Chammer

Booked a DUB-LHR-JNB and CPT-LHR-MAD a few months ago. I'd also booked a LHR-DUB reward flight, to get me back home without needing to go via MAD (I live in Ireland). The MAD leg was added as it took over £1.5k off the trip price. Unfortunately I'm having to cancel the trip due to illness. I'm now trying to claim on travel insurance and working out how to do this. My LHR-MAD that I was never going to take was the day after my LHR-DUB. The travel insurance requires my trip to start and end in Ireland. Does anyone have any experience on claiming these types of itineraries? I don't want the insurance to come back refusing to pay the original booking as it didn't look like was ever going to take the final flight of the itinerary.

I'm wondering if it's easier to forget the small amount of cash I'll lose in relation to the reward flight and just say I was going to book a MAD-DUB leg nearer the time.

Any advice appreciated. I obviously don't want to lie to the insurance company, but I don't want them to get out of paying for the cover I bought and an honestly booked itinerary. Many thanks

oceanscape

Why wouldn't you just cancel the reward flight? It's fully refundable subject to a maximum £35 fee if cancelled > 24 hours before departure. Seems a lot less hassle and stress than throwing that into the insurance claim.

scottishpoet

the problem is the south africa trip ends in mad so will not be covered by the insurance

bisonrav

Depending on the nature of the illness you may find BA to be flexible and issue some sort of credit, certainly worth asking.

Wozza2404

The BA itinerary ends in MAD. Doesn't mean the holiday was scheduled to. I'd just cancel that reward LHR-DUB flight and let the insurance company know that the MAD-DUB flight hadn't been booked yet as they were waiting for their <whatever> reservation to confirm before doing so.

That's if they ask. Which they might well not.

KeaneJohn

Mmmm not sure that would work because at the time of the claim the trip wasn’t starting and ending in Ireland and therefore against the T&C.

Id present the reward flight in the claim and say you were going to use the reward flight to get back to Dublin and were going to book a cheap ticket back to London to fly to Madrid as long as you don’t have a stupidly early MAD flight.

Wozza2404

I think it will depend on the definition of 'trip' in OP's policy.

Mine says:

Trip means any holiday, business or pleasure trip or journey made by you within the area of travel shown in the schedule which begins and ends in your home area during the period of insurance, but excluding one way trips or journeys.

I would argue that I'm clearly not moving to MAD, and it's not unusual to have multiple bookings to make up an itinerary. It might end up a FOS claim, but I'd be fairly confident about getting it paid eventually. That being said, it's definitely something to keep in mind and not something I've considered before.

HIDDY

I suppose it all depends on the fine print in t&c's of the policy. I wonder if the ''travel insurance requires my trip to start and end in Ireland''' part mean they expect the flights to be all on the one ticket?

PLeblond

I'm sorry to say that the ship has already sailed on that (bolding mine). Skiplagging willfully and with premeditation is akin to fraud and morally improper so I certanly hope an insurance policy would not support such activites.

Having simply added a MAD-DUB flight at the end would have aleviated everything with a the bonus of two more trips on a magical thing called an airplane.

corporate-wage-slave

I'm going to politely say that's rubbish, mainly to minimise other people piling in. In the European context there is plenty of legislation and CJEU outcomes that makes it perfectly legal to skiplag (drop a leg), and in moral terms it's more down to how competitive markets work, so the Hail Marys can be put to one side. It is, 101% not fraud, but airlines are entitled to enforce some (but not all) terms and conditions, that's a civil matter. However in the European context contracts need to be fair and have some element of reciprocal treatment - to admittedly simplify rather massively.

For the OP, the test here is whether you are starting and ending from home. The fact that your trip was circuituous probably isn't an issue, what the insurance companies are bothered about is you hiding the fact that you are an oil contractor in Qatar, or some such, and therefore on a different risk profile to their usual customer base.

PLeblond

With all due respect sir, I'll agree to disagree. Character is what you do when no one is looking. And for me, premediated skiplagging shows a serious lack of character.

I will refrain from sermonzing and not post any further comments in this thread. I've said my piece.

I wish you all a fantastic day.

Wozza2404

I'm gunna anyway. The idea that saving myself thousands of pounds by taking advantage of circuitous routing savings from a multi billion pound corporation has some bearing on my moral character... Lolz.

seattlebruce

We could debate (and disagree on) whether skiplagging reflects a lack of character. But that is not relevant to whether the trip "ends in Ireland". The trip was planned to end in Ireland. Claiming that does not reflect a lack of character.

strowger

Agreed on both counts.

1 - Skiplagging, or any other non-criminal act of arbitrage or optimisation is a moral good and you are actively making the world better when you do it by improving price signals for your fellow man.

2 - You have a "trip" involving multiple tickets, which is a perfectly normal situation. This should be the mindset and source of phrasing when composing the insurance claim.

chistery

For the purpose of insurance, I wonder if you should have just booked a MAD-DUB ticket with the cheapest possible carrier to look like you would have started and ended up in DUB?