travel agency and have seen the horror stories that can play out when travelers disregard buying something which is so cheap and essential when you think about it. I distinctively recall an incident where there was a family of 4 who had purchased a $30,000 vacation package which included tours, hotels, meals, guides and airfare between Mexico, Argentina, Peru and Brazil.  This is by no means a cheap travel package; one thing they did not decide to purchase was travel insurance, some people just do not give it the importance it deserves.  Well  sometimes life plays little tricks on you, there was a problem with flights in Mexico due to rains, they were actually delayed by an entire day; this was just enough for them to lose their reservations in some of the hotels which were already booked. They were also going to miss some of the tours and trails they had purchased because they would not be able to make it to the group in time.

They immediately called the agency and tried to get their travel advisor to suggest some ideas and since it was high season there were no vacancies in hotels near their destinations, they demanded their money back for flights, hotels and tours they were not going to be able to take.  Now remember travel agencies have to book this way in advance in order to keep a reservation in a hotel and airfare is purchased as if anyone was purchasing it, travel agencies just do it for you but they don’t get a price break on this. Of course the agency was not going to give back this money since it was not their fault, the only thing they were able to do was change and alter whatever they could so that the traveler would not lose so much money in this entire ordeal. This group still lost thousands of dollars on air travel and hotels; if they had only purchased travel insurance they would have been covered and best of all would have had piece of mind during the entire situation.

Another example I can think of was last year when there was unusually high levels of rainfall in Cusco.  As most people know the biggest attraction in Peru is the city of Machu Picchu located near Cusco high in the Andes Mountains.  Let me explain, you normally take a train to the town of Aguas Calientes in the foothills of Machu Picchu to ascend to the lost city the following morning.  There was so much rain that it produced landslides and washed away the railroad tracks, paths and even complete sides of hills. Huge chunks of earth were carried away by the water.  A lot of these people were stuck in aguas calientes and could not leave because there was no track, there were also many groups stuck in Cusco with nowhere to go. Many agencies did their best to take care of their clients by finding them hotels and even getting helicopters to airlift them out of the mountain. However not everyone could be assisted and many lost money during this entire ordeal, hotel cancelations, cancelled trips, return flights, etc. etc. If they would have purchased travel insurance they would have had at least some money coming back to them.

So in short next time you are planning to travel abroad make that extra little purchase and get some travel insurance because you never know what can happen during your trip. We have been working with travel guard and it seems to really work well with travelers so if you want to check it out you can get Free Travel Insurance Quotes from Travel Guard. Honestly you never really know what can happen during your next trip to Peru or anywhere else so be safe and always hope the best but prepare for the worst.