Travel Insurance

[Ephraimh]

As evident in their promotional video (see for example 2:52) https://youtu.be/O0LB8hypSzo?t=172

Haha. Great catch.

[ExGingi]

It should also be noted that most trip protection plans baggage coverage is secondary, which means you need to first collect from the airline (and any other insurance you might have). Blue Ribbon seems to be different in that the comp isn't tied to the value.

[emp]

So if someone has expensive clothing, it would definitely make sense to get Blue Ribbon IN ADDITION to any other coverage.

But what if you have other coverage that is secondary (i.e Capital One Venture X $3k max per trip/claim)? Wouldn't this insurance get deducted from that claim? I think this only works if a) you are only getting compensation from the airline directly or b) you are lying to the other insurance that you did not get reimbursed from BRB.

[ExGingi]

But what if you have other coverage that is secondary (i.e Capital Venture X $3k max per trip/claim)? Wouldn't this insurance get deducted from that claim? I think this only works if a) you are only getting compensation from the airline directly or b) you are lying to the other insurance that you did not get reimbursed from BRB.

Based on this seems like Capital One is excess and would count BRB as part of the comp.

[Ephraimh]

But what if you have other coverage that is secondary (i.e Capital Venture X $3k max per trip/claim)? Wouldn't this insurance get deducted from that claim? I think this only works if a) you are only getting compensation from the airline directly or b) you are lying to the other insurance that you did not get reimbursed from BRB.

Blue Ribbon Bags is not an “insurance”, it’s purposely structured as a “service”, so it doesn’t interfere with any formal “insurance”.

[ExGingi]

Blue Ribbon Bags is not an “insurance”, it’s purposely structured as a “service”, so it doesn’t interfere with any formal “insurance”.

The terms say "excess of any collectible insurance and/or collectible reimbursement from any other source".

[Ephraimh]

The terms say "excess of any collectible insurance and/or collectible reimbursement from any other source".

Yeah I saw it, but I guess if it’s classified only a “service” it’s more grey area’ish, same as if your mother would give you a few dollars to buy yourself new pants, you wont necessarily call up Capital One to notify them.

[jye]

https://luggagehero.com/blog/lost-luggage-report-690k-bags-mishandled-by-us-airlines-in-the-first-half-of-2021/
Your basically betting $10 on a $2000 payout. Seems like the odds are heavily in the houses favor if your are flying Allegiant Air with a mishandled bag rate of .15% but far not even if you are flying American with a rate of .76% (only a portion of those end up fully lost). The average of  .4%  miss handled across all airlines (again only a portion of these get paid out) make for a pretty straightforward and profitable business model.

Seems like a pretty low barrier to entry. Other than linking the client to the particular airline tracing system (in most cases Worldtracer?) there’s little else involved. One can start the “service”, never lift a finger to attempt to reunite any lost bags, (other than to verify the claim) undercut them by a dollar or two, and still turn a nice profit.

[ExGingi]

https://luggagehero.com/blog/lost-luggage-report-690k-bags-mishandled-by-us-airlines-in-the-first-half-of-2021/
Your basically betting $10 on a $2000 payout. Seems like the odds are heavily in the houses favor if your are flying Allegiant Air with a mishandled bag rate of .15% but far not even if you are flying American with a rate of .76% (only a portion of those end up fully lost). The average of  .4%  miss handled across all airlines (again only a portion of these get paid out) make for a pretty straightforward and profitable business model.

Seems like a pretty low barrier to entry. Other than linking the client to the particular airline tracing system (in most cases Worldtracer?) there’s little else involved. One can start the “service”, never lift a finger to attempt to reunite any lost bags, (other than to verify the claim) undercut them by a dollar or two, and still turn a nice profit.

Exactly. Except that it seems like on international flights, especially some airports, the odds are very different now. Nothing to do with the airlines, it's airport staffing issues.

It used to be that the risk was infinitely lower when there was no connection involved. Nowadays it seems like in certain airports the risk of the bag not making it onto the first flight is significant.

[shmooz]

I'm not familiar with Blue ribbon, but like all insurance, they use the loopholes to get out of paying

one example, the baggage arrived at destination, but couldn't be offloaded due to weather so sent back to origin, it was considered delivered.

https://www.bbb.org/us/ny/new-york/profile/luggage-carrier/blue-ribbon-bags-llc-0121-157431/complaints

[jye]

I'm not familiar with Blue ribbon, but like all insurance, they use the loopholes to get out of paying

one example, the baggage arrived at destination, but couldn't be offloaded due to weather so sent back to origin, it was considered delivered.

https://www.bbb.org/us/ny/new-york/profile/luggage-carrier/blue-ribbon-bags-llc-0121-157431/complaints

Wow, real Gemara kups:
“Our Service Agreement does not state anywhere, that the terms of our service require to be in the actual hands of the passenger for our service to be rendered.  As a matter of fact, the Blue Ribbon Bags Service Agreement in section 2(j) clearly states: "All bags will be considered returned to the passenger, and this service agreement will be considered fulfilled, per the terms and conditions of the Blue Ribbon Bags Service Agreement, when as per the airline’s lost baggage system, the bag arrives at the airport on record with the passenger’s lost baggage claim with the airline."  In this case, even though the bag did not get offloaded from the actual plane due to the weather conditions at the final destination airport, the bag did still technically arrive at the destination airport as we indicated previously.”

