January 2015 archive

Is Cancellation Insurance worth the cost?

Is Cancellation Insurance worth the cost?

phpThumb_generated_thumbnailBefore today, I would have questioned on how to answer this question. Being in Canada, the inexpensive  flyer to the islands is Sunwing. I have had great and not so great, vacations in the past,  but the price being so far below the commercial carriers, it is hard to complain too much.

This time around, I was booking a trip to Cuba. Now I wanted the great prices of Sunwing, but I also wanted the 24 equal interest free payments  from Sears Travel offered there.  This meant I has to book through Signature Travel, owned by Sunwing, Through Sears Travel. Isn’t booking fun here in Canada.

To make matters worse, Cancellation Insurance from Sears was over $200, but I was able to get the same from Sunwing for $50.00. Go figure that one out. I decided to take it at that price and also ordered the Privilege upgrade for extra leg room and pre-boarding etc. on the flight. Not giving this part a second thought.

I went ahead with the booking at my hotel, a new one in that was just opening and I thought that it would make for a nice series  of articles to be at a resort that very few had been at.  This might have been great except, two months after the grand opening, the bad reviews started coming in. To make matters worse, others, that stayed earlier, started writing in stating that they also had a bad trip but did not want to write about it since it was so soon after the opening.

iberostar-ensenachos[1]They hoped that things would get better as staff training progressed, however, people reporting later showed things were getting worse and not better. This led them to the more reviews of what they experienced.

Now I wanted to have an experience where I could write about it, but I did want it to be positive so for the first time I decided to change hotels. Here is where I was surprised by Sunwing.  Because I bought the privilege upgrade package, it turns out there was an undisclosed benefit where they would allow me to change my plans once and only pay the difference between my current hotel’s rate and the hotel of my choice’s posted rated.  This did not affect my cancellation insurance so it was a great deal for me and saved my vacation.

For those following my posts, I am now booked into the Iberostar Ensenachos. Still flying into Santa Maria on the same flight but,  at a resort that has almost 1,400 5 out of 5 star reviews. Not to shabby.

More on this resort soon….

 

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