Absolutely, everyone should have a solid Plan B.
I am not a Premium member, but if I paid for this insurance as a Premium member, I would certainly claim the benefits of the insurance in the event of the cancellation, if it made sense.
There are several stipulations to the Premium sit cancellation insurance that Premium members should be aware of. There are other threads about this topic on the THS Forum.
Be aware that while traveling in the US, hotels have a license to steal using ever changing hidden fee additions to your bill. This practice is typically illegal in every other country we travel but hoteliers in the US keep coming up with new ways to gouge guests.
Daily resort fees are one example. You can expect to be charged anywhere from $25 to $75 per day as a fee above and beyond your room rate. Hotels claim the fee covers free WiFi, use of the pool and gym, and every little thing that used to be part of your room rate.
The daily resort fee seems to be waning now that aggregator travel sites advertise fully loaded pricing with no hidden fees other than local bed taxes (which are never nothing). But we recently encountered a new hidden fee in the form of a service charge. Specifically stated to NOT be any form of a tip, this 18% fee was added to the final bill for every room charge. Buy a drink at the bar and charge it to your room, add 18%. Have a sit down meal in the hotel restaurant and charge it to your room, add 18%. And so it went. Charging 18% is supposedly to cover the administrative cost of adding something to your room bill. Note that paying by credit card or with cash for any of those services entirely sidesteps the 18%.
it’s a real game of whack a mole trying to stay ahead of immoral but technically legal shenanigans foisted on guests by US hotels.
We had this experience in 2022 where 2 hotels we stayed in for a few days one after the other took £400 deposits each and not refundable for 14 days- as we were at the end of a 2 month trip it wiped out the final amount allowable on my Holiday Credit card and caused problems for me when I arrived in New York trying to pay for my stay there. Fortunately we carry x5 different cards between us….
Similar experience with a hire car in Crete - the refundable deposit was eye watering and only refunded 7-14 days later .
Resulting in that credit card being almost maxed out and therefore is usable for that period of time .
We had sufficient funds to cover all our expenses. However a single traveler with just one card could encounter difficulties in a similar situation.
Another thought about flexible or refundable airfares. People have commented about how expensive they are but maybe book a non refundable flight going and a flexible one for coming home. That way you could still go to the destination, spend some time there in paid accommodation, while looking for another sit and then, and if nothing turns up, come home early.