Yet again, I used one of the best travel tips and got a free $1000 for my hotels and meals during my flight cancellation. Entirely effortlessly. I enjoyed a luxurious stay and earned ≈ $200 in rewards, too! This is called flight delay insurance, and it’s completely free. It’s so amazing, and it’s such a terrible shame how sooooo many travelers don’t even know it exists!
Yes, it’s incredibly easy to always get free hotels and meals during delays/cancellations. Yet most people waste time begging the airline, settle for the airport floor or cheap hotels (and cheap food), and miss out on earning thousands of points for free future travel.
This is literally one of the very best tips (nothing less), and we know a whole lot of travel tips. Flytrippers aims to help you travel for less through our 3 types of content, namely flight deals, travel rewards, and tips/inspiration/news.
Here’s an overview of what I did so you can finally stop missing out on such a simple tip.
How does this free $1000 (and ≈ $200 in rewards) work?
I’ll start with a to-the-point overview.
Right after, I debunk the biggest myth and show you exactly how you can do the same thing. And then I share more details about each aspect of my experience if you want to learn more.
Here’s what happened:
- My flight was cancelled (and rebooked 2 days later)
- So I got to enjoy New York City in the snow
- It’s what I was actually hoping for
- I didn’t have to spend a dime or ask anyone anything
- I actually came out ≈ $200 richer (in rewards)
- I didn’t have to wait, beg, or call (nothing at all)
Here’s what I did:
- I booked the 2 hotels I wanted ($872)
- A luxurious $567/night 5-star hotel in Times Square
- A cheaper $305/night hotel at the Newark airport
- I savored amazing meals totaling $121 and spent $11 on a bus ($132)
- I could’ve spent more on that and less on hotels
- It’s $1000 to spend the way you prefer!!!
Here’s the financial aspect:
- I earned ≈ $200 in rewards for future free travel
- Hotel program: 10,933 Marriott points (≈ $98)
- Credit card: ≈ 10% back with welcome bonus (≈ $100)
- I filled out an insurance claim form 100% online very easily
- In just a few clicks
- For all the expenses
- I got a $1000 reimbursement in less than 3 weeks (!!!)
- Literally no questions asked (other than the form)
- Same as the 10+ other times I did this
Isn’t this flight delay insurance tip amazing?
I got $1000 worth of hotels and meals (for free)… and I got ≈ $200 worth of rewards for future travel (for free)! So easily.
Your flight delays probably don’t look like that, right?
You can’t control delays, but you can (and should) control getting a luxurious and free (and rewarding) experience out of delays!
That’s why I once again mentioned this trick in my recent TV interviews to share the best expert tips for flight cancellations.
If you weren’t convinced with just the current record-high offers on the only 2 credit cards that are for every Canadian traveler with no exception… I remind you that they also offer this insurance ($500 coverage) in addition to their amazing welcome bonus of ≈ $1173!!!
(If you prefer points of the more simple type that are redeemable for any travel expense, the TD First Classa Travel Visa Infinite Card gives you a $1000 welcome bonus and offers this insurance!)
Again, it’s just soooooo wild to me that everyone can get this for every flight delay… and most travelers don’t even know this tip exists!!!
Imagine alllllll the other simple travel tips that you’re missing out on because you just don’t know them! We share 100+ tips in Flytrippers’ free ebook (it’ll be updated soon; you’ll get the improved one automatically if you download this one).
If you follow all my travels in my personal Instagram stories, you already saw all about this tip during my trip. But now that I have received the reimbursement, I wanted to write about it.
Is this too good to be true?
Nope, you’ve just been missing out on something realllllly good. It’s too good, but it’s true.
I’ve now used my credit cards’ free flight delay insurance over a dozen times.
Every single time, I got completely reimbursed, with no questions asked. And with no human interaction whatsoever (that’s heaven).
That’s why the absolute most annoying thing is when people say everything is “too good to be true” when it really is this phenomenal (just like with credit card welcome bonuses).
Such a terrible myth.
The world of travel rewards is very counterintuitive. This is yet another great example. Many people think credit card insurance is inferior to standalone insurance, when in reality, it’s BETTER.
Why?
An insurer doesn’t care about you as an individual; you mean nothing to them. They don’t care if they lose you. They won’t even notice. Bye!!!
An insurer definitely cares about its huge contract with a multi-billion-dollar bank, for hundreds of thousands of credit cards. That’s lucrative. They don’t want to lose that huge income.
Banks offer insurance as a card benefit, so that their clients keep their cards. They outsource it to experts (insurance companies) to ensure cardholders are satisfied with this insurance.
The insurers know this is all the bank wants. So insurers want cardholders to be satisfied to keep their big client (the bank) satisfied.
