In our article ✈️ Basic Economy Airfare we asked Is it Economic and Should you CFAR? I.e. buy travel insurance with a CFAR (Cancel For Any Reason) add-on.
We clarified a few things based on your feedback.
We recommended travel insurance for cruises because medical expenses are extremely expensive onboard and not covered by normal insurance. Even though the probability of an accident is very low, the expected net cost of having to file a claim is comparable to the cost of the insurance. Plus there are other insurance benefits like trip cancellation, baggage delay or loss, etc. We didn’t look at the value of the CFAR (Cancel For Any Reason) insurance add-on and will do so in a future post.
Airlines don’t provide a financial incentive to cancel a Basic Economy ticket. Most people simply don’t show up at the airport because they’re going to lose what they paid regardless. The airline industry average for no-shows is 10%. We had a solid guess in our article because that was the rate we had used.
We added a second lower cancellation rate of 4% to compare Basic Economy Ticket options.
If that lower rate makes sense to you or you accept the risk of eating the occasional ticket, book Basic Economy. It’s the clear economic winner.
If you prefer the safety of lower risk or expect higher cancellations, then the top three options are all good economic choices, whether you buy the Basic Economy ticket, take the Main Cabin upgrade, or add CFAR travel insurance.
We added sites that list and/or compare Travel Insurance with CFAR policies - InsureMyTrip, TravelInsurance.com, Squaremouth, Forbes Advisor, U.S. News & World Report
Get the details at the updated article: ✈️ Basic Economy Airfare: Is it economic?