The Top 3 motivators for purchasing Travel Protection, which one do you say?

Liz Hough on

In my last newsletter I discussed the importance of making sure to give your friends, family, or neighbors a printed copy of your itinerary in case something were to go wrong on your vacation. It is great that they have this, but what do YOU have to protect yourself and your family when something goes wrong? Who are YOU supposed to call when you have to go to the local hospital or medical express station? Who do YOU call when you missed your connecting flight which also caused you to miss boarding your cruise?

Your travel agent should be there to help with you some of those concerns, but we don’t always know the nearest hospital or medical facility that will ensure your best well-being. When you have travel protection, the travel protection company is who you call!

Before 2001 only 10% of leisure travelers purchased travel protection. Since 2001, each year the amount of leisure travelers who have purchased travel protection has exponential grown. At Life is Better Traveling, 95% of our clients who book their vacation with us also purchase travel protection. Why do they book travel protection? There are three main reasons why someone purchases travel protection:

1) I want to cover my hard-earned money because the trip was expensive and/or I had to pre-pay a large amount.

2) My medical coverage does not exist outside of the United States and I want to make sure that I am covered.

3) I am nervous about unforeseen events occurring and I know that travel protection will give me the peace of mind I need.

I bring up three good points that most people will ask or say to themselves right before or right after they have purchased their vacation. I am sure even you have asked yourself one or more of these three things. With so many online travel agencies, airlines, and other suppliers making it so easy for you to purchase travel protection for your vacation purchase. They tell you all the reasons you should purchase it and it sounds so appealing to purchase it, but do you know what you are ACTUALLY getting when you press the shiny “Purchase Travel Protection” button?

Stayed tuned for next week’s newsletter about knowing what you get when you purchase travel protection. Also, if you know someone who is about to take a vacation and haven’t purchased travel protection, please forward this to them and tell them to sign-up for my HIGH CONTENT newsletters about travel at LifeisBetterTraveling.com.

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Passport Card vs. Passport Booklet

Mary Yohannan on

Passport Card vs. Passport Book

Which one is better?

I recently read an article on Facebook about a lady whose daughter booked her and four of her friends on a week-long vacation to Turks and Caicos. The daughter booked everything through an Online Travel Agency (OTA), which I will not name, but an OTA is Expedia, Travelocity, or Hotels.com. The ladies were excited, all packed, ready to go, and at the airport the lady whose daughter booked the trip was denied boarding. She had a passport card instead of a passport book. She could not get through to the OTA so she called a local travel agency and one of their travel agents told her what to do so she could get to Turks and Caicos.

So why couldn’t she board with a Passport Card? According the U.S. Department of State, a passport card can be used to enter the United States from Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Bermuda at, here is the big red flag, land border or sea ports-of-entry only. The passport card cannot be used for international travel by air. As this lady was flying to Turks and Caicos she was required to have a passport book.

Picture from Pixabay

So why is there a passport card? The passport card is very convenient to have as it is the size of a driver’s license and can easily be carried around in your wallet. It is much less expensive than getting or renewing a passport book. The passport card also contains an RFID chip that according to the U.S. Department of State does not contain any personal information. When the chip is read, it “points” to your secured information in one of the government databases. Border Patrol can then access your information and photo identification. Each card comes with an RFID blocking sleeve, just in case.

If you plan on crossing the Mexican or Canadian border often, a perk of having the passport card is that you can go through Ready Lanes. These are certain lanes at the border that can expedite inspection when you are crossing the border. Not all ports of entry have these lanes, but if you are interested in learning which ones have these Ready Lanes you can visit www.travel.state.gov.

If you are an avid cruiser and leave from ports of call in the US, then having a passport card is a convenience. But next time you are flying out of the US, please keep in mind to grab that passport book on the way out of the house so you don’t get denied boarding at the airport. Having the wrong identification will surly have you starting your vacation off on the wrong foot, and could cause delays in getting you to your destination.

If you have any questions about photo identification for travel, please contact me with any questions or visit www.travel.state.gov.

NOTE: Life is Better Traveling always recommends a Passport Booklet even when cruising out of a US port. Why? If something were to happen and you were left behind on the island, you would need a passport booklet to return back into the states. The Passport booklet is just a few dollars more, and is good for 10 years, so we always recommend getting a passport booklet.

When to Buy Travel Protection…

Mary Yohannan on

You and your travel agent have been planning your vacation for several weeks. You have come to a decision and are excited to be putting down that initial deposit. You are done with travel planning for now, or are you? One last thing that your travel agent should be talking to you about at this time is purchasing travel protection for your vacation. You are probably not even thinking about travel protection, but I am here to tell you that you should be and this is the time to think HARD about it!

