You probably chose your credit card, or cards, for its cash back or travel benefits. However, you might not know that your credit card offers you much more than these standard rewards.
Oftentimes, credit cards offer a slew of unknown and underutilized benefits. From purchase protection to free credit scores, you should understand how you can get the most out of your credit card.
Price Protection
Price protection is one of the most incredible yet underutilized benefits that most credit cards offer.
How does it work?
Price protection is essentially a price match guarantee. If you purchase an item from a store and find it for a better price within a certain timeframe, usually around 60 days, your credit card company might be willing to reimburse you for the difference in price. The amount that you can get reimbursed depends on your specific credit card provider. Citi, for example, offers up to $200 price protection per purchase up to $1,000 per year.
Price protection is an amazing benefit that can potentially save you a lot of money on larger purchases.
Extended Warranties
Warranties on expensive products, particularly electronics, can be incredibly useful. As products such as smartphones are often very pricey but very fragile, having a warranty can come in handy when accidents occur.
However, in some cases, you might find that your warranty expired shortly before your product broke. Fortunately, your credit card can likely help you in this situation.
Visa, MasterCard, Discovery, and AmEx all offer their customers extended warranties for any items purchased with their credit cards.
To find out what exactly your extended warranty covers, you need to contact your credit card provider. However, typically, extended warranties last up to a year and cover up to $10,000 in repairs and replacements.
Next time you purchase a smartphone or an expensive laptop, do yourself a favor and put it on your credit card. Hopefully, you won’t need the extra protection, but you know what they say — better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.
Rental Car Insurance
If you’re a frequent traveler, you’re likely familiar with costly rental car expenses. Generally, rates seem low at first; however, once they add additional expenses, like insurance, those rates can skyrocket.
Fortunately, your credit card likely offers rental car insurance for free. In some cases, it might only offer the Collision Damage Waiver which typically requires a deductible. However, some cards offer primary rental coverage for free.
Check with your credit card company to see what type of rental car insurance it offers. If it offers primary rental coverage, simply file your claim through your credit card issuer if you happen to get in any accidents.
Free Credit Scores
Lastly, one of the greatest lesser known benefits offered by most credit cards is free, up-to-date FICO scores. Everyone knows how important it is to have good credit, so it can be very helpful to be able to view yours anytime you need to at no charge.
The great thing about this benefit, in particular, is that you don’t have to do anything at all. If your card offers free FICO scores, all y0u need to do to see yours is open up your credit card app or log in on the web. While everyone is entitled to one free credit check per year, it is exceptionally useful to check your credit score as you need to.
Cash back, hotel rewards, and airline miles are great. In fact, these factors are the main reasons that anyone gets a credit card in the first place. However, in order to get the most out of your card, you should be sure to find out all of the hidden benefits that your card issuer offers.
