It’s officially Hurricane Season my friends! If you’re like me, and live in the Midwest, hurricanes have probably never affected you. Flashback to almost two years ago, when I was booking a trip for my friend’s bachelorette party to Vieques, Puerto Rico in October. On Expedia I bundled my flight to San Juan, PR and my hotel the first night for $594 because I was arriving a day early to catch the first island hopper plane ($272) flying out to Vieques the next morning. We were staying at an AirBnB on Vieques, so I did not have to pay for that till we arrived on the island. I had the option to buy travel insurance for an extra $30. Being a cheapskate, I opted not to buy the insurance, because I thought NOTHING was going to stop me from a bachelorette weekend with my girlfriends!
Hurricane Irma was the first imminent threat in early September, but she did not directly hit Puerto Rico. It was a close call, but we were still in the clear for visiting the next month. Then Hurricane Maria started brewing, she was looking a lot bigger, and meaner. Maria might ring a bell, because Puerto Rico is still reeling from the repercussions she caused almost two years ago. She hit Puerto Rico head on a month before our bachelorette weekend. Not fully grasping the severity of the hurricane, I was hoping there was still a chance we would be able to go.
After monitoring the news about Puerto Rico’s conditions for a week, and how dire it was, the bachelorette party was moved to Savannah, Georgia. The four other girls did something I did not: purchase travel insurance. They were able to receive a full refund on their flights. The bride rebooked her flight for Savannah, and the other three lived close enough they were able to drive. Honestly, I didn’t think I was going to get any money back, and not be able to go to the new location of the bachelorette weekend because I did not buy travel insurance.
First, I called Expedia, and was able to receive a refund for the hotel portion of my bundled trip for about $100. Dealing with my flight was a little more difficult. I decided to call Expedia again in an attempt to receive a refund on my flight to San Juan, PR. When you book a flight through a third-party site, they have to work directly with the airline you paid for. Since they were dealing with a high volume of similar calls, everything was taking a little longer. Overall, the call took three hours, and the end result was they cancelled my flight to San Juan, and rebooked me for Savannah instead. I did not receive any money back on my flight, because the cost of the Savannah flight was comparable to the San Juan flight. It was less than a month away, so that was understandable, but still painful to pay over $400 for a flight within the continental United States. My island hopper flight was a loss since they were not providing refunds because they were somehow still in operation. At the end of the day, I was out $272 for the island hopper flight, where if I had bought the travel insurance for $30, I would’ve received a full refund for the entire trip.
All in all, the bachelorette weekend in Savannah was an absolute blast, and I learned my lesson when it comes to travel insurance. In the future, if I am traveling to areas that could be affected by a hurricane during hurricane season, I will definitely be a little smarter and buy insurance. Do I now buy insurance for every trip? No, because I’m still cheap and I don’t think travel insurance is necessary for every vacation. I would opt for travel insurance if a vacation spot is prone to natural disasters (i.e hurricanes, fires, volcano eruptions, earthquakes, etc), or it is rated as a Level 2 or higher for Travel Advisories by the U.S. Department of State. If you are not sure, do your research on the location you are traveling to, and also check out what exactly travel insurance covers to see if it’s a good addition to your trip.
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