Then they have this loophole that if they close a case even in error you have to reply to their denial email within exactly 12 hours or you get nothing. So if they email you at 9pm your time and you don’t respond by 8:59 am (If it’s shabbos you are really out of luck) you get zilch.

Basically lots of loopholes, and as evidenced by the BBB complaints they WILL use any loopholes they can. Really shady enterprise.

[emp]

https://luggagehero.com/blog/lost-luggage-report-690k-bags-mishandled-by-us-airlines-in-the-first-half-of-2021/
Your basically betting $10 on a $2000 payout. Seems like the odds are heavily in the houses favor if your are flying Allegiant Air with a mishandled bag rate of .15% but far not even if you are flying American with a rate of .76% (only a portion of those end up fully lost). The average of  .4%  miss handled across all airlines (again only a portion of these get paid out) make for a pretty straightforward and profitable business model.

Seems like a pretty low barrier to entry. Other than linking the client to the particular airline tracing system (in most cases Worldtracer?) there’s little else involved. One can start the “service”, never lift a finger to attempt to reunite any lost bags, (other than to verify the claim) undercut them by a dollar or two, and still turn a nice profit.

As others have stated the odds are much worse now, and $10 for $2000 of coverage would mean a break even if 1 in 200 bags were lost, a rate of 0.5%, and that assumes they have $0 overhead which is clearly impossible, therefore that break even rate is much lower and then anything over that would be profit. If your 0.4% average lost bags is correct the math is not looking too good for BRB, while only a small percentage of those may be "never recovered" or recovered after 4 days so it really likely is much lower than your quoted .4% but still, seams like BRB must be looking for loopholes and excuses not pay to even have a chance of turning a profit. And with the current luggage issue I think the odds are really stacked against them.

Of course they win in cases that the bag is "located" but never delivered to customer as there are definitely cases that is occurring now "We have your bag but don't have staff to deliver it to you and the bag is in a different country than you are" would allow BRB to not pay but ultimately you may never see that bag again.

[jye]

As others have stated the odds are much worse now, and $10 for $2000 of coverage would mean a break even if 1 in 200 bags were lost, a rate of 0.5%, and that assumes they have $0 overhead which is clearly impossible, therefore that break even rate is much lower and then anything over that would be profit. If your 0.4% average lost bags is correct the math is not looking too good for BRB, while only a small percentage of those may be "never recovered" or recovered after 4 days so it really likely is much lower than your quoted .4% but still, seams like BRB must be looking for loopholes and excuses not pay to even have a chance of turning a profit. And with the current luggage issue I think the odds are really stacked against them.

Of course they win in cases that the bag is "located" but never delivered to customer as there are definitely cases that is occurring now "We have your bag but don't have staff to deliver it to you and the bag is in a different country than you are" would allow BRB to not pay but ultimately you may never see that bag again.

Googling a bit it looks like historically less than 5% of lost luggage ends up permanently lost, and close  to 90% is found within 4 days so still pretty good odds in their favor even before the loopholes.

[Ephraimh]

Seems like a pretty low barrier to entry. Other than linking the client to the particular airline tracing system (in most cases Worldtracer?) there’s little else involved. One can start the “service”, never lift a finger to attempt to reunite any lost bags, (other than to verify the claim) undercut them by a dollar or two, and still turn a nice profit.

One can “undercut them by a dollar or two” and “never lift a finger to attempt to reunite any lost bags” and you’ve got yourself a profitable model with a “low barrier to entry”, for… a full two and a half minutes. Maybe three.

After “not lifting a finger” your BBB page wouldn’t just have a few complaints with an A+ rating, after presumably handling millions of clients like they have. The page would be a trash can.

The real barrier to entry, is the actual finger lifting, which is far more complicated than it seems on first glance, considering the volume/partners they sell to/work with.

As far as —

Wow, real Gemara kups:
“even though the bag did not get offloaded from the actual plane due to the weather conditions at the final destination airport, the bag did still technically arrive at the destination airport as we indicated previously.”

And—

Then they have this loophole that if they close a case even in error you have to reply to their denial email within exactly 12 hours or you get nothing.

They presumably implemented these “loopholes” or more accurately described as “Terms & Conditions so they’re not steamrolled by and are protected from a bunch of scammers wanting to take advantage of the service” because of scammers.

