I’m sitting here on a Friday night, working on our budget and playing a mean game of rope with Arnold the Frenchie.
As I sit here, I have the strongest urge to call my credit card company and ask them about the benefits for our several credit cards.
Ok, that last part was a lie. I despise calling the credit card company.
Every phone call takes over an hour and involves me donating blood, stem cells, and answering questions about myself that I didn’t even know existed.
Unfortunately, our credit cards have some awesome benefits above and beyond allowing us to charge our lives away.
Examples of Good Credit Card Benefits I Didn’t Know About
Wells Fargo Propel
For example, our Wells Fargo Propel card gives us protection for our cell phones if we pay our phone bill with the card monthly. Yep, no more Applecare for us. We get reimbursement for a broken or damaged phone.
Assuming you pay your cell phone bill with this or another Wells Fargo card, you’ll be covered up to $600 if your phone is damaged or stolen, up to the value of the phone (minus a $25 deductible).
Since most phones cost upwards of $500-$700, this can save you some serious heartache.
Chase Sapphire Preferred
Another example is the Chase Sapphire Preferred card which offers the following five benefits above and beyond the travel points:
- Primary car rental insurance. This covers the entire loss, damage or theft of your car rental without reporting it to your insurance company, a benefit that can save you big time in the long term.
- Lack of foreign transaction fees on the card. While these appear to be gradually on their way out, the Sapphire Preferred has always waived them, a benefit that’ll typically save you 2.7%-3% on every purchase abroad.
- Trip delay insurance up to $500 per ticket. If your flight, train, or other common carrier is delayed more than 12 hours or you require an overnight stay as a result of a delay, you’re covered for unreimbursed expenses such as meals and lodging.
- Trip cancellation/trip interruption insurance up to $10,000 per trip for pre-paid, nonrefundable travel expenses such as plane tickets, hotels or tours if your trip is cut short or interrupted by sickness, severe weather or other covered situations.
- Baggage delay insurance of $100 per day for up to 5 days. If your checked baggage is delayed by more than 6 hours, you can be reimbursed for essential purchases like toiletries and clothing.
Those perks are awesome to know about, but I wouldn’t know about them unless I read the fine print on the card information sent to me in the mail. Who wants to do that? I’ve got Netflix to binge and dogs to let chew on me.
If only someone invented an app to tell you ALL the benefits you receive with your current cards.
Ask and you shall receive. SIFT has arrived.
What Sift Is
Like other apps that monitor your online orders and file claims on your behalf when they spot a price reduction, newly developed Sift also keeps an eye on price changes. This comes into play on large and small purchases. I recently saved about $20 on a pair of sunglasses when the price dropped for Memorial Day weekend. That’s free money to me.
How Sift Helps You Save
Credit card rewards and benefits are “like an iceberg,” Sift co-founder Abhinav Dubey said.
Rewards, like miles and points, are above the surface, often enticing us to sign up for a particular credit card. “People are aware of the benefits right under the surface, like price protection, but not about the benefits they’d use less frequently, like warranties, extended return windows, or reimbursement for flight delays or bag delays.”
When you add a payment method to the Sift app (available for Apple and Android), the app scans for recent purchases and places them into categories for shopping or travel.
After that, you can easily see what benefits are available on each of those purchases.
You can also view benefits by card by scrolling through any credit cards you’ve added to the app.
Sift lists benefits available from a variety of major credit card issuers including Chase, Amex, and Citi.
How It Works
By tapping each of those protections, I can see how much coverage I’m entitled to and under what circumstances. If I have a problem during my trip, I can use the Sift app to find the right phone number or website to use to file a claim.
All you have to do is tap the item where a price change has been detected, and Sift will file a claim on your behalf.
Not all cards and stores are connected to Sift and offer automatic, interaction-free claims, but as the company grows, it is adding to this feature.
Sift also recently launched price protection support for offline purchases. Scan the bar code of your item and the receipt, and Sift will track price changes for the same item online. I spent more time doing this than I like to admit. My wife thinks I’m nuts and she’s probably not wrong
Try Sift. Let the benefits come to you. You’ll thank me next time your flight is canceled or your bags are lost and you can sit back and relax.
Stay Rational
-B&T