Credit Card Price Protection

What is Price Protection on a Credit Card

The credit card has become the most important commodity in this world. Almost everyone knows about the credit card. We can use these credit cards for both offline and online purchases. Thus, most of the people preferred it over cash. There are many advantages to using a credit card. Some of these benefits include sign-up bonus, rewards and cashback offers.

One of the less known credit card benefit is the credit card price protection. You can save a lot of your money by using this feature. Sometimes the price of your recently bought item goes down because of various reasons. In such cases, you can use the credit card price protection.

You can receive this benefit even if the price of a product drops in other merchant stores. For example, you bought a mobile from Amazon for $700. After some days, you saw that the same phone was selling on Alibaba for $500. You could claim this $200 price drop by contacting your credit card issuer.

Price protection is a useful feature which you can use to save thousands of dollars. But, some credit card issuers don’t provide this benefit. Thus, you first need to verify with your credit card issuer about this benefit.

How to Apply For Credit Card Price Protection

There are certain rules which you have to follow before filling your claim form. You can file your claim within a time frame. This time frame varies from 30 to 100 days. There is also a limit on how much money you can claim every year. This is to make sure that no one is misusing the price policy.

The credit card issuers excluded many items from this protection.For example jewelry, collectibles, tickets, vehicles, antiques, animals and plants are not for the price protection. The price of such items varies from merchant to merchant. If the seller discontinued an item or the business is shutting down, then you can’t claim price protection on such items.

All you need to get your money is to submit the required documents to your credit card issuers. If you are using a Citi credit card, then you don’t even need to check the product prices. After buying your item, you can register it on www.citipricerewind.com. They will keep track of the price of that product for you. Upload your original receipt and enter the purchase amount. If there is any drop in the product's price, then Citi will automatically refund your money. You don’t even need to submit your application.

Are Credit Card Issuers Removing Price Protection?

Many credit issuers have removed the credit card price protection benefits. Thus, card holders can no longer use this feature. Citi and Chase have recently announced that they will remove or reduce the credit card price protection from their cards. Chase has already removed this feature from their different credit cards. Citi has also reduced the amount of money you can claim from the price protection program. Citi has set the current limit at $1000/year and $200/transaction. American Express and Visa have completely removed this feature from their credit cards.

But still many credit card issuers offer price protection. If you’re applying for a new credit card, then make sure you are getting price protection. Many issuers like Citi, Discover, Chase, Capital One, Barclays, Wells Fargo, and US Bank are still offering amount of price protection on every transaction. You can check the official website of your issuer to know more about their price protection policy. If you can’t find the required information on their website, then you can directly call their customer care.

How to Save Your Money Without Using Credit Card Protection

Most users don’t take advantage of price protection for its difficult process. You need to monitor the price of the produce you bought. After that, you need to fill the claim form with your issuer. If your issuer has stopped providing this benefit, then you can take advantage of other benefits. There are many other perks like a sign-up bonus and cashback offers provided by your issuer. You can use these perks to maximize your credit card benefits.

You can use various online tools to get discounts on your online purchases. If you are shopping offline, then make sure you are purchasing goods on some sales. For example, you should buy big goods in sales like Black Friday. Thus, you will get your product at the lowest price possible.

Many merchants also offer price adjustments to their customers. But, the time for this change is tiny. All you need to do is show your receipt to the merchant and file your claim. They’ll either you give reward points which you can use or directly refund the price difference.

It is difficult to monitor the price drop regularly. Thus, it is better to use price tracker extensions or apps. These apps will send you notifications if there is any price reduction. You can also use these apps to find which merchant is selling the product at the lowest price. This app is helpful when you are about to buy large goods like a laptop or television. Also, don’t throw your receipts in the garbage. You can’t claim your money without these receipts. It is important to keep a copy of the bill until the claim period gets expired.

Every credit card issuer is updating their policies regularly. They are adding new reward programs to lure in more customers. Hence, you must keep an eye on every credit card reward program.