After six months to allow the online travel agencies (those companies like Expedia, Orbitz, Kayak, Travelocity and others) to upgrade their computer systems, they are not required to disclose ALL FEES and TAXES upfront when advertising an airfare. This includes baggage fee disclosures to inform passengers right away what extra fees they may expect to pay for checking their luggage.

Another rule allows travelers to change their minds: everyone gets a 24-hour period to do the following:

• put an airfare on hold before clicking the buy button
• cancel a ticket for a full refund without a penalty
• avoid a price increase by airlines, tour operators, and cruise lines (excepting fully disclosed tax increases)

This means, travelers will be able to lock in an airfare and be assured that it won’t increase while they are checking their schedule, checking with family, etc. Travelers can also cancel a ticket when they’ve made a mistake.

A final rule ensures that travelers are informed of flight delays and cancellations because the airlines have to make that announcement within 30 minutes of pulling or delaying a flight.

Let’s hope all of these changes mean the skies get a little friendlier again.

• You can buy it with your airline ticket. Read why we don’t recommend that.
• You can buy it through your cruise line. Read why we don’t recommend that either.
• You can buy it from your travel agent. Read why we sometimes don’t recommend that either.

All those methods aside, here’s why buying your travel insurance online is still the best way to go:

1. The Internet is still the undisputed king of information.

When you research your trip, you do it online because the amount of information at your fingertips makes this a smart way to search for virtually anything. The same goes for travel insurance. Here at Travel Insurance Review, you’ll find reviews from actual travelers, comparisons of different products, and the latest news and information for travelers.

2. A comparison engine makes buying travel insurance simple

When you use a travel insurance comparison engine, you can customize your coverage for pre-existing conditions, coverage limits, and add options like rental car coverage, adventure sports coverage, coverage for your pets, and more. Plus, your travel insurance needs are put through an engine that gives you multiple providers and let’s you compare costs, coverage limits, and options all in once place.

3. You get access to all the best travel insurance companies, not just a few

One vital thing you miss when you purchase travel insurance with your airline ticket or from your travel agent is options. In most cases, an airline booking engine gives you one travel insurance provider, so you’re not even getting a useful price comparison. Most travel agencies focus on one or two travel insurance providers, not the entire spectrum, so again you’re losing out. Smarter shopping requires adequate comparison and the travel insurance comparison engine gives you just that.

4. You can see your travel coverage documents immediately and contact the assistance services representatives

Now, you can see your travel coverage documents immediately when you buy your plan with your airline ticket too, but do you read the details? It’s not likely. You’re focused on getting that ticket and you may not remember to read those documents. When you purchase your travel insurance online, you get the travel documents sent to your e-mail address. You can review them and call the assistance services representatives to ask questions and better understand your coverage or get clarification on the ‘fine print’.

Travel insurance can be quite comprehensive for the price.

For example, if two travelers from Kansas, ages 32 and 36 find a great package deal on a week in Scotland for $3,000, they can have comprehensive travel insurance coverage for just $154 more. We ran these trip details through our travel insurance comparison tool and found a Travel Select plan from Travelex that includes:

• 100% trip cancellation
• 150% trip interruption
• $50,000 per person primary emergency medical
• $500,000 per person emergency medical evacuation
• $750 per person travel delay
• $250 per person baggage

Our cheap travel insurance recommendations

The following are our recommendations for getting an adequate, but perhaps cheap, travel insurance plan:

1. We recommend choosing an amount of travel medical coverage based on an assessment of your travel medical needs.
2. We also recommend not over-spending on your travel insurance plan. See our 5 Rules for Saving Money on your Travel Insurance Plan for details.

And don’t worry if you initially purchase the wrong policy - travel insurance plans come with a review period of 10-14 days and during that time, you can make changes to your plan and even cancel it (for a small fee).

Travel Assistance Before your Trip

After your Travel Guard travel insurance plan purchase, you’ll have access to the following pre-travel information through www.travelguard.com to help you prepare for your trip:

• Local medical advisories, including outbreaks and epidemics
• Required immunizations and recommended preventative measures
• Up-to-the-minute travel supplier strike information
• Worldwide public holiday information
• Currency conversion

Travel Assistance During your Trip

Travel Guard’s travel assistance services team provides travel medical assistance, for finding emergency medical care and transportation, physician and hospital referrals, emergency prescription replacement, medical payment arrangements, shipment of medical records, and much more.

In honor of the hotel concierge services of old, Travel Guard’s one-of-a-kind Concierge services can help travelers with ground transportation, weather and ski reports, movie and theater information and tickets, local activity recommendations, tee times, restaurant referrals and reservations and more. Anything you need to make your trip more memorable or comfortable is just a phone call away.

