Important follow up to this post.
I had bought a ticket to Detroit back in September, and I did buy travel insurance. The insurance company, AIG, played me for a sucker. That is a lesson learned.
The event I was going to attend was cancelled due to the pandemic. This is pretty much the definition of unforeseen event I had no power over; or in other words, the reason one buys insurance.
AIG however, is saying that Delta has offered me a credit to use in the near future, therefore I have not suffered a loss, so go kick rocks, stupid.
The event was cancelled, and it is only held once every five years. The next one won’t be in Detroit, either.
I have zero plans to fly anywhere in the next, well, ever. I mean, it could happen. The last time I flew, it was to attend a funeral. So maybe if someone in my circle of friends gets deathly ill, I’ll need to fly. But those are anti-plans.
The deceit AIG and Delta are implementing here is that a flight to anywhere is as valuable as a flight to a specific place at specific dates – which I am now denied the opportunity to, because of things beyond my control. I cannot wave a magic wand and recreate this event some time in the future.
I’m just out the money. Salt in the wound is that I stupidly paid an additional fee for insurance for the flight.
It was a mistake to bail out “too big to fail AIG”. I hope when it comes time to bail out Delta, we refuse that. And if AIG can suffer some amazing losses, that would make me smile too. Certainly I will try to never be a customer of either of them, ever, in the future.