A tragic story that shows why you should buy travel insurance as soon as you book a trip

We heard a sad but sadly not unusual story from a reader last week. She was prompted to make contact after hearing the worst possible news about her father. He was due to visit her in the US this spring and had booked and paid for a ticket. “Unfortunately he got ill and was admitted to hospital and was diagnosed with end-stage pancreatic cancer. This of course means he cannot fly.”

Our reader called Aer Lingus in Dublin this past week “and was nothing short of disgusted with the agent that I spoke with. When she answered the call on the Dublin landline, I informed her I was calling from New York and went on to say that unfortunately my father’s circumstances had changed since the time of booking and I needed to cancel his flight. Abruptly, she asked, name, DOB, reservation number, all of which I gave.”

Our reader explained the details of her father’s sudden ill-health and explained that she had to cancel the ticket. “I got: ‘It’s non-refundable’. Now believe me, my father has been in good health and if there was any way he could come visit us he would. This cancellation is due to the fact that he is dying and nothing unfortunately can be done to help him.”

[ Aer Lingus continuing to deal with lost baggage claims from last summer ]

She says she was then told her father could get a voucher. “I asked her what my father could do with a voucher and reminded her of his condition. Then she suggested getting said voucher put in another name to fly to New York. I told her no one would be doing that. Getting nowhere, I said, ‘Okay, can you put it in my name?’ Then she said that couldn’t be done as the ticket was in euros. Pure nonsense. I asked how long this process would take if we did this and was told weeks. So I told her to simply put the money back on the credit card. This ticket cost €1,230.26. She informed me we would get roughly €84 back.”

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While this is obviously a tragedy for the family and and time of terrible heartache and they are clearly distraught at how the issue was handled, the reality is many airlines would do even less for a family in this situation.

It is why travel insurance is so very important.

Almost a third of travel insurance claims processed by one of the leading providers in the State were made before trips were due to take place, according to data released earlier this month.

The figures from Multitrip.com showed that 29 per cent of claims were made as a result of sickness, death or other circumstances that meant people could not take trips as planned.

The figure points to the need for people to take out travel insurance as soon as they book their trip, rather than waiting until close to the time of departure before taking out cover.

“If you wait until closer to the date of departure to arrange your travel insurance and then find yourself in the unfortunate position of not being able to travel – because you or your travel companion or a close relative is diagnosed with a serious illness, for example – you may not be able to recover the cost of your trip,” said company spokesman Jason Whelan.

[ Aer Lingus cancellations: What you are entitled to and how to go about claiming your rights ]

He noted that the cost of travel insurance “doesn’t get any cheaper if you leave it to the last minute, so there really is no benefit to delaying the purchase of cover. Travel insurance is too important to be an afterthought.”

Despite the fact that Aer Lingus had no legal obligation to offer a refund to our reader, we thought we would reach out to the airline anyway. To its credit, it came back to us with a very decent response.

[ Shocking treatment from Aer Lingus after customer’s husband dies during visit home ]

“As a general rule and as is the case industry-wide, we follow the ticket rules applicable to the type of fare the customer has purchased,” a spokeswoman said. “However, in this case, due to the tragic circumstances, we have issued the customer a full refund. This is something our team will do on a discretionary basis based on the specific circumstances of each case.”

We can’t ask any more of them than that.