Afloat, not adrift

Question: We have made a reservation on a Norwegian fiord/Baltic cruise next summer through my alma mater. It is on a small cruise line, and I am worried about the possibility of financial default. Because of our age, the insurance premium quoted for this trip is about 20% of the cost of the trip. Also, the tour operator’s brochure specifies that it does not accept credit cards for the final payment. What options do we have to protect ourselves?

Alan Johnson

Seal Beach

Answer: Danger, Will Robinson! Danger! Each trip we embark on is fraught with a list of things that can go wrong, but Johnson’s trip is a veritable encyclopedia of potential problems.

He is right to be concerned about travel provider defaults; this year alone, we’ve seen the demise of GrandLuxe Travel and ATA and Aloha airlines, among others. If travelers who booked with those companies paid by credit card, they were, for the most part, covered.

But Johnson’s final payment can’t be made by credit card, according to the terms of the agreement.

And he may not be able to get insurance to cover financial default of a travel provider anyway, especially if he waited more than 15 or 21 days (depending on the provider) from his first payment. (He did.)

And because he’s not protected by the California Seller of Travel Law (because the seller isn’t in California), the deck appears to be stacked against him.

“In the absence of these backup measures, the best that a consumer can do is acknowledge the risk and make an informed choice in regard to whether to do business with the vendor,� Lori J. Forcucci, a California deputy attorney general in the Consumer Rights Section, said in an e-mail to me.

The part of this dilemma that sent me reeling was the “no credit card� edict. The provider, Thomas Gohagan & Co. of Chicago, said this was done to keep travel costs low because alumni travel is highly competitive, but this trip is so expensive that charging the traveler 3% for the credit card protection seems like a whisper of an increase.

If the cancellation penalties aren’t too severe, Johnson’s best bet may be to cancel his trip, then turn around and rebook it -- with insurance that includes financial default (that’s not automatic, so check) and with a policy that may be considerably cheaper than the quote he got. Look at such sites as www.insuremytrip.com, www.squaremouth.com and www.quotewright.com.

If a provider goes belly up -- and given the economy, who knows? -- better safe than stuck in a Baltic backwater.

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