If your flight was delayed by an act of God, as a flight attendant once described my weather-delayed

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Cathleen McCarthy is a journalist whose articles on travel, commerce and consumer topics have appeared in dozens of publications. She writes "Cashing In," a weekly column about credit card rewards programs, for CreditCards.com
I recently had an evening flight rescheduled to leave two hours later due to problems at the airport my plane was coming from. By the time we got into our connecting city, there were no more flights out to our final destination (it was midnight) until the next morning. Waiting disney world tickets cheap for the early flight would have meant missing a critical meeting and putting my job in jeopardy. So, we decided to rent a car (quite expensive) disney world tickets cheap and drive the remaining disney world tickets cheap few hours to our final city. The tickets were purchased on United with a United disney world tickets cheap Explorer card. Does that card (or any card) provide insurance to pay for unexpected disney world tickets cheap travel hiccups like this (to cover the cost of the rental, a bus/train or lodging/meals, etc.)? -- Timothy
Your United Explorer is either a Visa Platinum or Visa Signature. If you qualified for the latter, you're entitled to the suite of traveler's insurance offered to all Visa Signature cardholders: travel accident insurance (up to $250,000), lost luggage reimbursement (up to $3,000 per trip), car rental collision damage waiver, roadside dispatch and travel and emergency assistance service.
Trip cancellation, interruption or delay is one of three standard problems covered by travelers insurance, according to the U.S. Travel Insurance Association. (The other two are baggage loss or delay and medical insurance and evacuation.) Most comprehensive travelers insurance policies -- the kind you buy specifically for this purpose -- would reimburse you $100 to $150 a day for taxis, meals, lodging and other expenses incurred because of a flight delayed by a storm or strike. Some policies also cover prepaid disney world tickets cheap reservations missed because disney world tickets cheap of the delay.
In this situation, you wouldn't have been any better off with a World MasterCard , such as the Chase Freedom or US Airways co-branded card. While World MasterCard covers trip cancellation (unlike Visa Signature) up to the cost of the trip, it does not cover travel delay. American disney world tickets cheap Express allows you to purchase such insurance as an add-on and premium cards such as the Platinum ($450 annual fee) include it.
Is there a standard travel rewards card that covers trip delay? Yes. If you had charged your flight on a Discover Escape card ($60 annual fee), you would have been covered for up to $150 per day of food and lodging expenses for a scheduled trip on a common carrier delayed disney world tickets cheap over six hours. (The coverage does not include car rental, so you still would have been out of pocket there.) Discover Escape also covers disney world tickets cheap trip cancellation up to the cost of the trip, luggage reimbursement up to $2,500 per trip and up to $500,000 in flight insurance.
If your flight was delayed by an act of God, as a flight attendant once described my weather-delayed flight, the airline is not responsible for resulting disney world tickets cheap expenses. (I had to pay for my own hotel that night, thanks to a storm.) However, if the flight was rescheduled for reasons other than weather or strike -- ie, the airline itself screwed up -- you might try hitting up United disney world tickets cheap for your expenses.
Cathleen McCarthy is a journalist whose articles on travel, commerce and consumer topics have appeared in dozens of publications, including the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and Portfolio.com. Cathleen answers a question about a rewards and credit or debit cards from a CreditCards.com reader each week.
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