Citi has Devalued the Prestige’s Trip Delay Insurance
According to Doctor of Credit there have been an increase of denied claims coming from the Citi Prestige card. These denials have a common theme, the delay came because of a missed connection. This is a big change since missed connections are one of the biggest causes for long delays.
Related: Citi ThankYou Premier credit card review
Details on Citi Prestige’s Travel Trip Delay Insurance
Citi Prestige has one of the best, if not the best, trip delay insurance out there. It comes with the following terms:
- Delay must be at least 3 hours
- Covers you and your travel companions
- To be eligible for coverage under this benefit, your Citi card and/or ThankYou Points must be used to purchase at least a portion of your common carrier fare. Examples include:
- Planes
- Trains
- Ferries
- Cruise ships
- Covers incurred expenses because of the delay, up to $500
- Lodging
- Ground Transportation
- Meals
- Personal or business necessities, such as toiletries, or items that the Covered Traveler(s) needs when delayed
Details on the Change
In the past you were able to file a claim if you missed a connection and were stranded for more than 3 hours because of it. This happened on our last trip to Orlando. We missed our connection by 15 minutes and the next available flight was 7 hours later :(.
In the past I would have been covered by Citi Prestige’s travel delay insurance but they have recently changed their ways. Will at DoC thinks the changes may be because people had been tempted to book flights with risky connections in order to take advantage of the perk. I tend to agree with that.
It would have been nice to see them put some sort of clause in there saying no connections less than 90 minutes etc. This would have been a middle of the road compromise that would be understandable. If your first flight is delayed by two hours there is a good chance that you will be stranded at the next airport longer than 3 hours and you won’t get compensation for that either.
Conclusion
This change is understandable, especially if people were abusing it. I would have liked to see them make a compromise of some sort though, limiting the amount of allowed connection time to 90 minutes etc. in order to be eligible for the perk. I guess it is what it is now. It is still the best card on the market for trip delay insurance but it isn’t as good as it used to be.
Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card is the old king of travel rewards cards. Right now
bonus_miles_full
Learn more about this card and its features!
Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.
There is official letter from Citi stating that misconnections are not covered. Here is a link https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/citi-thankyou-rewards/1662492-citi-trip-delay-reimbursement-prestige-chairman-hhonors-aadvantage-24.html
Thanks for the awesome link – much appreciated!
That is really not understandable. Sounds like just failure to pay. This is really abusive by Citi and shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it.
Honestly, I don’t see how it’s understandable. All perks can be abused sometimes, by someone, somewhere. If you believe a company is allowed to stop paying, whih means unilaterally braking the terms of its contract with a customer on a whim just because it feels that a few people are “abusing the system,” without changing the T&C, then I think you’re too kind. I would complain to the regulators.
I imagine the terms will be updated although it may have been a gray area before. I think whoever it happens to at this point would probably be able to get it overturned as a one time, valued customer type of thing but that is purely speculation on my part.
For what it is worth I don’t think any other travel delay coverage factors in missed flights from other cards.
So do you have any info on what their new rule is?
They haven’t changed the cards terms at all. This is just based on data points of people being denied. The rule is still if you are delayed 3 hours you are covered but they are likely to deny you if the delay was caused by a missed connection. Your first or second flight needs to be delayed 3 hours or more on it’s own.
I feel if they really wanted to do it for you, they would, providing a valid reason why it happened.
I did not meet the requirement for my CDN amex but I wanted to try anyway. They did approve my trip delay insurance instantly, because they said they valued me as loyal client.
I could see that being the case. Especially if it is a one time thing etc. A lot may depend on the agent you get too.