Read through all the BBB complaints (I have) especially from a few years ago, and you’ll understand why they implemented these so called “loopholes”… the same Indians eager to fix your grandmas computer, lost their bags in mysterious ways.

Basically lots of loopholes, and as evidenced by the BBB complaints they WILL use any loopholes they can. Really shady enterprise.

Wo! Slow down, not so fast. See above.

[jye]

As far as —And—They presumably implemented these “loopholes” or more accurately described as “Terms & Conditions so they’re not steamrolled by and are protected from a bunch of scammers wanting to take advantage of the service” because of scammers.

Read through all the BBB complaints (I have) especially from a few years ago, and you’ll understand why they implemented these so called “loopholes”… the same Indians eager to fix your grandmas computer, lost their bags in mysterious ways.

What does this have to do with denying a claim for luggage that was flown in, never unloaded, flown out and lost because it technically “made it to the destination”. The facts are not in dispute.

Or denying a claim that they closed in error because the customer didn’t email back within 12 hours of their error?

They are not denying the facts, just wiggling out of the claim. That’s just not the way a reputable and honest business operates. It is the very definition of shady.

The bottom line is that taking out a policy with them is betting on a stacked deck.

[jye]

The real barrier to entry, is the actual finger lifting, which is far more complicated than it seems on first glance, considering the volume/partners they sell to/work with.

Do they actually make any physical attempt to reunite owners with lost bags other than linking owners with publicly available baggage tracking data?

[Ephraimh]

Do they actually make any physical attempt to reunite owners with lost bags other than linking owners with publicly available baggage tracking data?

Lol. You didn’t do the minimal research before spewing?

Yes, they do.

I’ve used them in the past.

Contrary to your apparent belief, they’re not just feathers and fluff. Lol.

Also from a reputable source (Nerd Wallet - https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/travel/blue-ribbon-bags):

“My Blue Ribbon Bags review:

Back in 2018, Blue Ribbon Bags helped save the day when my checked bag was mishandled on a complex itinerary involving multiple airlines. My ticket had me flying from Charlotte to New York on JetBlue, New York to Cairo on Egyptair and then Cairo to Abu Dhabi on Etihad.

After an exhausting multiday trip, I arrived in Abu Dhabi to find my bag missing from the belt, leaving me without a change of clothes or supplies for the trip. I filed a missing baggage report with Etihad, the last airline I flew. However, airline agents weren't optimistic as they reported that Etihad never received the bag.
Blue Ribbon Bags jumped into the situation and figured out that my checked bag didn't make the connection between JetBlue and Egyptair in New York. Blue Ribbon Bags agents updated me as they tracked my bag making its way to its original destination of Abu Dhabi. As my bag arrived there after I'd left, Blue Ribbon Bags rerouted it onward to meet me at my next destination.”

[jye]

Lol. You didn’t do the minimal research before spewing?

Yes, they do.

I’ve used them in the past.

Contrary to your apparent belief, they’re not just feathers and fluff. Lol.

Also from a reputable source (Nerd Wallet - https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/travel/blue-ribbon-bags):

“My Blue Ribbon Bags review:

Back in 2018, Blue Ribbon Bags helped save the day when my checked bag was mishandled on a complex itinerary involving multiple airlines. My ticket had me flying from Charlotte to New York on JetBlue, New York to Cairo on Egyptair and then Cairo to Abu Dhabi on Etihad.

After an exhausting multiday trip, I arrived in Abu Dhabi to find my bag missing from the belt, leaving me without a change of clothes or supplies for the trip. I filed a missing baggage report with Etihad, the last airline I flew. However, airline agents weren't optimistic as they reported that Etihad never received the bag.
Blue Ribbon Bags jumped into the situation and figured out that my checked bag didn't make the connection between JetBlue and Egyptair in New York. Blue Ribbon Bags agents updated me as they tracked my bag making its way to its original destination of Abu Dhabi. As my bag arrived there after I'd left, Blue Ribbon Bags rerouted it onward to meet me at my next destination.”

Speaking of reviews you can read a bunch here:
https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic-g1-i10702-k10592655-Blue_Ribbon_Bags_Travel_Insurance-Air_Travel.html

or

[db23]

chase sapphire preferred. travel insure has same level as the reserve ? if purchase tickets with miles/points and pay taxes with card you get the insurance?

[Ephraimh]

Speaking of reviews you can read a bunch here:
https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic-g1-i10702-k10592655-Blue_Ribbon_Bags_Travel_Insurance-Air_Travel.html

or

Again, they’re handling millions of bags a year, and you’re showing me a Trip Advisor link with 3 complaints over the last year?

You may be right, I don’t know, but I’ll assume that these people didn’t follow the instructions, before labelling the company a scam.