United is having a huge sale on flights to Miami, Phoenix, Dallas, Philadelphia and Charlotte USA. These are the cheapest flights we have ever seen to mainland USA. Lots of travel dates from Apr - Nov/20.
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With United Airlines, for example, all bookings made between 3-31 March 2020 can be changed for free over the next 12 months – regardless of the destination or travel date.
(thanks RockyRaccoon)
Details in the OP link.
You can change it for free, but if the date you change to has a higher fare you need to pay the difference, unlikely it will be cheaper!
Note also you are not booking directly with United here but one of a number of online travel providers advertising with IWTF (depending which one the particular search links to).
These generally have additional (worse) terms and conditions on top of the airline's own policy.
November. What a punt. Is this whole virus thing gonna be cleared up or is everyone except JV dead.
JV will die he/she/they have hoards of supplies surely
In that case wouldn’t they survive?
Ooops I meant will never die *
Oohhh… good for catching a couple of NBA (or NFL, NHL or MLB, depending on time of year) games.
….this aged well
:(
As has been said before with these deals, travel insurance is the catch. If you can’t get travel insurance don’t even think about travelling to the USA.
You can get travel insurance, but not a single one will cover any coronavirus related delays, cancellations, quarantines or medical bills. The US is pretty much the last place on earth I'd want to be left with a hospital bill. Even a private GP could come up to $300.
Cancelling a trip there in a few months for this very reason. Not worth the risk.
what about the credit cards that have free travel insurance?
Check the PDS for your particular card. Some are relatively limited in what they cover (and the conditions required to activate insurance) at the best of times.
It would be extraordinarily unlikely that any policy would approve a claim for coronavirus expenses as it is now considered a 'known event' for every insurer and underwriter out there.
Fundamentally, if you travel anywhere right now and you didn't purchase a policy prior to around 20 Jan (and even then only specific policies), you ain't insured for Covid.
For some people they'll take that chance…not me.
@tdth99: to be honest, even before 20th Jan they already have themselves covered. This was a result of the SARS outbreak in the early 2000s where insurance companies t&c's fell short and they had to pay out a fortune in claims.
I guarantee most policies, if not all, have closed this loophole now.
Short of having purchased "cancel for any reason" insurance, most policies have "general exclusions" lists which people sometimes miss.
I would start by loading up the t&c's and ctrl + f "pandemic" and "epidemic", if you see either word pop-up, without even reading further, you're not covered. Once you've done that, do the same for "general exclusions". If you truly believe you're covered, I would speak to them to find out and if they say yes, get it in writing x10!
To be blunt, people are paid a lot of money to make sure they never have to pay you a cent on insurance claims. The devil is in the detail, and "definitions" are everything and your understanding of the t&cs means almost zero if it doesn't match theirs.
@tdth99: Thanks for clearing this up because there’s a lot of FUD around insurance.
Interestingly, I wonder if you would be covered for a known outbreak of for instance malaria?
They probably would have covered you before Jan 2020 - e.g. I've checked Westpac's included credit card travel insurance, and it says "We will pay for your overseas medical expenses during the period of cover if you become ill overseas", with some exclusions, all fairly reasonable (not pre-existing, not from teeth, not if you're covered elsewhere, not if you're in Australia, not from AIDS/HIV, not sexually transmitted, etc) and none of which would have excluded COVID-19. But I would be genuinely surprised if it has not has been changed now, to also exclude pandemics and epidemics from around 23 Jan 2020 onwards.
Worth noting how bad our dollar is doing vs the USD. Everything will be super expensive.
Nothing hostels, begpacking and 7/11 can't fix.
oh yes a 50 man dorm for $6 is only 9 in our money
Better get in now before they revalue the flight prices up.
This is always the case. I remember when I went to America when the Aussie dollars was $1.06. My return flight to LA was $2000.
It all balances out.
Shit aussie dollar, cheap flights.
Good aussie dollar, expensive flight.
I went to the USA in 2013 when the dollar was about the same. I paid under $1,000 for my return flights. Just sounds like you got a crap deal on yours…
Smashing sale.
Pretty good deal for a trip to an exotic Third World Country
I think the term is a "shithole country".
all the crumbling infrastructure of the post-colonial tropics with the added thrill of gun violence and a raving megalomaniac leader using his office to siphon off public funds for private gain. And sports!
Yeah but you can get really big Coca Colas at McDonalds
cask wine in economy, frequent flyer points based on ticket value & they expire fast…a bargain price with service to match. I flew the Dreamliner to MEL-LA…
COVID-19 infection sold seperately?
From memory, this is the airline always oversell and then randomly drag passengers out.
dont forget beat the daylights out of them first!
Passengers that have phones with cameras is stopping a lot of this rubbish. Sure way to get sued.
Philly is close-ish to New York. Could be a great opportunity to travel to US during their summer months.
I guess free Corona included?
I heard that the cops over there give free shots to prevent against the virus.
Also worth checking, this comment on Australian Frequent Flyer
https://www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au/many-airlines-wai…