Last Updated on June 22, 2020 by Laura Cooper
Hurricane advisories as of August 24, 2018, 7:50 a.m. EST.
Hurricane Lane travel advisories and cancellation policies:
Hurricane Lane is a category 4 hurricane expected to make landfall along Hawaii and Maui county later this week. The Government of Canada has put out a travel advisory, asking travellers to avoid non-essential travel to the islands of Maui, Lanai, Molokai, Kahoolawe, Oahu and Kauai.
Air Canada Vacations travel advisory
August 22, 2018. 6:24 p.m. EST.
Travellers currently holding reservations including a flight to or from Hawaii are able to make voluntary changes to their itinerary if:
- The Air Canada ticket was purchased no later than August 21, 2018 for travel between now and August 26, 2018
Travellers scheduled to travel during the affect period can contact their travel agent or Air Canada Reservations to change their flight free of charge to another date between now and September 9, 2018, subject to availability in the cabin originally purchased. Other changes will result in the cost of fare difference.
More information on Air Canada’s policy regarding changes due to Hurricane Lane can be found here.
WestJet Vacations travel advisory
August 24, 2018. 7:50 a.m. EST.
WestJet passengers travelling between any of the following airports on August 23 or August 25 are able to make changes to their itinerary through their travel agent:
Airports travelling to/from that are affected include Honolulu, Oahu, Kona, Big Island, Lihue, Kauai, Kahului, Maui.
More information on WestJet’s travel advisories and policies can be found here.
HOW DOES TRAVEL INSURANCE WORK DURING A HURRICANE?
While travel insurance is a good idea any time of year, for any vacation, it is especially important during hurricane season. Further, without the time and added touch of working with a travel agent, travellers may find themselves experiencing added frustration on top of cancelled or delayed trips.
When booking with a travel agent, and dealing with the aftermath of hurricanes, the back-and-forth with hurricane policies, hurricane travel advisories, wait-times for re-booking options and available trips are taken care of: the traveller simply has to decide on an alternate destination or date, oftentimes is required to pay a difference in cost of the original trip, while the travel agent handles the rest.
Travel insurance must be bought when you book your vacation – hearing news of a hurricane on the horizon isn’t the time to try to protect yourself and your trip so you don’t lose money and that precious all-inclusive week away. The majority of travel insurance policies with trip cancellation and trip interruption coverage will reimburse your prepaid, non-refundable expenses lost as a result of cancelling your trip to due severe weather, or “acts of God.” For private plans, the rule is generally once a hurricane has been named, you cannot buy travel insurance against that storm.
When booking your vacation, your travel agent will be able to run through the travel insurance policies with you. And though cancelling, changing destination, or delaying your vacation due to a hurricane is indeed frustrating, just remember that your travel agent is also frustrated. Luckily, our advanced system allows us to pull a list of exactly which customers are in which destination on which dates, so we can call travellers with cancellations, advisories, and options in a priority order.
Please see our full blog on travelling during hurricane season, which lasts June through November, for complete information on travel insurance during hurricanes, and what happens with there is an advisory.
