One of our Ultimate staff recently had an experience that highlights why it is essential to take out Travel Insurance and why booking with a travel advisor can save you a huge amount of stress!
Our staff member’s healthy 18 year old son recently set off for an extended holiday in Canada, travelling solo for the first time. On arrival in Vancouver, he checked in for his next flight and went out for some fresh air. He felt a bit light-headed and next thing he knew, he came to on the concrete, with a split lit and scraped up face.
The airline advised he couldn’t board his next flight until he had a “Fit To Fly” medical certificate in case he had suffered concussion. To make a long story short, he missed his connecting flight, had a hospital visit amounting to CAD$13,000, had to purchase a new air ticket to his final destination at another CAD$900 and had to spend two nights in Vancouver while he got the Medical Certificate both from the hospital and signed off by the airline medical desk.
A moment of dehydration, lack of food and the sudden change in climate quickly resulted in a large bill and disrupted travel! Luckily he wasn’t connecting to a cruise!
We can’t stress enough how quickly and unexpectedly something like this can happen, even if you’re in perfect health prior to leaving on your holiday. In this case, there were multiple calls to Air Canada with over an hour wait time in each instance. If you’re busy in hospital, spending an hour on hold to an airline simply isn’t possible…which is why having a travel advisor sorting the travel arrangements out for you is so very valuable.
Luckily in this case, this traveller had both comprehensive travel insurance and a travel advisor sorting out his onwards travel. If he hadn’t, what was meant to be an exciting, extended trip to Canada could have turned out very differently indeed!
