Planning your next holidays? Lessons travellers can learn from Hurricane Sandy

Storms can strike at any time and yes there are things we can do to avoid some major dramas. Being stranded and not able to go back home is stressful enough so here are some precautions to take into consideration

 

Read a small print when buying travel insurance.

There are plenty of travel insurance policies out there but watch out as not all of them will cover you for money lost if your flight is cancelled due to bad weather. Also, not all of them provide 24/7 emergency travel services which is not ideal when stuck far away from home. Another thing to remember is to make sure a travel insurance policy covers all planned activities e.g. skydiving, diving, skiing, abseiling and white water rafting

Call an airline’s overseas reservations number to avoid being on hold for hours.

When an airline's local phone lines are busy, try to call it's overseas office. To make the call cheaper, remember to recharge your Skype account before you leave home.

Be proactive and search for flight and seat availability yourself.

Whenever the crisis strikes, travel agents all around the world are working really hard to find seats for those whose flights were cancelled. So if you want to have someone who will do all the hard work for you, talk to the travel agent who specializes in airfares. But if you decide to book your flight online you will have to deal with the airlines direct. To speed up the rebooking process, use some tools to find out seat availability yourself. This way you can tell the airline agent what exactly you need and you won't have to wait on hold for hours. One of the best free tools is FlightStats.com which allows you to check both flights and seat availability out of the airport where you are grounded.