Trip Delays
If you travel enough, you’ll eventually have a flight delayed or canceled on you. This can cause a domino effect which can ruin a vacation. Airlines are becoming stingy about what they will and won’t cover in these situations.
Trip delay insurance provides reimbursement for reasonable meals, lodging, toiletries, medication, and other personal use items that you need due to the delay.
Every credit card has guidelines for when these benefits kick in. In most cases, the delays need to be six hours or more. And the reimbursements are often limited to $500 per ticket that was paid for (at least partially) with the credit card offering the trip delay benefits.
For example, Chase Sapphire Reserve will reimburse you up to $500 per ticket if your flight is delayed more than six hours or an overnight stay is required. They will reimburse you for expenses such as meals and lodging. If your trip is completely canceled, the card will reimburse you up to $10,000 per person ($20,000 max per trip).
The United Explorer Card will reimburse up to $500 per ticket if your flight is delayed more than 12 hours or requires an overnight stay. For a canceled trip they will reimburse up to $1,500 per person ($6,000 per trip max).