Company Behind ASAP Tickets Refuses to Refund Travel Companions with Trip Protection Coverage, Class Action Claims

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A proposed class action alleges the company behind ASAP Tickets systematically denies flight refunds to travel companions who purchased trip protection coverage.

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The 43-page lawsuit says that when consumers buy airline tickets and travel packages from defendant International Travel Network (ITN), including on ASAPTickets.com, the travel agency provides the option to purchase trip protection coverage that promises to cover travelers if they are unexpectedly hospitalized or sick and can no longer travel. However, contrary to representations made in its travel care service agreement, ITN refuses to extend the same services to travel companions who bought tickets and trip protection coverage alongside the sick or hospitalized traveler, the case claims.

The plaintiff, a New York resident, says that when she purchased two $978 airline tickets from ITN for herself and her husband in December 2022, she also bought them both trip protection coverage for an extra fee of $178.90. 

The filing notes that the defendant’s trip protection coverage, priced at approximately nine to 10 percent of the total trip cost, “significantly” exceeds the average cost of travel insurance, which typically goes for about five to six percent of the total trip price.

According to the complaint, ITN’s contract terms state that those who purchase its trip protection coverage are guaranteed a 100 percent refund of “fully unused tickets for traveler(s) hospitalized at the time of scheduled departure” and a 50 percent refund of “fully unused ticket[s] for traveler(s) unable to take their trip due to sickness.” The agreement also says that those same “services” apply to any travel “companions” who “also purchased a ticket and Travel Care Service with ITN,” the suit relays.

“In that way, the Travel Care Service agreement—which was sold as a premium trip ‘protection’ product at a price that was significantly higher than the average cost of a travel insurance policy—packaged ‘companion’ refunds with the primary refunds available to the sick or hospitalized traveler,” the case argues.

The lawsuit goes on to explain that the plaintiff’s husband learned shortly before their scheduled departure that he required unexpected near-term heart surgery and could no longer travel as planned. As the complaint tells it, the plaintiff requested a 50 percent refund be applied to both their tickets pursuant to the terms of the travel care service agreement. In response, ITN told the woman that it would provide a 50 percent refund only for her husband’s airfare and refused to cover any portion of her ticket, the filing says.

Per the suit, ITN systematically denies refunds covered under its travel care service agreement by falsely asserting to consumers that the contract is “not insurance.” Although ITN was not licensed to sell insurance in New York when the plaintiff bought her tickets, the agreement obligates the company to pay consumers for loss from certain specified risks, the case points out.

By definition, then, ITN’s trip protection coverage is “an overpriced travel insurance product sold by an unlicensed seller with none of the regulatory disclosures and protections required of insurance products,” the complaint claims.

The lawsuit looks to represent anyone in the United States who, during the applicable statute of limitations period, entered into a travel care service agreement with ITN covering themselves and one or more travel companions and did not receive a companion refund from ITN after the company provided a primary refund to one or more of their travel companions.

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