The holiday shopping season is a time of increased spending, constantly changing prices, and rampant identity theft. That’s why you need to be prepared and protected against whatever comes your way.
Many top credit cards offer perks designed to help with the key challenges of holiday shopping. But since they’re not as flashy as cash back or travel rewards, they often go unnoticed. But if your cards offer any of the following five benefits, you should take advantage of them.
1. Fraud liability protection
Almost every card has this, but it’s worth mentioning simply because it’s so important. You shouldn’t have to pay for purchases you didn’t make, and fraud liability ensures you don’t have to.
All you have to do is call the issuer and report the fraudulent charges. It will remove them from your statement and issue you a new card with a new number. The catch is, you generally have to report the fraud within about 60 days. If you wait longer than that, the issuer could still charge you for the items.
2. Purchase protection
Purchase protection provides you with a refund or a replacement for an item that’s damaged or stolen within a certain amount of time — usually 90 to 120 days — from the purchase. You must have bought the item with the credit card that has the purchase protection to use this feature.
This benefit isn’t as common as fraud liability protection, but plenty of cards still offer it. Check the cardholder agreement for each of your cards to see if any include purchase protection. If not, consider adding this card to your wallet to ensure your holiday purchases are protected until the time they reach your guests.
3. Extended warranty protection
This essentially adds time onto a product’s existing warranty, generally up to one year. However, exact rules vary by card and by item. Some items, like computers and vehicles, usually aren’t covered, nor are items that never had a warranty to begin with or items purchased with a different card.
To take advantage of this benefit, you need to hold onto the receipt proving when you made your purchase with your card. This type of protection often goes hand in hand with purchase protection and you’ll find that cards that offer one often have the other.
4. Price protection
Price protection reimburses you for the difference if you later find an item available for cheaper than what you actually paid for it. For example, if you paid $20 for an item and it later drops to $15, your credit card issuer would reimburse you for the $5. The catch is this doesn’t happen automatically. You have to continue to track prices and notify the issuer if you find the item available cheaper after you bought it. There are also exclusions for certain items, like items sold on auction sites.
For some, this might not be worth the hassle. But since you spend a lot of time shopping during the holiday season, it’s possible that you could run into the same item priced cheaper later on. Here’s a card that offers price protection plus a host of other valuable rewards.
5. Return protection
Return protection lets you get reimbursed for an item the retailer won’t let you return. Stores usually have more generous return policies around the holidays, but this could still come in handy if you buy an item that’s final sale or you shop at a really stingy retailer.
To be eligible to use this benefit, you must purchase the item using the credit card, keep your receipt, and prove that the retailer won’t let you return, exchange, or receive a store credit for the item.
You probably won’t find a card that offers all of these benefits, so you might have to prioritize which are most valuable to you. For example, price protection may not matter to you as much if you don’t want to continue to track prices after you’ve purchased your items. But purchase protection could be really important if you’re worried your gifts could get damaged or stolen before they reach their recipient. Once you know which perks matter most to you, use cards that offer those protections for the bulk of your purchases.
