If you’re an American Express cardholder, you’ve likely been following along closely to all of the upcoming changes, especially if you are an SPG or Marriott member. Amidst new changes, American Express recently sent a notice with your most recent billing statement about a couple of positive upgrades the company is making to two of its policies: enhanced purchases protection and the extended warranty.
If you’re not an Amex member, now might be the time to sign up. These additional protections go into effect later this summer.
Enhanced Purchase Protection – Extended Up to 120 Days
Starting August 1, American Express cardholders can expect to benefit from an additional month of enhanced purchase protection. The current policy covers a 90-day window of purchase protection on recent items, so this will be increasing to 120 days, providing more peace of mind in case purchases are damaged or stolen during that time.
Most American Express cards providing a monetary amount of up to $1,000 per claim (up to $50,000 per year).
Extended Warranty Policy – Now 2 Years
Also starting August 1, the American Express extended warranty policy is extending even further. Not only will the company match the length of your manufacturer warranty (120-day warranty will extend to a 240-day warranty), American Express will also add 2 years to any manufacturer warranty that is less than 5 years and over 2 years.
Currently, the maximum warranty coverage is one year, so cardholders should certainly be pleased with the increase in warranty coverage of an additional year for a total warranty protection of 2 years.
Monetarily, you can expect up to $10,000 to cover a claim, with a maximum coverage of $50,000 annually. The time to file a claim is also increasing from 3 months to 4 months, so you’ll have additional time to file claims for recent and not-so-recent purchases, starting on August 1.
Chase Removes Protections
All of this is welcome news as some card companies are removing or limit existing benefits. Chase, for instance, just announced to cardholders that it will be completely removing both price protection and purchase protection from all of its cards. Let’s hope other issuers follow Amex’s lead instead of Chase’s.
Bottom Line
In a market where most credit cards are downgrading benefits to stay competitive, it is refreshing to see American Express put its customers first and enhance two benefits that provide additional safety and peace of mind.
American Express has a strong lineup when it comes to credit cards with benefits, and these new changes will help to solidify their excellent record of customer satisfaction.