American Express Platinum makes a big change to its travel insurance – but hasn’t told us (or you)

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• s says:

  6 Apr6 April 17:44

  “For the benefits under this section to apply transport and/or accommodation must have been Purchased in full using: I. the Card;”

  and/or… does that mean if you have a few days of car hire booked on the card with rest of hotels, flight, other cars etc booked on non-plat, you would be covered for the whole hog?

  • Anna says:

    6 Apr6 April 18:22

    I read that as transport to your destination (plane, ferry, etc) and/or your accommodation, not car hire.

    • S says:

      6 Apr6 April 18:38

      Could well be, but then what if only one night out of a 15 day trip is booked on plat. Is the whole trip covered in that case? I.e. Is baggage delay covered if one random hotel night is booked on plat?

      • Peter 64K says:

        6 Apr6 April 19:51

        The question should perhaps be:
        If the answer is “maybe, so let’s decide in court”, can you afford to cover any outstanding bills in the mean time? Especially as you may be in poor health at the time.

• Dwb1873 says:

  6 Apr6 April 18:19

  Hmm. The value of the Plat is slowly eroding. For me at least.

  They’ve lost most of the hotel partners I used. In theory Boingo is going. I can no longer reliably gain lounge access. Now the insurance element is dropping in benefit and becoming less clear. I never churned so that change was irrelevant – but it’s only going one way with everything else.

  I appreciate it’s a tough market, but that £450 looks increasingly poor value. Even more if they do raise the price.

  There’s a definite ‘what’s the point?’ creeping in.

• Youngtraveller says:

  6 Apr6 April 19:33

  How do you claim for abandoned trip? Also what does it mean? Thanks

  • S says:

    8 Apr8 April 00:33

    Probably the same as “cut short”.

• ITCHYCOO says:

  6 Apr6 April 19:33

  I used to have a Platinum Amex card and for years believed I had good travel insurance cover. Then about 3 years ago we did a full round the world trip LHR-LHR but we got stranded in Honolulu when we could not fly to Fiji due a major storm there. No problem, we were insured, so we cut out Fiji and headed straight to New Zealand.,the next stop on our trip. But we had pre-paid the hotel in Fiji and was non refundable, so cost us around £800 for 3 nights. Kept all receipts, etc, submitted a claim to AX and they refused it, they said that it was because the trip I was claiming for did not start in the UK!
  I objected, it was refused a second time. I then had to refer it to the Ombudsman who upheld my side of the case however I only ever received 50% of the cost back. I immediately cancelled my Platinum AX, downgraded to a Green Card and bought travel insurance through one of my banks and saved myself a fortune in annual card fees.

  • Alan says:

    6 Apr6 April 19:38

    What dreadful treatment – out of interest why did they only pay out 50% when the Ombudsman (from the sounds of it quite rightly!) upheld your case?

    • Shoestring says:

      6 Apr6 April 19:41

      maybe the other room wasn’t covered? [we/ 2 rooms/ only 1 with an Amex card]

  • Russ says:

    6 Apr6 April 21:20

    I didn’t know only ex UK flights were covered. So only the short hop onto mainland Europe to pick up cheaper long haul flights is covered.

    • S says:

      8 Apr8 April 00:34

      The insurance documents make no mention of it. All flights are covered.

  • KBuffett says:

    6 Apr6 April 21:55

    I had a weekend trip to Innsbruck (direct flights from LGW). Ended up being stranded in Innsbruck and the one flight in and out and kept being cancelled as winds were too high for three days! Amex would only cover me for around £12 a day, wouldn’t be bothered to claim it. They wouldn’t cover the costs of getting me home.
    Luckily EasyJet covered everything even though they didn’t have to and didn’t cover it under EU261.

    To be honest I have no idea what is covered by AMEX Plat other than medical.

    • Shoestring says:

      6 Apr6 April 22:05

      Are you sure you understand duty of care & EC261 rights to re-ticketing? – EJ didn’t do it (sort you out) just because they’re a very nice company – and probably explains why Amex didn’t want to get involved as you had the right to claim from another company

      • KBuffett says:

        6 Apr6 April 22:35

        I don’t!

      • callum says:

        6 Apr6 April 23:59

        As Shoestring implied – Easyjet were legally responsible for your costs while you were stranded in Innsbruck. Insurance covers you for your actual losses, so as Easyjet were legally required to pay there was nothing for you to claim.

• Aceman says:

  6 Apr6 April 21:35

  i’ve been mulling cancelling amex platinum, and this may be the kick I need.

  What was the money saving expert preferred policy?

  I had a claim with amex plat, I flew from the US, spent one night in london, then flew onwards (separate tickets). My luggage didn’t make it from the US trip, along with my smart clothes which I needed. Called amex and was given the go ahead to spend and buy clothes etc. Time to submit the receipts, and it was denied. Was told that because I’d been home in the meantime that I wasn’t entitled to delayed baggage cover, pointed out that I’d spoken to someone, and they conveniently could find no record of my call.

