trip mate travel insurance

I have written this so many times, I'm afraid that the above company has

won. We booked a trip to Costa Rica thru OAT (Overseas Adventure Travel)

and took the travel insurance that was offered in their brichure via Trip

Mate. BAD MISTAKE !!! My son and his wife missed their flight

connection in Houston and called the emergenccy number listed in their

detailed instructions. The operator promptly put them on another plane

to costa rica (which they paid an additional $1400 for) and were told by

the emergency operator to file a complaint when they arrived in Costa

Rica. This they did the very next day. After numerous faxing and

mailings, we were finally told (nearly two months later) that we were

eligible for $125 each as the "fine print" clearly states that that is

the maximum amount. We were also told that the Emergency On-call number

ggiven on the instruction brochure was "only contracted and not a part of

the Company" and was not authorized to make travel arrangements. The

latter was not even addressed in the fine print; maybe they don't think

that's important. At any rate TACA Air has $1400 for tickets not used

and haven't refunded the amount (although they did not land in Houston in

time to make the connections) and Trip Mate made several hundred dollars

from us that they did not earn. Wew have exhausted the "appeals process"

(a silly little way of making you repeat everything that the company

already has but a rather smart way of putting you off).. Perhaps their

medical insurance is ok, but after reading the number of complaints about

this company, I would hate to rely on them. BE CAREFUL, BE WARNED,

BEWARE; Trip Mate has given less than satisfactory service.

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I feel that Overseas Adventure Travel also is less than helpful in this case. Last month on a trip to Greece with OAT, my husband and I became ill on the day we arrived in Athens. Because we took insurance with another company since previous experience with Trip Mate was less than satisfactory, OAT representatives did very little to help us negotiate a flight home. We ended up with unreimbursed hotel, phone and transportation expenses which could have been avoided. We informed OAT on our post trip evaluation, but have not heard anything from them. We will never take another trip with OAT and most of our friends and relatives who have heard about this incident are considering other companies.