Amex Platinum insurance – MASTER THREAD

[scholar wong]

ukgeorge wrote:

I have an upcoming car rental with Sixt at LAX. To validate the insurance I understand I have to reject all insurance provided by the car rental company. Does this mean i have to reject LDW as well as CDW? I have not used Amex car hire insurance before. Is rejecting this obvious on the insurance document? Does this mean you do not have to pay the fee for an additional driver (friend)?

Same here, from my understanding the Platinum Insurance provides cover on top of whatever insurances you have taken from the car rental company. So I won’t be paying for any additional coverage and the 50k should be more than sufficient to cover any excesses.

What did you end up doing?

[GJS]

I think I know the answer to this, but wanted to check with others please: if I lose the last day of a trip because a train/plane home is forced to depart from a different city, but I don’t incur any financial loses, would I be entitled to claim anything for the missed time? In this case, my eurostar was forced to depart from Brussels rather than Rotterdam on Monday, and I had to spend most of my final day getting to Brussels by a different (lengthy!) route. Many thanks.

[JDB]

GJS wrote:

I think I know the answer to this, but wanted to check with others please: if I lose the last day of a trip because a train/plane home is forced to depart from a different city, but I don’t incur any financial loses, would I be entitled to claim anything for the missed time? In this case, my eurostar was forced to depart from Brussels rather than Rotterdam on Monday, and I had to spend most of my final day getting to Brussels by a different (lengthy!) route. Many thanks.

The simple answer is no unfortunately. The Travel Inconvenience section of the Plat insurance is very weak anyway, but few insurers will give you cash compensation just for the inconvenience as opposed to covering additional costs incurred.

[GJS]

Thanks for the quick reply, JDB. I thought that might be the case.

[DJ]

What is the rule for claim if you had travel insurance with both Amex Plat and HSBC Premier?

Do you just pick the most suitable one and file the claim?

I could not find anything for that scenario in both policy documents. Thanks

[JDB]

DJ wrote:

What is the rule for claim if you had travel insurance with both Amex Plat and HSBC Premier?

Do you just pick the most suitable one and file the claim?

I could not find anything for that scenario in both policy documents. Thanks

Yes, but will need to disclose to the insurer you are claiming from that you also have cover elsewhere and the cost of your claim may get shared.

[BJ]

Just tried to create an insurance certificate but it only allows me to specify a single country. What are readers doing where they visit multiple countries on one trip? AXA CS told me to separate each country by a coma but that didn’t work as certificate only shows first specified country.

[smitrax]

Flight cancellation / Claim declined

We pre-paid for our hotel accommodation but we’re babble to use the first night as our flight was cancelled (whilst we were on the plane) so we arrived a day late and lost out on 1 night of hotel costs plus the costs of an excursion we had pre-paid for.

Turns out this is not covered by the Axa policy Amex ‘give’ you with the £575 Platinum card.

You might think it is based on the below wording but you have to dig into the small print to find out how they’re going to screw you.

WHAT IS COVERED?
Cancelling, Postponing and Abandoning your trip
Up to £7,500, per insured person, provides cover for unused travel, accommodation, excursions and leisure activities that have been paid for or pre-booked and these are not refundable or a fee is charged to change them.
Key Exclusions
• Pre-existing medical conditions other than those on the Accepted Conditions list available in the Help & Support section.
• Cancellation due to business reasons
• Abandonment after first leg of a trip
• Circumstances known before booking a trip
• Disinclination to travel
Medical assistance and Expenses
Up to 22 million to cover necessary medical, surgical and hospital costs during a trip, £1,000 emergency dental treatment, all necessary repatriation and evacuation costs and necessary costs to repatriate remains or £2,500 for local funeral.

[JDB]

@smitrax – yes, it’s an appalling lacuna in the policy which most travel policies do cover. The section to which you refer wouldn’t ordinarily be the right one, but the situation you describe should at least be covered under Travel Inconvenience but others have reported the same as you.

The card is going up from £575 to £650 and the insurance policy is in dire need of a rewrite and upgrade.

[Carlos]

BJ wrote:

Just tried to create an insurance certificate but it only allows me to specify a single country. What are readers doing where they visit multiple countries on one trip? AXA CS told me to separate each country by a coma but that didn’t work as certificate only shows first specified country.

If you know the dates of each country you can just print more with new dates

[SandsofEss]

Hopefully a quick question here to validate my reading of the Platinum Insurance Ts & Cs.

Am I right in thinking that the medical and personal liability cover for winter sports will apply to me and my family, regardless of whether I’ve paid for the trip with my Amex?

