So it’s Halloween, and a cunning elf breaks into your house and steals your Xbox One for his early Christmas gift. You are angry because you just bought it for yourself 3 days ago as your main entertainment through the end of the year. What do you do?
Well, you’d better have used your credit card to buy the Xbox One, because then you’d benefit from purchase protection.
Similar to reason #4, purchase protection allows you to get a refund for an item purchased with a credit card. If within 90 days of purchase, your item gets accidentally damaged or stolen, you can get a refund from the bank. In addition to return protection, purchase protection helps giving you peace of mind about your purchased items.
Notice that the time window for purchase protection is longer than that for return protection: 90 days versus 60 days. To clarify any confusion about these two benefits, you have 60 days from the purchase date to return a like new good for any reason, and another 30 days to get a refund for accidental damage or theft.
For this, American Express provides the most generous policy, with a coverage limit of $1,000 per item, while Discover, Visa, and Mastercard only cover up to $500 per item. Certain Amex-issued cards, particularly their Platinum cards and Delta Reserve card, also cover non-theft loss.
If your stuff gets stolen, you want to keep the police report to file with the claim.
And as usual, always keep the receipt!
-Richard (Hiep Tran)
Hiep's Finance 