Ask Away: Keep it official

Eli Orzessek finds the answers to your travel questions.

I'm going on a trip to Europe next year, including France and the UK, and even though I know it's statistically unlikely, I still feel nervous about getting caught up in a terror attack due to all the bad news of the last few years. I haven't sorted any travel insurance yet, but I'm wondering if most policies will cover you if your trip gets disrupted by an incident like that?
Ann

I know the feeling — I was nervous about the same thing before I went to Germany this year, even though Travel Editor Winston Aldworth assured me I'd be more likely to get into an accident on the way to the airport. Which I now have a new anxiety about, thanks!

Anyway, I've tapped into the wisdom of the Insurance & Financial Services Ombudsman, Karen Stevens, for this one.

She says most travel insurance policies do not cover costs that are a result of, or related to, terrorism. Some policies offer limited cover, e.g. medical expenses, disablement/death, or capped payments for claims relating to terrorism.

The best advice is to make sure you read the policy wording carefully to ensure that the cover is suitable for your circumstances.

Here are five top tips from the IFSO scheme to consider:

1. Buy your travel insurance when you arrange your travel.
2. Read your policy and understand about what you are or are not covered for.
3. Ask questions about exclusions and limitations.
4. Discuss specific concerns with your travel insurance provider.
5. Tell your insurer about any medical conditions, recent medical appointments, tests and symptoms.

We enjoyed Frances Cook's "Get me to the church" article, as we are headed to Spain, politics permitting, next July.

In particular we would like to pre-arrange a tour through the Sagrada Familia. There are numerous "official" websites offering a range of tickets, but how do we determine the real official one and other reliable websites?

We also want to pre-arrange a tour from Porto to and through the cathedral at Santiago de Compostela. Again, how do we know which websites we can rely on?
Doug Dallimore

It's easy to be bombarded with information when researching a trip online. I think it's always best to keep to official websites — although they can be hard to distinguish sometimes!

For the Sagrada Familia, you can buy tickets and tours through tickets.sagradafamilia.org — a guided tour costs $41.

As for the excursion from Porto, its tourism site (visitporto.travel) has a tour section where you can search for something suitable. I found one tour to Santiago de Compostela, run by a company called Cloud and Wind.

There are other third-party sites for booking tours, such as Viator, Toursbylocals or Getyourguide, but people seem to have mixed experiences with them, so I'd exercise caution and keep things official.

If any readers have tours they'd like to recommend to Doug, feel free to send them in.

Email your questions to askaway@nzherald.co.nz
Eli cannot answer all questions and can't correspond with readers.
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