I’ve claimed many thousands of dollars for very expensive hotels and very expensive meals, and they’ve never declined these expenses!
You’re allowed $1000 (or $500 with most cards, see the next section) for hotels and meals. Most cards also cover transfers to/from the hotel, and even sundry items.
And that’s it. If your delay is eligible (they almost all are), they’ll reimburse you.
Even if you really maximize your insurance benefit, as I did with $1003.74 in expenses this time around.
My 10+ experiences were all with Amex and TD (and HSBC that no longer exists), and it has always worked.
How do I do the same thing?
You literally just need to fully pay for your flight with a good credit card that includes flight delay insurance! It’s so incredibly simple.
That’s it. You’ll get $500 or $1000 for free hotels, meals, and transportation during flight delays, to spend until your rebooked flight.
(Premium cards like the Amex Platinum Card and Amex Aeroplan Reserve Card offer $1000, but most Canadian cards offer “just” $500… which is still pretty good!!!)
Right now, the absolute best travel rewards deal is unquestionably the Marriott Bonvoy Amex Card, or the Marriott Bonvoy Business Amex Card if you already have the 1st one (no incorporated business required, despite the name).
These are the only 2 cards that are for all Canadian travelers with no exceptions. They have a record-high offer until April 7! They usually have only 1 increased offer per year, so do NOT miss it.
Both include flight delay insurance ($500).
All cards in our current top 5 of the best offers include flight delay insurance.
| Best credit card offers (March 2026) |
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 Valuation (BONUS)(≈ 19.6% back on $6k)
Rewards: ≈ $1293
Card fee: $120
Spend required:$6k in 6 mos.
Best for: Very lucrative hotel points for specific hotels
 LUCRATIVE
No min. inc.
ends April 7th
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Valuation (BONUS) (≈ 11.9% back on $10k)
Rewards: ≈ $1335
Card fee: $150
Spend required:$10k in 6 mos.
Best for: For those who already have the one above
LUCRATIVE
No min. inc.
ends April 7th
|
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Valuation (BONUS) (13.3% back on $7.5k)
Rewards: $1000
Annual fee: $0 $139
Spend required:$7.5k in 6 mos.
Best for: Simple points for any travel expense & 4 lounge passes
 SIMPLE
60k/100k
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| Terms and conditions apply. Flytrippers editorial opinion only. Financial institutions are not responsible for maintaining the content on this site. Please click "See More" to see most up-to-date information. |
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Best credit card offers (March 2026) |
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LUCRATIVE No min. inc.
Valuation (BONUS)
Rewards: ≈ $1293
Card fee: $120 (≈ 19.6% back on $6k)
Spend required:
$6k in 6 mos.
Best for: Very lucrative hotel points for specific hotels
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LUCRATIVE No min. inc.
Valuation (BONUS)
Rewards: ≈ $1335
Card fee: $150 (≈ 11.9% back on $10k)
Spend required:
$10k in 6 mos.
Best for: For those who already have the one above
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SIMPLE 60k/100k
Valuation (BONUS)
Rewards: $1000
Annual fee: $0 $139 (13.3% back on $7.5k)
Spend required:
$7.5k in 6 mos.
Best for: Simple points for any travel expense & 4 lounge passes
|
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 SIMPLE80k/150k
Valuation (BONUS)
Rewards: ≈ $1590
Card fee: $0 $199 (≈ 8.8% back on $18k)
Spend required:
$18k in 12 mos. (or $5k/$9k)
Best for: Incredible offer for those with more spending
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 LUCRATIVENo min. inc.
Valuation (BONUS)
Rewards: ≈ $900
Card fee: $191.88 ($15.99/mo.) (≈ 7.9% back on $9k)
Spend required:
$9k in 12 mos.
Best for: Best overall card in Canada
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| Terms and conditions apply. Flytrippers editorial opinion only. Financial institutions are not responsible for maintaining the content on this site. Please click "See More" to see most up-to-date information. |
I’ll share a very detailed guide to flight delay insurance very soon.
It’ll include the logistics of claiming step by step, and literally everything you need to know.
Please sign up for Flytrippers’ free newsletter and join 150,000+ savvy Canadian travelers who get all our travel tips, deals, and content.
What else do I need to get the free hotels and meals?
While you await that guide, I’ll just share the most important things you need to make your insurance claim. But it’s easy.
First, almost all delays are covered. Weather, mechanical, strike, war… Terrorist attacks are the main exclusion, but that’s pretty rare. The delay must be at least 4 hours, or 6 hours with some cards.
Apart from that, you just need to provide many documents.
You need proof of the delay/cancellation.
