So glad to welcome you here to the Clark Howard Show where it's about you and that quality

yours.

Want you to learn ideas from me so you can save more and spend less and don't let any

whenever rip you off.

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A lot of people now are planning summer vacations, trying to decide where you're going to go,

maybe book a cruise, maybe book a flight, a tour, whatever.

I want to talk to you about one of the most confusing parts of buying travel.

And I think about if you book an airline ticket or a cruise, how before you purchase, there's

a big push for you to buy what they call trip insurance or travel protection.

Sometimes they're not actual real insurance policies.

And these policies are sold at very high cost.

Very commonly it will be 10% of the cost of the trip you're buying.

And making claims as I've heard over and over again from people, incredibly difficult.

You know, the cruise lines and the airlines look at this as just another revenue point.

And the nation's airlines have gone to these ginormous cancellation fees that if you need

to change a trip, cancel a trip, they won't give you your money back and on top of it,

they charge you $200 to $400 for not being able to go.

And it's just a terrible, terrible burden.

And I speak to the airlines like a monolith, I should say except Southwest that charges

no penalties at all.

If your trip needs to change for any reason or if you need to cancel, you have a year

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