RetireJapan

Dear all,

I was looking at an offer from Saison Gold American Express card with promises to make it free of annual fee for me and my family members if we use each card at least once a year. Well, they approved us within hours of applying online!

I am mainly interested in the travel insurance benefit that such cards fill their pamphlets with, though I have never received any. Not even when UNITED-ANA cancelled our Narita to Nagoya flight segment while returning from Vancouver. Our flight was till Nagoya. They just droped us at Narita and said we are on our own, citing weather. We had to pay for all the cost to bring us and our luggages to Nagoya. Later Credit card company also cited weather and did not reimburse.

I am a Japan based academic, I used to fly internationally twice every year during the last 25 years while travelling with such gold cards.

So I really want to know whether anyone of you have ever benefitted from having travel insurance that supposedly come with gold credit cards, even if not with this particular Saison American express gold card. TJKansai mentioned receiving some benefits, were those Japan issued cards? How did you claim those benefits? How anyone actually get compensation for trip delay, or partial trip cancellation that i mentioned above?

Regards

Regular

Gold cards usually carry a fee of ¥10,000/yr or more so good on you.

The American travel cards (the ones with annual charges of $70-$500) offer travel insurance. I have only made a claim for damaged baggage, but plenty of bloggers have posted about getting hotels/expenses/lost luggage paid for due to travel interruption.

We also made a claim for an overseas doctor's visit, around $150. I think Saison and DC split it (they will ask you if you have coverage from any other source when you make your claim).

Usually you need to use your card to cover some part of the trip.

I recently learned Rakuten has travel insurance, but basically only if you used their card to purchase a package, or at least a fair chunk of the trip. I am pretty sure Saison has a similar requirement. Also a question if it is only primary cardholder or all family members. DC gold card covers the whole family for accidents up to $10,000, which is okay but not amazing. Also covers theft.

The best thing to do is to make up a list of questions and speak to the card insurance company. They will provide the right answers, and that is probably easier than figuring out the fine print on the online terms and conditions.