I keep the airline notification email (another reason to do the very basic step of managing all your flight bookings to make sure you get the emails), I take a screenshot of the flight status page on Google or on FlightAware, and a screenshot of my boarding pass.
You need proof of your rebooked flight.
So again, I keep the airline notification email, a screenshot of the flight status, and my boarding pass.
You then need to keep the receipts for all your expenses you want reimbursed (obviously). I always take a picture of them immediately, just in case I lose them (ADHD precaution).
By the way, you don’t even need to use the same card to make your hotel and meal expenses (at least with Amex; always double-check with others).
So you can use the $1000 in expenses to unlock more welcome bonuses!
Welcome bonuses are the key. So many travelers sadly don’t understand that.
That’s how I got ≈ $200 in rewards on a $1000 expense… that’s ≈ 20% back, and that’s the general ballpark you should always get on all your expenses, not a terrible 1% or 2% back!!! More on that below.
And finally, you obviously need proof that you paid for the flight with your card, but I can’t imagine you would delete your flight confirmation email (you shouldn’t) and that you wouldn’t have access to your credit card statements online (it’s 2026).
So it’s quite easy to gather all the documents.
There’s just 1 other mportant thing to keep in mind. When you pay for your flight in points (whether it’s points of the more simple type or points of the more lucrative type), you’re covered if you still have the associated credit card.
But with airline points (like Aeroplan), you need to charge the taxes to the card as well. You should never redeem points to cover those taxes anyway, if you understand the basics of maximizing airline points!
I had booked this particular January flight with my Aeroplan points.
So I charged the taxes to my premium-level Aeroplan credit card, the Amex Aeroplan Reserve Card (which gives me free access to Air Canada airport lounges).
As was the case every other time I claimed with Amex, I got the reimbursement effortlessly. And in less than 3 weeks, before my credit card statement with the $1000 expense was even due.
What exactly happened during this flight cancellation?
I’ll tell you more about every aspect from the overview above if you want more details.
My cancelled flight
In late January, I booked a bit more than 24 hours in New York City for a travelers’ meetup and a concert.
One of the city’s worst winter storms in years hit that very day.
My flights home to Montreal was cancelled.
It’s actually exactly what I was hoping for, as I wanted to have $1000 to spend in NYC, I wanted to earn free rewards for future travel, and I wanted to spend more than just 1 day there.
I mentioned this in my post about my cancelled train to get there.
Speaking of, I’ll also share my experience rebooking my flight like a pro (what almost all travelers don’t do). It was tip #3 in my 4 tips for flight cancellations.
Anyway, I was quite happy to spend time in NYC, especially for free. I’d never been there during a snowstorm.
And as a savvy traveler, I followed the incredibly basic tip: always having at least a 1-day buffer if there’s something important I can’t miss after a flight. That way, I can truly enjoy delays.
My response to the cancellation
I didn’t even waste a single second. No waiting, begging, asking, calling… nothing.
You don’t even need to advise the insurance (with Amex at least; always double-check with others).
I just booked a super luxurious hotel on my phone right away, and that’s it.
I picked the exact food I wanted to eat, and I didn’t care about the price (well, apart from some quick budgeting to maximize the $1000 allowance).
More on my hotels and meals in the next section.
I enjoyed my time in NYC. For free.
I did not have to pay a thing (and I even came out ≈ $200 richer by paying for the hotels and meals that were reimbursed).
I did not wait in a long line to beg an airline employee for hotel and meals vouchers.
(Anyway, they obviously don’t owe passengers anything when the cancellation is weather-related! Why would they… they don’t control the weather. Take responsibility. Always pay with a good credit card that includes flight delay insurance. Simple!)
I did not end up in a terrible hotel like those airlines often give, or the cheapest ones available when 11,000+ flights are canceled in a huge storm.
I did not have to buy cheap food.
I did not miss out on all the free rewards earned via the Marriott Bonvoy hotel rewards program and via my credit card, as I paid for the $1000 in expenses myself!
My 2 free hotels
I try to always book a Marriott Bonvoy hotel when I use my insurance; I have Marriott elite status, which means I get VIP treatment, and I earn more points on stays paid in cash.
(The Marriott Bonvoy credit cards with the current record-high offer give you automatic elite status at the 9000+ Marriott hotels worldwide, albeit the very lowest tier possible… which is still incredibly better than being a status-less nobody!)
I chose The Times Square EDITION hotel, as I’ve tried almost all 40 Marriott hotel brands, but EDITION is one of the very few I hadn’t tried yet.
It’s among Marriott’s most luxurious brands. I had been to the one in Miami Beach for a Marriott party during Art Week and it looked fantastic.