Travel Assistance on Your Return

On your way home, Travel Guard’s assistance services can help with travel delay information and coordinating missed connections. They’ll help with emergency travel information if you are forced to get home early due to an emergency. In the worst-case, when an insured traveler has died on their trip, Travel Guard’s repatriation services can handle the coordination and arrangements to return the body home for burial. If you’ve been hospitalized on your trip, they’ll keep your family or designee well-informed and connected throughout your ordeal until you are safely transported home.

Travel Assistance in Case of Identity Theft*

Several of Travel Guard’s comprehensive travel insurance plans also provide access to personal security assistance in case your identity is compromised while traveling. Their services include:

• Ordering and reviewing credit reports on the behalf of the traveler.
• Investigating financial accounts where theft is suspected.
• Interacting with law enforcement to prosecute the thieves.
• Reviewing account activity to identify later suspicious activities.

The insurance products available through Travel Guard are underwritten by National Union Fire Insurance Company of Pittsburgh, Pa., a Pennsylvania insurance company, with its principal place of business at 175 Water Street, New York, NY 10038. It is currently authorized to transact business in all states
* Not available to the residents of New York State.

So, who needs annual travel insurance?

1. Frequent business or academic travelers – if you travel several times a year for business meetings, academic conferences, and more
2. Entrepreneurs and business owners – if you often have to travel last-minute with little to no time to accommodate the advance purchase requirements of your travel insurance coverage
3. Retirees – if you’re active and healthy and traveling the world as part of your retirement dream, then an annual plan means not having to purchase multiple individual plans
4. Families on round-the-world trips – if you are taking a year off and traveling around the world with your kids, you’ll want the travel medical coverage that ensures you won’t face a high medical bill if anyone gets sick or injured
5. Journalists and media professionals – if you have overseas assignments that regularly put you in harm’s way, having the right travel medical coverage and evacuation coverage can be a great comfort

The key benefit to having an annual travel insurance plan is that a traveler has the same worldwide coverage for a full 12 months, but it’s also economical to purchase travel insurance on an annual basis if you take many trips each year.

The key difference? Little to no cancellation coverage is included in an annual travel insurance plan.

Read all about the differences and benefits of having an annual travel insurance plan, including what annual trip insurance costs and which companies offer annual travel insurance.

Currently, France and Europe have reported more than 14,000 cases from January through June 2011 and more than 26,000 cases have been reported from 40 countries across Europe, including Spain, Serbia, Romania, Macedonia, and Turkey.

The Democratic Republic of Congo has reported over 120,000 measles cases and over 1,500 deaths due to measles since the start of 2011.

Travelers to Europe, Africa, and Asia have been the reported sources of measles case imported into the U.S. While the specific disease hot spots may shift, all travelers should protect themselves by being adequately vaccinated. The only vaccines available in the United States are the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) and the measles-mumps-rubella-varicella (MMRV) vaccines. MMR has been used safely and effectively since the 1970s.

The first dose of the vaccine for measles is generally recommended at age 12–15 months in the United States; however, children traveling outside the U.S. are recommended to get the vaccine as early as 6 months.

Review the complete travel notice regarding measles from the CDC.

Further, the Department has recommended that U.S. citizens currently in Syria depart and citizens currently outside Syria avoid travel to that country. Further reductions in U.S. Embassy staff means that all services are by pre-arranged appointment only and their ability to aid a U.S. citizen in an emergency is very limited.

Since Marcy 2011, public demonstrations have been violently suppressed by Syrian security forces and there have be thousands of deaths, injuries and detentions. Because demonstrations, and violent government reaction as a result, can occur with little or no warning, U.S. citizens are warned to stay away from areas of demonstration and to exercise caution when moving about the country.

With several countries, including the United States, calling upon the current Syrian president to leave office, tensions between the countries are high. Detained U.S. citizens may find themselves subjected to allegations of incitement or espionage, and Syrian authorities are known for failing to notify the U.S. Embassy of the arrest of one of their citizens until after many days or weeks. There have been numerous credible reports of torture in Syrian prisons.

U.S. citizens are urged to stay current with media coverage and be aware of their surroundings at all time. In addition, they are requested to keep in contact with their family as coverage can cause their loved ones to be concerned. U.S. citizens traveling outside their home country are urged to enroll in the Department of State’s  Smart Traveler Enrollment Program (STEP) to receive the latest travel updates and information.

The U.S. Embassy in Damascus can be reached at all hours at 963-11-3391-4444; their fax number is 963-11-3391-3999.  The  U.S. Embassy Damascus, includes consular information and the most recent messages to U.S. citizens in Damascus.

Ouch!

Inside each of those purses were their passports and every money-retrieving option the young women had: their cash, ATM card, and credit cards – all gone.

