Gold-Card travel insurance?

[Usarka]

Has anyone here used gold-card travel insurance (buy the ticket on the gold card and get "free" insurance) and had to claim while overseas or home?

How was the experience?

I'm a little wary of using it so am really keen to see if anyones needed to use it during serious travel.

Ta

[Badjelly]

Never had to claim it, no. I too have been nervous about it. The problem is that it can be difficult to be sure you've met the requirement to pay half of your up-front travel costs on the card.

Before a one-month trip in Dec 2007-Jan 2008, where I needed to provide proof of insurance to the tour company, I contacted the card provider and then the insurance provider to see if I could get a letter saying I was definitely covered. The answer was that I had to send lots of details about the trip and how I paid for it, then wait a couple of weeks. I didn't have time for that so I just took along the policy brochure. That was enough to convince the tour company, reluctantly, but I wasn't 100% convinced myself.

Anyway, I changed my credit card recently and decided to stick with the gold card, because the extra fee costs much less than buying travel insurance if you do any travel at all.

Look mate, you're a motorcyclist, so you're a risk taker, right? So take a risk with your insurance coverage!

[Forest]

I was less than impressed.

I hired a rental car at Melbourne airport on my National Bank Gold Mastercard. Unfortunately the car got rear-ended while I was stopped at an intersection. The repair cost was around $800 AUD.

The travel insurance underwriter for the card declined to pay out for the damage since the rental car had not been booked and paid for from New Zealand (a condition that I was completely unaware of). So I was left to cover the repair bill.

Fucking useless!

[Swoop]

I was informed by the friendly VISA man, that they will cover me when I travel.
Something about "upping the card limit" by a grand or so, but you will get free insurance cover by doing so.

It is easy enough to lower the limit back down once your travel has been completed.

[Badjelly]

The travel insurance underwriter for the card declined to pay out for the damage since the rental car had not been booked and paid for from New Zealand (a condition that I was completely unaware of). So I was left to cover the repair bill.

Yeah, that's the sort of thing that worries me.

Conditions for eligibility for the insurance may vary between banks & cards, but with a National Bank Gold Visa you're supposed to be covered if you pay at least half of the up-front travel costs for your trip with the card. Their brochure spends some time explaining what "up-front travel costs" are. Under that policy you wouldn't necessarily have to have paid for the rental car with the card, but you would have had to pay for something with it: air fares, accommodation, etc.

It's obviously intended to get you to use your credit card, and there are quite a few reasons you might not want to, eg some travel agents charge a 2% surcharge for a credit card. (I don't know if they're supposed to, but they do.) So the "free" travel insurance can certainly complicate things.

[Forest]

Yeah, that's the sort of thing that worries me.

Conditions for eligibility for the insurance may vary between banks & cards, but with a National Bank Gold Visa you're supposed to be covered if you pay at least half of the up-front travel costs for your trip with the card. Their brochure spends some time explaining what "up-front travel costs" are. Under that policy you wouldn't necessarily have to have paid for the rental car with the card, but you would have had to pay for something with it: air fares, accommodation, etc.

It's obviously intended to get you to use your credit card, and there are quite a few reasons you might not want to, eg some travel agents charge a 2% surcharge for a credit card. (I don't know if they're supposed to, but they do.) So the "free" travel insurance can certainly complicate things.

I paid for almost the entire trip (including the rental car) with the gold card.

The specific problem was that the rental car had not been booked and paid prior to leaving NZ.

As far as I am concerned, this makes the free travel insurance useless to me. I travel for business and need the flexibility to change my plans as the trips progress.

[Badjelly]

I paid for almost the entire trip (including the rental car) with the gold card. The specific problem was that the rental car had not been booked and paid prior to leaving NZ.

Bloody hell! What bank & card was that?

[Forest]

Bloody hell! What bank & card was that?

National Bank Gold Mastercard.

The insurance underwriter was American Home Assurance Company and the claim was handled through an outsourcing company called International SOS.