air fare refund with AON
Had to cancel a trip due to illness and purchased our air through Tauck. Has anyone had experience with filing their air claim through AON? They are asking for a receipt but my travel agent said it's all lumped together with the trip cost. I've reached out to her again to please go back to Tauck to get something showing the cost of the plane tickets. Would appreciate your experience if it would help.
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Tauck can easily give you an itemized receipt. We asked for an itemized receipt recently because we had booked a family trip and wanted to know the breakdown, Tauck obliged. That’s why it’s good to deal with them directly because now you have a middle man, your travel agent who you have to depend on to deal with Tauck and you don’t know what they have said to Tauck. Tauck records all calls, so that’s another reason to deal with them directly.
I also had to leave a tour on the first day very recently. I was concerned and surprised I haven’t heard from Tauck. Our tour director knew about the family emergency and I assumed the seasoned tour director would have informed Tauck. A week later I called up Tauck and spoke to a very compassionate customer relations representative who gave me her direct phone line. She looked into my records, and there wasn’t any information that we left the tour as of yet! We were on the phone for quite some time and she said I would be receiving an email to initiate a claim. I also have the insurance. Maybe it’s too soon, but I haven’t received any email yet.
We had to leave our Ireland trip last year due to me getting Covid on day 1. We booked air on our own so we had the receipts. We only got insurance reimbursements for the extra we had to pay to change our tickets for an earlier return not for the entire cost of the tickets. If you had to cancel and never started the trip you should get the entire amount of your airfare back.
One thing I can say is that it is a very sloooooow process.
We were very lucky to get full reimbursement of airfare for Vietnam,Cambodia and Thailand trip that happened to be the last tour Tauck had preCovid.We returned on 3/10/20 a few days before everything closed.The air was booked by us through Delta ; they changed our return flight that chaotic week but failed to change one leg : flight from Bangkok to Japan.We had to purchase that leg of the flight to make the flight back to US.We contacted Delta directly and immediately after our return.It took several calls ,emails etc to finally get the full airfare not just what we paid extra.We did have the additional insurance through Delta as well. Took about six months!
I’d learned that when taking flights on your own and not through the Tauck air department, it’s prudent to take extra air insurance through the airline which, in the entire scheme of things, doesn’t really cost that much for peace of mind.
On another note, and as I mentioned earlier, I just had a family emergency and the Tauck customer relation representative asked me if I flew back into the same city from my original flight. Fortunately, yes I did, but I I didn’t know that would make a difference when I submit my claim.
We had to leave our Douro River cruise in May 2022 because I tested positive for Covid. We booked our airline tickets and our credit card company covered part of the cost; and we had insurance through the airline, too. AON was not very responsive and it took numerous follow up calls over several months. We were finally reimbursed about 6 months later. We documented and confirmed all conversations through email with AON. It was a work in progress. Good luck.
I am still trying to determine and explore if I am eligible for a refund for our first class airline tickets on American Airlines that I had to cancel because I had to rush home on another flight from another airline for a family emergency. I have the Tauck insurance, extra airline insurance and charged the initial flight on my American Express Platinum card. I was told I forfeited that flight cost but I’m not giving up.
Ourtravels34: Persistence is key.Also contacting the right person in the department.
Unless you did not take the Tauck insurance, really need to get a refund quickly, or for peace of mind, I don't see the benefit of getting extra insurance through the airline. Your Tauck insurance should cover all of it regardless of whether you booked air through Tauck, through a TA, or directly with the airline. When we had to cancel Best of Ireland only a few weeks out, we got every cent back for self-booked flights. We had planned to spend a few days in London before flying to Shannon on a different carrier for the start of the tour. The Tauck insurance covered the London to Shannon leg.
I suspect the reason why you were asked about your return was so they could determine what to cover. Some people might reasonably change the destination of their return flight to a different city, the location of the family emergency, instead of home, e.g. for someone living on the east coast originally booked to fly out of and return to JFK but then changes their return destination to LA on west coast, I might be wrong but don't think the refund would normally include the cost of the extra distance.
No chance of abuse there, right. Near the end of your European tour, claim a family emergency in Bali, Livingstone, Tokyo, ...
Insurance companies aren't some of the richest in the world by making a habit of paying out claims.
This was a definite emergency and the first time I’ve had to do anything like this while on tour.