Dealing with a Vacation and the Death of a Family Member
PrintDescription: For many travelers, a trip overseas is only made possible through the purchase of cheap airplane tickets and discount hotel rooms or cheap vacation packages. However, the trip of a lifetime can go bad quickly due to a severe illness or accident.
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Unfortunately, sometimes well researched vacation plans that resulted in the purchase of cheap airplane tickets and discount hotel rooms or cheap vacation packages get derailed by the unexpected death of a family member. At such times, travelers may be far away from home and emotionally distraught as well as financially stressed at the prospect of losing their prepaid travel expenses.
Although family deaths are often unexpected, it is recommended that travelers ask their hotels, cruise lines, airline, or tour operator when making a reservation what the refund policy is for deaths of immediate family relatives and partners. Fine print should be reviewed to understand who is classified as a family member and how domestic partners or step-relatives are viewed.
Even though airline tickets are generally nonrefundable, most airlines will waive change fees and offer nonrefundable transportation vouchers for future travel upon presentation of a death certificate, proof of relationship to the deceased, and funeral home or hospital telephone numbers.
Many hotels and resorts will not offer immediate refunds for deaths of family members. Travelers must be prepared to speak to management and sometimes even go to corporate management before getting any type of satisfaction. Most hotel reservations can be cancelled, often with only the deposit being forfeited, with 24 to 48 hours' advance notice to the hotel.
If this is not possible, travelers should ask that the dates of their reservation be changed.
Only by notifying travel suppliers as soon as possible after you receive bad news and by being persistent in requesting refunds, will you stand a reasonable chance of not losing your entire vacation investment because of changes forced by the death of a family member.
Dealing with Medical Emergencies Abroad
For many travelers, a trip overseas is only made possible through the purchase of cheap airplane tickets and discount hotel rooms or cheap vacation packages. However, the trip of a lifetime can go bad quickly due to a severe illness or accident.
Such experiences can be stressful and frightening, particularly in an unfamiliar place and very expensive to deal with as well.
In preparing to travel overseas you should:
• Place a card in your wallet listing all of your pre-existing medical conditions, medications, allergies, and blood type. Ideally, this information should be printed in the most prevalent language used at your destination.
• Look into the purchase of travel insurance. Most U.S. medical insurance plans, including Medicaid and Medicare, do not cover overseas medical expenses. Medical expenses and medical evacuation, if the situation is serious enough, can easily cost over $10,000.
• Before arriving at your destination, write down the local emergency numbers. Such numbers are often different depending on the country being visited.
• Once at your destination if you run into a medical problem, ask at the front desk of your hotel where you can find an English-speaking doctor. Certain travel insurance companies, including Travel Guard and World Nomads, are usually able to help with this.
• If you take out travel insurance, make certain that you keep all of your receipts for any medical treatment.
• If you face an outbreak of norovirus on a cruise, which is a group of severe stomach bugs, follow the crew's directions for travel emergency quarantines. Although cruise lines are not required to compensate ill passengers, those travelers whose itineraries are disrupted as a result of an outbreak usually receive some type of compensation from cruise companies.
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Cheapfares.com employees enjoy sharing their travel points of view and latest travel news with others who might share similar interests. Article Source: Eulogy Site - http://EulogySite.com