My Flight to Europe Was Canceled 3 Minutes Before I Left for the Airport. Here's What Happened Next

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When my husband and I planned a last-minute trip to Europe this summer, I was excited and nervous at the same time. After all, it meant leaving our kids and dogs in other people's care and going very far away. But we'd been saving money for a kid-free trip and decided to just go for it.

The day of our trip, we were in the process of bringing our bags downstairs to meet our Lyft driver when my husband decided to check on our flight status. When we saw the word "canceled" on his phone screen, we were in shock. Not only was our flight canceled with no information other than "mechanical problem," but we were given no immediate information about rebooking.

We also didn't even so much as get a text from the airline saying, "Sorry, your flight's a no-go." Had we not checked the flight status, we would've gone to the airport needlessly.

Now to make a long story short, we got out to Europe a day later after a whole lot of hassle. But there's more to the story than that happy ending. In fact, you should know that even now, more than a month later, we're still fighting with our credit card company and travel insurance providers for reimbursements.

When plans go awry

Once we learned that our flight was canceled, we immediately called the airline to see when we could be rebooked. After waiting on hold for over an hour, the airline representative initially told us the earliest flight they could put us on was set to depart 48 hours later. They then agreed to book us on a partner airline the following day, but it was still a good 24 hours after we were supposed to depart.

Oh, but here's the kicker. We live in New Jersey and were supposed to fly out of New Jersey, but we were rebooked on a flight from New York. So we incurred extra costs getting to an airport that was considerably farther away. We also lost out on a night of a prepaid hotel stay due to our trip's delay and the fact that our flight was canceled at the last minute.

Our credit card and travel insurance have not come through for us

Although having our flight canceled at the last minute was annoying, one thing that initially calmed us down was having travel insurance. And also, since we booked our flights on an airline credit card , we figured the issuer would make things right -- especially since our credit card agreement stated that we were covered for expenses incurred due to a delayed trip.

Well, we filed claims with both parties, and so far, we've been denied. Our travel insurance company claims that a mechanical problem with an aircraft isn't a covered issue. And the credit card company is claiming that it will only reimburse reasonable expenses incurred due to travel delay. It won't reimburse for lost money due to delays, which means we can't get our money back for the hotel night we missed out on.

How a ride to an airport that's 90 minutes away instead of 30 doesn't count as an extra expense is beyond me. But that's been its interpretation so far, and there's not much we can do other than continue to hound the company.

I wish I had great advice for people who end up in a similar situation to ours. But honestly, I don't. We did everything right by booking on an airline credit card with built-in coverage and buying travel insurance, but we're still out a good bit of money.

The only real advice I have is to expect a major delay the next time you fly, because that seems to be par for the course these days. Make sure your plans are flexible enough to accommodate a 24-hour delay on each end or longer. And read your travel insurance and credit card agreement carefully, so you know what coverage to expect.

To be fair, though, my husband and I did both. Yet we're still in the midst of a battle.

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