Ultimate Dive Travel: Protecting Travelers’ Dream Getaway

Everyone has dreamt of their next great vacation to a beautiful resort, that long-awaited scuba diving adventure through crystal clear seas. One can almost feel it—the anticipation filling their veins as they prepare to enter the water, the delight of meeting a darting clownfish out on a dive. But, what if the resort you book your dream vacation at goes bankrupt? You have just fallen victim to a common travel pitfall when booking your perfect getaway.

At Ultimate Dive Travel, we do not charge extra to accept your credit card, and we pay all the bank wires for those types of payments as well. It is a cost of us doing business. This means we have locked-in contracts with these operations. Many resorts and liveaboards charge you to book direct, so either you have to pay between 3 to 5% extra to have them accept your credit card, or you have to bank wire the funds to the country. Either way, you’re the one paying extra.

In the past several years, we have heard many stories from customers who ended up booking their scuba diving trip directly online with substandard and many times devastating results. Many vacationers in today’s online world believe they can easily and more affordably make reservations directly with a diving resort or liveaboard in another country. What many don’t realize is that there are major risks associated with booking through a dive resort directly online. Let’s say the resort or liveaboard goes belly up prior to your trip, yep bankrupt, and they have your hard-earned money. Are you still protected? Will you get reimbursed? What happens next?

The majority of travel/trip insurance does not cover for bankruptcy, which most people are not aware of. If you have ever priced out an International attorney, you would be looking at costs ranging from $800.00 to sky’s the limit per hour for them to represent you on their home turf. Additionally, if you’re lucky enough to meet them in court, you’d most likely lose because the business is gone, or they do not have the funds to pay you back.

Ultimate Dive Travel is one of the few scuba travel companies that have additional travel insurance to protect you, and ourselves, against default of a resort or liveaboard. This is not your ordinary Errors and Omissions Insurance most companies carry (normal E&O Insurance covers very little actually). The policy we have covers our customers, dive stores and individual travelers against a resort or liveaboard bankruptcy.

Insurance with this increased coverage is very expensive, which deters the majority of people (travel companies?) from making this level of investment. But, in this unpredictable world, Ultimate Dive Travel feels that taking the next step to protect our customers is a necessary one, and we do not charge extra for this coverage, you are covered because you bought the trip through our company. Ultimate Dive Travels encourages travelers to ask questions about travel insurance and its specific coverage to ensure a worry-free booking experience. If you book with your local dive store, and they use our company, then you are protected as if you had booked through us. So be sure to ask the important questions! The last thing you need is to buy travel insurance only to find out you are not covered in the event a resort or liveaboard goes out of business, and before your big trip.

Remember to ask whoever you book with if they can offer you the same level of protection, convenience and savings. It’s your money, be selective.

As always, we have your back at Ultimate Dive Travel.

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