3 Steps to Being Prepared and Avoiding Purse or Wallet Theft

1. In crowded areas, consider wearing a money belt under your clothing and store your passport, cash, credit cards, and ATM card there instead. It’s very difficult to steal when it’s not hanging off your shoulder or in your back pocket.
2. Have a sheet of your account numbers and bank phone numbers with you, but have a system of switching the numbers by one or two digits (so the hotel staff can’t find it and use it illegally). If your wallet is stolen, you’ll have the necessary information to report it to the police and cancel the cards.
3. Make a copy of your passport identification page and leave one behind with a friend or family member, pack the other with you. (Again, store it safely when you arrive.) This will help if you need to replace your passport.
4. Before you leave, get a back up card from your bank or have a secondary credit card on hand and stored in a different place. You’ll still have the headache of reporting the theft and canceling all the stolen cards, but you’ll have a way to get around and continue your trip.

We’ve mentioned before that you should not travel with your debit card, for a number of reasons, but many of us forget to clear out our wallets when we travel – especially if we travel frequently.  See these top 6 strategies for protecting your identity on a trip for more information.

How inns and bed and breakfasts are different

Bed and breakfast facilities are typically individually owned and run by an innkeeper who may or may not reside on the property. The same is true of many smaller and intimate inns. These are small businesses, and as such, they operate under very different rules than a typical corporate-owned hotel chain.

First, they typically require you stay a minimum number of nights (two is typically the minimum) and the full amount for your entire stay is required up-front.

Second, their cancellation policies are non standard and can be very restrictive. While with many hotels, you can call within 24 hours of your stay and cancel, that’s not true of inns and bed and breakfast facilities. Nearly always, the policy is that the innkeeper will attempt to rebook your room and charge you a simple cancellation fee ($20 and higher is typical). Unfortunately, it’s important to remember that these facilities are not drive-up types of establishments. If the innkeeper is unable to rebook your room with other guests, there is no refund.

In addition, you must cancel long before your arrival (many require 7 full days notice or more). If the inn or bed and breakfast is located near an annual event, such as a festival, or your stay is around a holiday, the cancellation notice period may be significantly extended or non existent.

For example, we’ve read cancellation policies like this:

Your deposit will be refunded less a $20.00 handling fee if we receive your cancellation request before the cancellation period. If a cancellation request is made within the cancellation period no refund will be made UNLESS your room can be rebooked, in which case you will receive a refund less a $20 cancellation fee. Our cancellation period is 7 full days before the check-in date EXCEPT:
* 14 days for holiday periods or 3 or more rooms or for stays longer than 7 nights
* 14 days for the Prescott Frontier Days Rodeo (4th of July week)
* 14 days for The Lodge (30 days for holiday periods)
For all 14 and 30 day cancellation periods, guests will be charged the full amount for ALL room nights reserved less any amounts received for room nights rebooked.

Cover the risks of your bed and breakfast trip

• If you’ve long planned a restful getaway at a quaint inn in the mountain, but your boss cancels your leave, you could lose all your pre-paid costs. A travel insurance package with trip cancellation coverage will help in this instance.
• If you receive a call that your child has been hospitalized and have to abandon your weekend, you’ll lose the money you’ve already paid. A travel insurance package with trip interruption coverage can help in that instance.
• If the inn is hit by a natural disaster, but still open for business, you might prefer to book your stay somewhere else. A trip insurance package with ‘cancel for any reason’ coverage will help in this instance.

Staying at a unique one-of inn or bed and breakfast has it’s delights, but don’t risk your entire travel investment.  See our full page on travel insurance for inn and bed and breakfast stays.

When interviewed, Ms. Langworthy said she briefly blacked out after hitting the water and woke up when the current pulled her into the rapids below. With the trailing cord of her bungee snagging repeatedly on objects hidden beneath the water, and no one on the ground to help her, she had to swim down, yank the cord loose and regain the surface with her feet bound  together.

Ms. Langworthy eventually reached the bank of the river and was cared for at a local medical clinic before being evacuated to a South African hospital where she spent a week recovering.  Miraculously, she suffered only extensive bruising, cuts, and a fractured collar bone. Doctors kept her in South Africa longer than she originally expected because Erin’s lungs gave her continued trouble and she was not allowed to fly.

It’s important for adventure travelers to remember that you’ll be expected to sign a waiver that expunges the operator from any liability – specifically, you bungee jump, sky dive, hang glide, ski, kayak (and more!) at your own risk.

Travelers who partake in adventure tourism should have adventure coverage on their travel insurance plan because nearly all travel insurance plans specifically exclude adventure activities like these from coverage. If you have any plans to partake in adventures on your trip, be sure to have adventure coverage on your travel insurance plan so your medical evacuation and treatment will be covered by travel insurance. Plus, with medical evacuation coverage, you’ll have a safe return trip home when you are well enough to travel.