Why Traveling Without Insurance May Cost You More
You are going traveling. You have lots of expenses to cover. You need to pay for your air fare, your accommodation, your food, your travel while away, cultural experiences and the list goes on. You want to save money so you decide not to bother with travel insurance. You are going on the trip of a lifetime so nothing will go wrong. It’s an unnecessary expense so you don’t need it. Wrong. Very wrong. Traveling with out insurance can be the biggest mistake you make when organizing your trip and a very costly one.
What is travel insurance? Well there are two kinds of insurance to look at when traveling.
1. Travel insurance, (sometimes called trip insurance) which covers cancellations, delays, lost baggage and emergencies.
2. Travel medical insurance protects you against any medical expense while traveling.
Ideally, you need a combination of the two when traveling.
Imagine these scenarios:
You are in Darwin, Australia when a cyclone hits the area. The city is devastated by the cyclone and all services shut down. You have to be evacuated and sent home. Your travel insurance will cover you for this. You do have travel insurance don’t you?
Your luggage goes missing in India. You need to buy new clothes and fast. Can you afford it in your budget? Of course you can, you took out traveler’s insurance – didn’t you?
Or what if you go surfing in Hawaii and take a big wipeout? You are so severely injured you need surgery and major medical assistance, and then are airlifted home. But that’s okay – your travel medical insurance covers all that. You have got it, haven’t you?
Travel insurance is there to protect you in case bad things happen on your trip. It is a necessary expense. Overseas medical costs can be astronomical if you are not insured. And if you are injured in a developing country, medical attention may not be as good as at home. If you are insured you can get flown home and attended to at no cost.
Every year the government deals with thousands of cases of travelers being injured, falling ill or dying overseas. This is a distressing situation for all involved, but made even worse when the travelers are not insured, often leaving them with huge bills to pay. Hospitalization in other countries can cost over one thousand dollars a day. Medical evacuations can be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars and if you die in Europe, it can cost over ten thousand dollars to bring your body back home. If you do not have travel insurance you have to cover these costs yourself (or your family will have to find the money).
Travel insurance is a cost you need to budget for. If you don’t take it out, your medical expenses could cost a whole lot more. Insure yourself and travel safe.
This article is brought to you by: Stuart S. Travel – Your Online Travel Guru
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December 17th, 2009 at 10:40 am
1. Encashing frequent flyer miles is one of my favorite methods to get discount air tickets on subsequent purchases.
2. Online travel services like Orbitz, Travelocity and BookingBuddy allow customers to choose selected flights whenever deeper discounts become available. Other services such as Priceline may allow customers to bid for lower price airline tickets, but they can also require immediate purchase of those tickets or a much more flexible schedule.
3. If you belong to an auto club, or to Sam’s Club or Costco, it is helpful to compare rates there too. Companies like AAA or Costco sometimes offer the best prices for plane tickets online or offline.
4. A travel agency is a time-tested source for discount air tickets. Here the agent can negotiate a package deal to lower the price of airline tickets as long as a specific hotel or car rental is booked.
5. A major airline sometimes uses discounts to encourage the use of its low-price commuter service. Occasionally airlines compete for business through 'fare wars', which may lower the price of tickets by as much as 40%.
The key is to look out for those little-known ways you can travel for cheap without having to forgo the 'luxuries'.
December 17th, 2009 at 10:54 am
From where? Greatly affects how I would answer your question. Please edit your question to add this key detail; I'll check back later.
December 17th, 2009 at 1:27 pm
For the purposes of buying airline tickets, those kids are considered adults. You did not indicate your origin or destination city but check the following sites:
southwest.com
jetblue.com
orbitz.com
kayak.com
December 17th, 2009 at 2:32 pm
Priceline.com is the best!!!!
December 18th, 2009 at 7:11 pm
cheaptickets.com…. travelocity.com…. expedia.com..the old standby, priceline.com
CAREFUL… cheap means no changes or you pay huge fees to adjust your travel days! Make real sure the schedule you're buying is one you can actually use…
December 18th, 2009 at 9:01 pm
I have found that the cheapest way is generally by check the airlines page or hotel page, and yahoo travel seem to be the cheapest.
December 19th, 2009 at 1:09 am
Try Expedia.com . I fly to Europe several times a year and they usually have the lowest prices when I'm looking. Other things you can do to get a lower price…try to fly between Tuesday and Thursday. Weekends are higher. Avoid traveling near a major holiday, if possible. Search for tickets at any time of day if you can be flexible. Certain times of day are more expensive than others. Are you heading to a particular city in Europe or just anywhere cheap? London often has very good flight prices but it's expensive once you get there. There are some budget carriers in Europe that you might be able to use if you are planning to travel around after you arrive. Check out http://www.ryanair.com , http://www.easyjet.com and http://www.bmibaby.com These might allow you to fly to whatever European city you find good fares to and then cheaply move to another location. It's often cheaper that way than booking a US carrier into a less-traveled destination.
December 20th, 2009 at 9:44 am
December 20th, 2009 at 9:02 pm
You don't really have much of a choice for domestic air travel in Vietnam, either Pacific Airlines or Vietnam Airlines are your best (and only) options. Air Asia, a large budget airline in Asia is planning on beginning domestic service in the future, but it's still a ways off, but that should help to bring down the costs and provide more options, but for now there isn't much of a choice. You can check online, but is easily arranged once you get to Saigon.