The pressure of purchasing it right after you just put down a large deposit can be too much think about, and I am here to tell you, that is OK. You don’t have to purchase the travel protection plan right away. Most travel insurance companies allow you to purchase travel protection up to a certain number of days prior to departure of your vacation. You will not receive time sensitive provisions, which we will discuss in a bit, but you will still receive good coverage. My recommendation is that you make sure you have made up your mind to purchase travel protection before final payment of your trip is due. At this point, you have had enough time to really think about the coverage you will receive and whether or not it is right for you and your family.

Most travel insurance companies offer a few BONUS waivers or time sensitive provisions if you purchase travel protection within in so many days of your initial deposit on your vacation. The most common two are:

Pre-Existing Medical Condition Waiver. What this typically means is that if you have had any medical conditions so many days prior to the effective date of your policy, then they would be waived and possibly considered a covered reason if you needed to cancel. Some travel insurance companies are 60 days prior to the effective date and others are as far out at 180 days.
Supplier default or insolvency of a supplier such as an airline, cruise line, tour operator, or other travel supplier.

You really are getting more coverage when you purchase your travel protection within the travel insurance companies requirements to get these time sensitive provisions.

Over 95% of my clients purchase some kind of travel protection to cover their vacation. The next time you get ready to book your vacation, I HIGHLY recommend that you add the amount of travel protection into your budget. It makes it a lot easier for you to make the decision to purchase it right away so you get the time sensitive provisions, and you don’t feel that it is an added expense. A good rule of thumb in figuring out this expense, is if you are under the age of 55 travel protection will cost you between 10 – 15% of your total vacation. If you are over the age of 55, travel protection will cost you between 10 – 20% of the total cost of your trip.

Don’t forget to tell your travel agent at Life is Better Traveling to give you a quote for travel protection when planning your next vacation.

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The Top 3 motivators for purchasing Travel Protection, which one do you say?

Mary Yohannan on

1) I want to cover my hard-earned money because the trip was expensive and/or I had to pre-pay a large amount.

2) My medical coverage does not exist outside of the United States and I want to make sure that I am covered.

3) I am nervous about unforeseen events occurring and I know that travel protection will give me the peace of mind I need.

Stayed tuned for next week’s newsletter about knowing what you get when you purchase travel protection. Also, if you know someone who is about to take a vacation and haven’t purchased travel protection, please forward this email onto them and tell them to sign-up for my HIGH CONTENT newsletters about travel at LifeisBetterTraveling.com.

Be prepared, 17% of American have this happen to them while on vacation

Mary Yohannan on

You don’t want to believe something can go wrong on your vacation, but are your friends, relatives, neighbors prepared if it does?

When your relative, close friend, or neighbor tells you they are going on vacation your instinct is to be excited for them. They usually give a few details about their upcoming amazing trip including dates, where they are going, and what they will be seeing. A few months down the road they call you to tell you they are leaving and you wish them safe travels. As you hang up the phone, you try to remember the details of the trip but come up short in remembering. You shrug your shoulders and say to yourself you will hear all about it when they get back.

The truth is, are you prepared if something does happen? Do you have any of the details including airline, hotel, cruise ship, travel insurance? Are you prepared if they called and told you they needed to you to call the travel insurance company?

In 2014 a survey was taken showing that one in six Americans or 17% of those who traveled had their travel impacted by medical problems, natural disasters like a hurricane, or mechanical or carrier caused issued which delayed their trip for more than 3 hours. Let me make the numbers sound larger, if we had a full Southwest flight of 143 people and 17% of them will have some type of travel issue, that means 24 people on this flight. How about a cruise ship with 3500 people? Almost 600 of those passengers will have some type of travel issue. That is a lot of people. The question is, is your relative one of them?

Even when your relative tells you the details they don’t really tell you the WHOLE DETAILED ITINERARY. If you don’t have the WHOLE DETAILED ITINERARY and you need to contact them, it can become a guessing game of where in the world are my relatives? Don’t let this happen to you. Ask your relative for the detailed itinerary and the information for the travel insurance company in case you would have to call on their behave. Life is Better Traveling always provides an extra copy of the detailed itinerary to give out to a relative, neighbor or close friend just by simply asking for it. We will not let your relative know what you paid for the trip, but they are given the details of which cruise ship, airline, hotels, and travel insurance.

So next time you or your relatives book a vacation, make sure to set aside some time to talk. Talk about the detailed itinerary and explain that you would like them to have this just in case, or why you would like to have it of theirs. No one ever likes to plan for “just in case”, but when you realize how high the number of people impacted is then it just makes sense. And remember that this extra itinerary is free of charge at Life is Better Traveling and we are always looking out for our travelers. Feel free to pass this email along to the people you think of while reading this!

P.S. I just had all my relatives in Europe the last two weeks and having their information on hand gave me peace of mind.

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