It was $567 for the night. It was awesome.
Working out with a view of Times Square was pretty nice.
Can’t beat the location, if you want to be in that touristy part of the city.
I also booked an airport hotel for $305 for the 2nd night. I could’ve booked 2 nights at the same hotel, of course.
But I preferred trying 1 very nice hotel (with my Marriott Titanium elite status, I get late check-out at 4 PM) and then a cheaper hotel for the night before my morning flight, to be closer (I’m a lot of things, but not a morning person).
It was the Fairfield by Marriott Inn & Suites Newark Liberty International Airport hotel, a perfectly fine but very typical North American airport hotel.
My free meals and transfer
The insurance also covers transportation to/from the hotel during the delay.
So I claimed my $11 bus from Midtown to Newark airport (the trains weren’t running due to the storm).
You can really decide how you want to spend the $1000. I probably should’ve budgeted more for meals, even if I don’t consider myself much of a foodie.
But I really wanted to earn more Marriott points. My Marriott Titanium elite status gives me a base earn rate of 17.5 points per US dollar, before promotions (like the current winter promo for elite status and bonus points; detailed post coming this weekend).
Anyway, I got an amazing burger at the Times Square EDITION hotel’s main restaurant, The Terrace and Outdoor Gardens.
I got delicious hot chicken at a highly rated place a few blocks away, 375° Chicken and Fries.
I got a couple of US$1.50 slices of pizza (what, it’s a NYC classic).
I even got to get many desserts from a bakery I know from Miami Beach, Rosetta.
And I got many snacks from Target to count as my breakfast (I thought the insurance might deny this since it’s not a restaurant, but they accepted this as well).
My ≈ $200 in rewards earned
Earning rewards is, by far, the best way to travel for less.
The easiest and most important way is by using your spending to unlock welcome bonuses.
This extra $1000 I didn’t plan to spend helped me get to my next welcome bonus faster. Again, welcome bonuses are the key. It’s the single most important thing to understand.
For the math in these kinds of posts, I’ll always just conservatively assume a ≈ 10% earn rate on the spend (because bonuses change all the time, so the one I’m working on from 3 months ago is usually no longer available).
But most welcome bonuses give you more than 10% back.
For example, the Marriott Bonvoy Amex Card’s increased offer gives you ≈ 19.6% back on $6,000 in spending (and that’s assuming you just redeem the points in an average way; the points have an unlimited value and can be maximized for more value).
But 10% is easy for everyone to get all the time on all their spending. A bit better than 1% or 2% you settle for, isn’t it?
So that gives me ≈ $100 in free rewards with my $1000 spent.
The other main way to earn rewards is through reward programs directly.
Hotels are the most generous, as you earn a lot more points for your stays than you do with airlines for your flights or with regular retailers for your purchases.
As mentioned, with my Marriott Titanium elite status, I earn a base rate of 17.5 Marriott points per US dollar (there were no promotions in late January). I also earn extra points as a welcome gift.
So I earned 10,933 Marriott points with those 2 stays.
Our conservative Flytrippers Valuation of Marriott points is ≈ 0.9¢/pt, so that’s worth ≈ $98.
Another way to see it is that the nice hotel in Bali I mentioned costs around 5,000 points per night, so my flight delay gave me 2 future free nights there, completely free.
All in all, I earned rewards with ≈ $100 via my credit card and ≈ $98 via Marriott, for ≈ $198 completely free in my pocket.
My insurance claim
I’ll share the complete step-by-step process in the guide, but it’s super easy to fill out the form online (like any form).
You enter all the info and upload the required documents, and they process the claim very quickly.
The process is managed by Global Excel, an intermediary. Again, I’ve done over a dozen claims, and most were with Amex and managed by Global Excel, and it was always effortless.
My $1000 reimbursement
In less than 3 weeks, I received an Interac e-Transfer of $1000!
The form alone was all they needed.
They didn’t question whether a $567/night hotel was reasonable (it was my highest ever), they didn’t question anything… as always.
Of course, I deposited it in my EQ Bank account, the completely free bank account all travelers should get to avoid foreign transaction fees and ATM fees while traveling!
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Summary
Flight delay insurance is one of the very best travel tips that exists. You simply pay for your flight with a good credit card that includes this free coverage, and then you get $1000 or $500 to spend on hotels, meals, and transfers during flight delays. Effortlessly.
What would you like to know about this flight delay insurance example? Tell us in the comments below.
See the flight deals we spot: Cheap flights
Discover free travel with rewards: Travel rewards
Explore awesome destinations: Travel inspiration
Learn pro tricks: Travel tips
Featured image: NYC trip (photo credit: Andrew D’Amours/Flytrippers)
