Platinum charge travel insurance question

[ljms]

I’m visiting Iceland for a week. I already booked my flights using another card as I didn’t think about the insurance aspect. What do I need to do to ‘activate’ cover for this trip? Will paying for one of my hotel stays using the card be enough?

[Andrew J]

You will always be covered for medical travel insurance whilst holding the Platinum card regardless of how you pay for your travel – to insure the particular elements they need to be paid for by a U.K. issued Amex card (ie you can pay on your BA Amex) – so if your flight was booked on a mastercard etc then you can’t retrospectively insure that element ie cover the flight for cancellation/curtailment but with flexible booking policies in place at the moment that’s possibly less of a concern – you also wouldn’t be covered for delay benefits.

[ljms]

Andrew J wrote:

You will always be covered for medical travel insurance whilst holding the Platinum card regardless of how you pay for your travel – to insure the particular elements they need to be paid for by a U.K. issued Amex card (ie you can pay on your BA Amex) – so if your flight was booked on a mastercard etc then you can’t retrospectively insure that element ie cover the flight for cancellation/curtailment but with flexible booking policies in place at the moment that’s possibly less of a concern – you also wouldn’t be covered for delay benefits.

Thanks! Yeah, medical coverage is my concern. So I’m covered regardless? Great!

[BA001]

I was scheduled to travel to Istanbul on the morning of Saturday 26th Feb with BA Holidays business class. Approx 2 hours before the flight BA informed me that the flight had been cancelled. This was the weekend of chaos at Heathrow where they cancelled virtually all flights.

After spending literally hours on hold I got through to an agent who told me I could fly the next day but only space was available in Economy and then we would need to fly back a day later than planned. At this point we cut our losses and rebooked the trip for April hoping by then things would have sorted themselves out.

I am an Amex platinum card holder but I booked the flights on my BA Amex unaware there was any requirement to book tickets on the Platinum card.

I would be super grateful for any guidance on the following two questions:

1. Reading the Amex Platinum insurance Ts & Cs here: https://www.americanexpress.com/content/dam/amex/uk/benefits/UK-Platinum-insurance-documentation-July21.pdf, it seems to indicate that you must have purchased the trip with your platinum card to be able to claim for certain components of Insurance. The comment from Andrew J indicates that is not the case though and that as long as you purchase with a personal Amex card you are covered.

2. The component I would like to know if I am covered on is TRAVEL INCONVENIENCE (CEG) – £300 for missed departure. Assuming I am covered, am I entitled to claim due to BA cancelling the flight? Does anyone know if this is per traveller or per booking?

Thanks in advance!

[JDB]

Not sure which BA Amex you have, but if you aren’t covered on the Plat, BAPP also has travel inconvenience cover, albeit less than £300. For the BAPP, terms say:-

“If You are travelling with Your Family, Your Supplementary Cardmembers, or their Family, and claiming under the same Card Account, the benefits stated under this Travel Inconvenience Section 2.1 must be shared.”