Two weeks ago, my spouse and I each booked a great deal on the United website for an 80,000 Business Class award ticket SFO to Brussels and then an 80,000 Business Class award ticket Frankfurt to SFO for December 2025 on Lufthansa. Today I began to look at travel insurance in case of an emergency medical return (broken leg, etc.) early scenario. Travel insurance (I called three different brokers) doesn't seem to cover award travel in that trip interruption costs would be minimal. I padded our expenses a bit for some on-line quotes, thinking there might be some hotels that wouldn't give us a refund (fine) if we cancelled too late. But $600 doesn't give you much in Trip Interruption costs, maybe $500 or $600 total. I'm not normally a worst-case scenario person, but a few trips ago some members of our party suffered a fractured arm and ankle and had to return from Mexico early.

In speaking with United, all the choices have risks. Getting an earlier flight that has the equivalent mileage business seat open? I can't imagine that happening as the 80,000 miles seat was a steal and most of the return seats are in the 250,000 mile range. Sure we could fly home in economy if that mileage equivalent will work, if it would work, but I'd like to avoid that if one of us is ailing and the seat equivalent isn't a sure thing, either.

I was told we could buy miles to supplement the 80,000 miles if we didn't have enough to buy a higher award ticket (we wouldn't). Buying 150,000 United award miles each would be outrageously expensive.

Buying two return tickets out-of-pocket? During the holiday season? No.

Has anyone else faced this? Or found a way with an insurance company to mitigate expenses for a return flight booked with award miles? It is making me rethink the entire trip.

You may be thinking about this the wrong way - insuring airfare versus emergency travel expenses, trip insurance versus travel insurance. Look for insurance that covers medical evacuation, not just airfare and hotels. And you should check to see if your credit card provides any sort of coverage.

You could call the folks at Insure my trip for advice

I agree you could call for advice but I personally think this is just the way it is and you have to take the risk or not. I don't think the award travel is the issue and is distracting from the point that if you had to return home suddenly, last minute airline fares one-way are very expensive. Well, it wouldn't be totally one-way, you'd get some amount towards it by changing your return flight, I imagine. And you don't have to fly Business even if you think it would be nice.

But this isn't an issue of Medical Evacuation. It's just that if you broke your ankle, for example, you'd just want to go home as you couldn't do the things you planned. I get it. And for some reason, all trip insurance plans I've seen tie Trip Interruption coverage (which specifically says it is to help cover unexpected travel home early for covered reasons) to the Trip Cost which is your nonrefundable costs. Of course airline travel is generally not nonrefundable anyway, so the award miles is distracting from that issue. I've never had an airline ticket in my life that was totally nonrefundable for international travel, you just get a credit back in miles if that's what you used, or dollars if that's what you used. I never put my airline fare in that box as it is not nonrefundable. And I'm sure there are plenty of hotels that are not nonrefundable, at least for more than a day's cost. I came home early from Berlin once on United just because there was a heat wave in Europe and I didn't want to stay. I didn't pay anything extra for my flight, as I recall, which actually surprised me, and I never book nonrefundable hotels, so I cancelled my next leg of hotels and came home..

Trip Interruption is usually a percentage of your trip cost and you can find some premium policies where it is 100 percent (don't think I've seen more). If your cost were $500, that would give you at least $1000. I just checked 12/23 and return premium economy one-way FRA-SFO is $2047. So yes, I think you'd be out about $1000.

I would not plan my life that way, of not doing something because of a slight risk I'd have to spend $1000 out of pocket. Or even $3000. Because I could pay that, even if sure, it would bother me as really expensive. But it wouldn't affect my life in any way, to be honest. Because if that is a dealbreaker for you, you will never travel again, I imagine. At least not to any place very far away.

Thanks for your feedback on this issue, Seamus, mjs, and Christina!

Yes, I always go through InsureMyTrip to find my trip insurance, but I was getting mixed messages on how I would get reimbursed for the miles on the return flight if we had to return early for a covered reason. It sounds like miles aren't translated into a cash value. I wrote to United Airlines (snail-mail style) outlining my concerns about trip interruption, the refund process for miles when they would not be used on a return flight (or could they?), and the way an earlier return ticket would work. Haven't heard back yet. Now I just want to know!

That won't stop the trip! You are correct, Christiana! One might never travel far from home if one is worried about all of this. Seamus, I always book travel insurance with the med evac coverage, thank you, just for the off chance of a serious issue. My United Explorer card does offer some coverages but not medical evacuation. So our pre-paid, non-refundable expenses turned out to be very little...a pre-booked train ride and losing out on a refund on at least one hotel if we had to leave early, the others probably could be cancelled with the 23-48 cancellable window.

I am still thrilled with our 160,000 RT Business class award tickets (SFO-Brussels/Frankfurt-SFO on Lufthansa/Brussels Airline) and have planned an itinerary that includes Brussels, Ghent, Antwerp, and Cologne plus hoping to squeeze a few hours in Aachen. We have spent time in beautiful Bruges before. We are layering up for the cold and looking forward to the festive atmosphere of the Christmas markets, the churches and cathedrals, and the cities' sights.


I went ahead and booked travel insurance to cover my pre-paid non-refundable costs which wasn't much at $650 as I didn't pay for the ticket and unused taxes would be refunded easily... a long train ride booked ahead for the better fare and enough to cover hotel bookings that wouldn't be able to be cancelled in time of interrupted trip.

Am fairly sure that your ticket was priced as two one-way tickets.
80K miles for SFO-FRA-BRU and
80K miles for FRA-SFO
but you booked it as a roundtrip ticket.

So that if you take the outbound trip you should be able to cancel the return and get your 80K miles plus taxes refunded. That would certainly be the case if you had booked the trip as two one-way tickets. Just for fun, take a look at your itinerary email or online and see if your trip has one or two ticket numbers (thirteen digits starting with 016) or maybe two confirmation codes.

Well, I finally heard back from UA via a form letter, thanking me for the email (it was a snail mail letter) and suggesting since it was about a future flight to reach out to United Customer Care Contact Center. Whatever. I did call United a few weeks ago and spoke with a representative who had worked for the airlines for over 25 years. She said if we were not returning on the ticket due to an earlier departure, the 80,000 miles would be held for a year...for use with an oversees ticket back to the US. Interesting! Case closed.

Sorry but that doesn’t sound right.

You didn’t reply to my last post. I would wager that you get a refund either way as long as you cancel on time

rules for mileage awards changed a lot, so 25 years experience is not really relevant. the advice about good for a year might apply to a revenue ticket. idk.

if you can’t make the return as scheduled then try to modify it. Likely would need to cancel to get the miles refunded and then book a new ticket Don’t be a no-show if you can help it

Also, you can try getting Lufthansa to modify the booking. Find a ticket office, I think they still have them.

Maybe 20 years ago I was flying on United award tickets and in Bangkok Lufthansa had a Star Alliance desk at BKK. They modified my award ticket on a thir Star carrier

Yes, mrwunrfl, I will follow up with Lufthansa next week and will report back!

Lufthansa as a last resort in case you have trouble getting it changed via United

Maybe you are overthinking this. Especially considering that it is unlikely.

go to united website and read about changing award reservations and how to do it online. That is all you need to do