  As a single guy not insuring the whole family its always been a bit marginal for me anyway.

  • Rob says:

    6 Apr6 April 22:05

    Used to be Liverpool Victoria but could have changed. Note that MSE judges policies based on small print and, based on reader feedback, WILLINGNESS TO PAY UP. A cheap policy where the insurer does everything it can to avoid paying is useless.

    • Jeremy says:

      7 Apr7 April 02:25

      This is all a load of incidental evidence. A cheap policy where the insurer does everything it can to avoid paying is not useless if it does pay. And if it does not pay then the UK has regulations to ensure it does pay. End of.

      • DV says:

        7 Apr7 April 02:56

        This doesn’t make any sense.

      • Rob says:

        7 Apr7 April 09:03

        Take Amex for example. The rules say that any medical expenses must be approved by Amex in advance and you can only see the doctor they tell you to see. In reality, this is NOT imposed. We have had 3 claims paid where in-house hotel doctors treated our kids and the bills, which we did not get pre-approved, were paid. Many insurers would not have done this.

        There are also MASSIVE issues over pre-existing conditions. Got high blood pressure but slip over by the pool and crack your head? A lot of policies won’t pay because you have a pre-existing condition, even though it has NOTHING to do with the injury you suffered. You can’t take that to arbitration because, legally, they are correct in not paying. Decent policies will pay.

  • Mark2 says:

    6 Apr6 April 22:20

    Lloyds Bank (and most other banks) have accounts which include travel and breakdown insurance d gadgets too. Lloyds (ironically called Platinum) is £19 per month and covers up to 80; it also covers many pre-existing conditions and new ones can be added quite cheaply. When I had a TIA at 71 it was much cheaper than ‘specialist’ insurers to add online.

  • S says:

    8 Apr8 April 00:36

    The rep mislead you. But yes, delayed luggage is not covered on the last leg of the trip.

    However, if you you had a train to catch to get back to where you live, that’s not really the last leg.

• Talay says:

  7 Apr7 April 02:36

  What will also kill this is the FX rates of having to pay on Amex when overseas and they levy a 3% surcharge.

  Also, if people cannot trust the insurer then they’ll have to ditch it because they can’t risk not being covered.

  • Russ says:

    7 Apr7 April 12:49

    Not sure if it’s all doom and gloom, rather depends how much traveling you do, when you pay and where you fly.

    If you frequently fly from your country of residence say for the sake of argument UK to Europe then I’d imagine you’d get more value from it than say someone who only uses it for one medium/longhaul flight a year. You’d just have to remind yourself to pay everything you can in advance in the UK.

  • Crafty says:

    7 Apr7 April 15:03

    On my recent claim I included the FX fees, because I wouldn’t have paid on Amex but needed to in order to claim, putting me more out of pocket.

    They didn’t specifically comment, but laboriously recalculated everything at the xe.com rate for the day.

    Didn’t bother challenging as it was only about £15 and I’d had a very nice night at the Conrad and a boatload of points out of the situation…

• guesswho2000 says:

  7 Apr7 April 08:00

  The car rental insurance and referral points between them have justified the fee for several years, for me. This latest change isn’t even the biggest problem in the world, although would add an additional forex cost to me in having to pay in GBP. One day I’ll move to the Amex Plat where I actually live, but for now I’ll be keeping the UK one.

• jarvester says:

  7 Apr7 April 08:55

  What happens if you don’t phisically hold an AMEX plat at time of booking?

  I normally book holidays months in advance but only upgrade one of our golds to plat during the summer months, as it’s when we travel the most as a family, hire cars, visit hotels etc so it makes good financial sense. Had a couple of small medical claims over the years through their insurance and they were always good paying up.

  Whilst the loss of sign up bonus was a nice to have, potentially losing insurance cover would make me seriously question if this is a product I’d be willing to use going forward. Thinking once I get my second 241 BAPP voucher and use it, its maybe time to say farewell to AMEX altogether for a good few years.

  I don’t think my custom will be missed considering their recent changes, it feels like it’s part of their strategy to get rid of a good chunk of the more savvy, less profitable cardholders.

  • Rob says:

    7 Apr7 April 08:57

    You may want to call them to see what the situation is here.

    • Colin MacKinnon says:

      7 Apr7 April 09:01

      I presume, Rob, you have called them. Have their press office not made a statement yet?

  • Alan says:

    7 Apr7 April 11:08

    This is like any annual policy – I would be very wary of booking holidays without having some form of cover in place. I’ve seen too many people that have planned to only take out insurance (which in this case would mean taking out Plat) before they leave, but forget they can have health problems in the intervening months between booking the holiday and taking out insurance.

    • jarvester says:

      7 Apr7 April 13:25

      Good point. I have my nationwide flexplus cover all year round so not really risking it till the last minute. Just find Amex product to be superior as it doesn’t have an excess and the claims department are easier to deal with, although quality has steadily declined over time.

  • Mark2 says:

    7 Apr7 April 12:10

    I hope Julian doesn’t see this; he will be very vexed!

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