[Don]

Just found out today that the Amex Plat and Amex Plat Business insurance packages are different. Amex Bus is better e.g does not have a 50 pounds excess. Came to light when someone gave me the wrong details for a claim.

[sdawson127]

Helloboy wrote:

Looking for a bit of help as have a car rental coming up in a few hours in cyprus.

Looking to rent with my Amex platinum via avis.
I know that Amex says car rental insurance is only valid if rental agency allows refusal of their insurance. I would take that to mean when you have the option to not purchase additional insurance.

However what will happen when certain insurance comes included and you are not able to refuse /remove them.
In this case, the terms say that cdw and others is included with an excess of 850 euros and there doesn’t seem to be a way to remove this insurance from avis and say hey I don’t want any insurance since Amex covers it.

Will Amex still cover the 850 euro excess that the card rental would have me pay if there was any damage ?

Does anyone have clarification on this one? As I’ve got the same question with an Avis rental I’m looking to take out for Spain. No option online to decline Avis’ CDW and excess included in the price. I’ve only got the option to decline their optional/additional insurance options. Would AMEX pay out up to the basic excess amount included with the Avis booking or would I have to find a way of declining the insurance that comes with the rental?

[Rob]

It’s very simple. Most countries require, by law, for car hire to come with certain levels of insurance.

It is illegal for the rental company to remove this insurance so they won’t do it. You don’t need to buy anything on top of this insurance though.

[sdawson127]

Rob Burgess wrote:

It’s very simple. Most countries require, by law, for car hire to come with certain levels of insurance.

It is illegal for the rental company to remove this insurance so they won’t do it. You don’t need to buy anything on top of this insurance though.

Thanks for the quick reply. Makes sense!

[JM1987]

Morning everyone, quick question on AMEX Plat rental cover – I’ve used this loads so familiar with that.

This time, however, I’ll be hiring in Mexico, and I’ve read that additional insurance is required, but it’s a bit confusing online.

Anyone hired cars in Mexico before and know if the AMEX Platinum rental cover is enough, or if extra insurance needs to be purchased as well?

[JDB]

JM1987 wrote:

Morning everyone, quick question on AMEX Plat rental cover – I’ve used this loads so familiar with that.

This time, however, I’ll be hiring in Mexico, and I’ve read that additional insurance is required, but it’s a bit confusing online.

Anyone hired cars in Mexico before and know if the AMEX Platinum rental cover is enough, or if extra insurance needs to be purchased as well?

You posted this in the chat today as well! The answer is yes, you may need to buy additional insurance in Mexico.

[Ash]

Why does Mexico per se require car hire excess insurance on top of the one Amex plat provides?

[JDB]

Ash wrote:

Why does Mexico per se require car hire excess insurance on top of the one Amex plat provides?

It doesn’t. However, you will very frequently not be able to collect your car without buying some insurance from the rental firm; it’s a common issue across all of them. Also, personally in Mexico and similar countries I wouldn’t want to wish to rely on any pay now, claim later car hire excess policy for the liability section as I have come across too many tourists who bought some insurance but not that one which is the most important.

[Ash]

I see more a general issue than country specific.

Perennial question, if you have BAPP and Platinum does it matter insurance wise, which one you use to pay for the flights?

BAPP gets me more Avios for the BAH booking but Platinum has better insurance cover.

Can I pay with BAPP but benefit from Plat’s better insurance cover?

[Carlos]

Ash wrote:

I see more a general issue than country specific.

Perennial question, if you have BAPP and Platinum does it matter insurance wise, which one you use to pay for the flights?

BAPP gets me more Avios for the BAH booking but Platinum has better insurance cover.

Can I pay with BAPP but benefit from Plat’s better insurance cover?

Yes, you can pay with any amex card and still be covered

[pauline]

@AmyC – thank you so much. I e-mailed AXA re the Platinum insurance Worldwide trip cover as we are going on a cruise and did not want to print out certificate for each port of call and after providing ports and dates they have e-mailed a certificate – saved a lot of hassle – thank you so much as I was not aware there was such a thing.

[Ash]

Thank you : )

[Nachmon9]

I’m a additional (gold) cardholder to the platinum, do I need to use this specific card to be entitled to the travel insurance or is any of the cards in my amex account good enough?

[Cat]

Nachmon9 wrote:

I’m a additional (gold) cardholder to the platinum, do I need to use this specific card to be entitled to the travel insurance or is any of the cards in my amex account good enough?

I think only Platinum cardholders and supplementary Platinum cardholders get the travel insurance benefit. I don’t think supplementary Gold cardholders do…