After spending frustrating hours trawling through site after site looking for travel insurance I have finally got the price down just below £1000 for an 18 day trip to Florida next year for my son's wedding. I'm already fuming because the price for me is about £230 dearer because of booking a single room, and the flight and hotel alone has come to £929. "That's easy! says my son. "You just get somebody to go with you and it will be down to £700 like ours" Now this may give you a slight indication why I am a little lacking in the 'barnet' stakes after spending 25 years living with this giant of logical thinking. I only need to talk somebody into an unwanted holiday costing megabucks and I can save a couple of hundred pounds. Why oh why didn't I think of this!
I'm now at £1900 and got flight, hotel and insurance. Hang on while I get a toilet roll to make a list of all the other costs we haven't got to yet.Let's start with......
I'm self employed so no holiday pay, my business stops earning if I'm not grafting so there's three weeks with no incoming cash. But all my business expenses keep on bobbing along which will add about another thousand pounds (it does seem less if it's words not figures)
Money to spend while I'm there. Who knows what that great unknown will be. Anyone got a guess?
Car Hire, another couple of hundred
The mandatory theme park admissions, and they like to do them all, and insist everyone comes with them.
Cost of getting to/from the airport, which is definitely down to me. They already want me to provide this by getting everybody there in my coach, so 2 days wages for the driver.
So realistically I'm looking at somewhere in the region of £4500 for the whole thing.
Am I alone in thinking they are being very selfish? apparently not. The vast amount of relatives just cannot go, so it will be a tiny wedding with about 16 people attending. Why can't they get married here and then honeymoon over there, even get the ceremony done again once they get there. He says if they do it here they would end up inviting loads of guests they don't want to invite. (remember this is Mr Logic we are talking about.)
So tonight I will pop over there and let them see the printouts from the insurance quotes I waded through last night.
I'll just anticipate the conversation a little, it will go something like this :
"Can't you just not mention the cancer"
"I've got another 2 cameras up my ____ (rhymes with throb) before next April, the price for that insurance isn't fixed if anything changes"
"You'll be O.K, just do it now"
"Works really tight at the minute, people are just not spending. I'm subsidising myself every month"
"Well you must have money put by"
"At present I'm chasing people who are late paying"
"Can't you make them pay faster"
"That's a great idea Neil, I'll start with you. How's about sorting me out with the cash for the car I bought for you in February"
I just wish I was in my twenties again so I knew everything.
Bren
p.s What was that bit about infuriating websites? Spend 20 minutes filling in forms and at the end you get :
WE CANNOT OFFER YOU AN ONLINE QUOTE BECAUSE OF YOUR MEDICAL HISTORY. PLEASE PHONE FOR A QUOTE.
(sod it I'm off to the pub)
FormerMember
Last year I paid over 2K for my insurance for a 2 week hol to Florida - lets face it could have brought a few friends with me for that price - I commend you for getting a quote at around half price!! I hope the wedding is a delight - sometimes we just have to look at the bigger picture... even if it grinds a bit. Trouble is in the USA if you dont have medical insurance and something does go wrong (heaven forbid) ...... it dont bear thinking about. Jools xx
Look up MEDICI TRAVEL, its on the Macmillan site, I use them for Spain, they are VERY cheap for Europe, but dont know about USA. My next trip to Spain is only £57 for me and the wife and lung cancer is covered. Best of luck. I had some horrendous quotes from other companies.
For me, they were the cheapest and the best, and I'd recommend them to anyone to consider. But, I guess I should add that they were cheapest for me, and they may be better for others (or worse) and caveat emptor should apply.
We did Florida last December and paid £130. But we did not have the cancer covered (melanoma). Would have cost £1200 including it. Used the same company for our trip to Spain this year and did the same ommitted the cancer £46 with the cancer £155. Obviously you can't ommit all cancers, but I was able with this type, on my oncologists approval. You are asked all the screening questions.
Hi have you tried miaonline. I tried them as hope to go to the Galapogous next yr (if I've got the money) with Amazon add on and did tell them that I liked to do stuff like white water rafting and skydiving and if the chance for any adventure sport came up I would probably do it and they still gave me a reasonable quote. They specialise in people with medical probs and will cover you, although like to keep updated on condition. Could get quote with British mountinearing society - the ones i used to go with (see adventure sports) but they wont cover for the cancer.
Also thought these days the kids paid for the weddings and stuff themselves and flights etc for their parents. Think hes taking you for a soft option lol.
