Partners · Alumni Associations

Member travel credits sponsorship to your fund.

It’s the industry’s open secret: when alumni travel with the association’s tour program, a portion of the tour price already comes back to fund scholarships and programs, buried in a vendor agreement no one publicizes [published alumni-travel program FAQs, 2025]. BonaVia is built to be the opposite of quiet. Travel protection designed for the trips your members actually take: the river cruise, the Tuscany land tour, the trip of a lifetime paid a year in advance, with a sponsorship from every covered trip that the advancement office can announce, publish, and grow.

Why associations partner with BonaVia

A service to your members. A service to the scholarship fund.

Your members’ need first: alumni tours are the highest-stakes leisure trips in your community: $1,000 to $10,000 or more per person, paid far in advance, taken by travelers in the years when domestic health coverage abroad thins out [alumni program catalogs, 2025]. When the cardiac event cancels the cruise ten weeks out, the association is who fields the call.

Then the fund’s need: the advancement office needs every program to justify its keep, and the giveback your travel program already generates sits in silence. Silence creates no engagement, no story, no growth. The sponsorship makes the funding visible, and adds members’ own travel to it.

A number you can publish

“Alumni travel protected 400 trips this year and added to the scholarship fund.” We share up to 40% of what we collect as a sponsorship, in plain dollars, a story for the magazine instead of a footnote in a vendor agreement.

Zero cost, zero lift

No fee to partner, and members pay the same price they would pay anywhere else. The co-branded page sits beside the tour catalog and in pre-trip communications the day you sign up.

The association never sells insurance

BonaVia is the licensed producer; coverage is underwritten by our licensed carrier partners. The association introduces the protection and names the fund. Licensing, disclosures, and claims stay ours.

The campus-wide play

Only football and men’s basketball fly charter; the volleyball team, the band, the debate squad, study abroad, and every alumni tour fly commercial through hub airports [ESPN, 2017]. One partnership can put a single protection page, and one sponsorship stream, behind all of it.

The napkin math

An association with a modest tour catalog, illustratively:

Four catalog tours a year, 25 travelers each: 100 covered trips
Alumni tours carry richer premiums than typical trips: 2–4× typical
Members’ personal travel through the association page: 100+ covered trips
What sponsorship credit a typical active partner organization receives for its cause: $1,200+ a year
In advancement terms: a scholarship line that grows between tour seasons

Illustrative volumes; premium multiple and typical-partner sponsorship credit from the BonaVia working model, not a quote or a promised rate. Sponsorship credit is credited per covered trip.

The quiet line item

The couple touring Portugal through the alumni travel program is exactly the traveler protection was made for: a significant trip, paid in advance, far from home. Hundreds of US institutions run alumni travel programs today [East-West News Service, 2024], with land tours of 8–25 travelers and cruises up to 180 [published alumni-travel program FAQs], and most that offer protection today bank the arrangement quietly and never speak of it.

Your travelers skew into the years when the safety net thins: Medicare pays $0 for hospital care outside the United States [Medicare.gov, 2026], and a medical evacuation home can run $25,000 to $250,000 or more [CDC, cited 2024–2026], against a marquee tour that was paid in full a year before departure.

A BonaVia partnership gives the association a giveback story it can actually publicize: the trip protects the travelers, the sponsorship grows the scholarship fund, and the advancement office gets a story for the alumni magazine instead of a footnote.

What goes wrong out there

The Douro cruise, thirteen months out

A large alumni association’s flagship river cruise sells out at $7,000 a cabin, booked and paid more than a year ahead, typical for a category where a representative program’s cabins start at $6,995 per person [Villanova Alumni Travel, 2025]. Ten weeks before departure, a retired professor’s spouse has a cardiac event and their travel is over. Trip cancellation protection is designed to help recover eligible prepaid costs when a covered medical reason cancels the trip: the difference between a heartbreak and a heartbreak plus five figures.

The knee in Kyoto

A 74-year-old alumna on the association’s Japan tour slips on temple steps and fractures her knee: surgery abroad, a medically escorted flight home, and a Medicare card that provides little to no coverage outside the US. Emergency medical and evacuation benefits are designed for exactly this traveler on exactly this trip.

The partnership that outgrew the tour catalog

A university’s travel office signs on, not just for the alumni catalog, but for everything that moves: only football and men’s basketball fly charter, while the volleyball team, the debate squad, the marching band, the study-abroad cohorts, and every alumni tour ride commercial itineraries through hub airports [ESPN, 2017]. One partnership puts a single protection page in front of all of it, and one sponsorship stream behind the scholarship fund.

The stakes on the tour roster

$6,995

where cabins start on a representative university alumni cruise, paid months ahead, exactly the prepaid stake protection was made for.

Villanova Alumni Travel, 2025

Hundreds

of US institutions run alumni travel programs today, nearly all with a giveback no one publicizes.

East-West News Service, 2024

what Medicare pays for hospital care outside the US, for the exact demographic on the tour roster.

Medicare.gov, 2026

~$7.25M

the average Big Ten athletic department’s yearly team-travel spend, nearly all of it, outside two sports, on commercial flights.

Sports Destination Management

Figures are risk context, not a description of coverage.

What happens when you sign up

Tell us about your association

The tour catalog, the membership, and the fund the sponsorship should feed. We respond within two business days.

Your page goes live beside the catalog

A co-branded page with your association’s name, mark, and fund, placed beside the tour listings and in the pre-trip communications the day you sign up.

III

Members protect the tours they already book

An honest price in minutes, for the association tour or their own travel, at the same price they would pay anywhere else. Where the travel office engages, the same page can serve teams, ensembles, and cohorts campus-wide.

The sponsorship creates dollars you can announce

We share up to 40% of what we collect with your association as a sponsorship, in plain dollars, a figure the advancement office can publish.

Where members would use it

The toursThe river cruise, the safari, the Mediterranean sailing with a professor aboard: land tours of 8–25, cruises up to 180 [published alumni-travel program FAQs].
ReunionsFlying back for the milestone weekend, and the fiftieth’s flight that cancels the morning of.
Their own tripsThe member’s anniversary trip, booked through the association’s page because it feeds the scholarship fund. Members who travel constantly can ask about annual plans: one decision that covers every trip of the year.
Campus-wideEvery commercially flown team, ensemble, and study-abroad cohort, and Greek chapters’ formal, retreat, and national-convention travel, funding the chapter without another car-wash fundraiser.

What could your sponsorship fund?

Your association names the priority. Member travel through your BonaVia path adds sponsorship credit toward it.

Alumni scholarships
The emergency student fund
First-generation student funds
Reunion programming
The library or athletics endowment line
The chapter’s philanthropy fund
The university’s scholarship fund

…or anything else your association cares about, you tell us who. A number the advancement office can publish, not a footnote in a vendor agreement.

Out on the road

The $7,000 river cruise cancelled ten weeks out by a spouse’s cardiac event.
The knee fractured on temple steps in Kyoto, and the medically escorted flight home.
The Medicare card that stayed home the moment the ship left US waters.
The volcanic ash cloud that stranded the Tuscany tour three extra days.
The checked bag that missed the safari charter in Nairobi.
The reunion flight cancelled the morning of the fiftieth.

Talk to a partnership director

Fifteen minutes, and you’ll know exactly what this looks like for your association, and what the magazine gets to announce next year.

Tell us about your organization and how your people travel. A partnership director reads every note and responds within two business days.

Or check a trip price first

Sponsorship terms