American Express Removing Card Benefits, Adding Some Premium Benefits

Finance
#1

First Discover removed benefits, then Citi removed more this month.

Amex is removing or reducing the following benefits from most cards:

Return Protection: Removed as of 1/1/2020 for non-premium cards.
Extended Warranty: Two year matching is being reduced to 1 year warranty match.
Purchase Protection: Reduced from 120 days to 90 days as of 1/1/2020. Actual coverage varies by card.
Roadside Assistance (regular and premium): Removed as of 1/20/2020.
Travel Accident Insurance: Removed from all cards as of 1/20/2020.

Some premium cards will receive:
Trip delay insurance (begins 1/1/2020)
Trip cancellation and interruption insurance, excluding one way fares. (begins 1/1/2020)

The specific details vary by the type of Amex card. But in general the news isn’t good, except for a few high end travel benefits.

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#2
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#3

This is outrageous I tell you. Outrageous! :grinning:

You did not mention BofA taking away their Shopsafe virtual card number feature.

The credit card companies hate people like those on this board who never pay interest and screw them by getting multiple sign on bonuses. So I can’t say I will take my business elsewhere since I am making too much money off them.

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#4

I just found this out yesterday.

XM / Sirius has a problem with renewing at “rack rates” that nobody really pays, so not having a one-time use card number to give them has me thinking about canceling XM, rather than deal with their foolishness each year.

#5

You can cancel XM but like Omaha Steaks, they will never leave you alone.

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#6

Cannibal!

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#7

Using Bank of America Shopsafe to prevent additional charges by SiriusXM (or whoever) was always a bit risky anyway, as once in a while, Shopsafe would allow a transaction to go through on an expired number or in excess of the set limit.

A better option with Sirius is to just use your regular highest cashback earning card, and then go on their website after renewal (maybe wait a day) and change the card number, perhaps to an old Visa/MC gift card. It’s worthwhile keeping a gift card with a dollar on it.

An even better option with Sirius is to just not use it, except for free trials. Even their discounted $30/6 mo rates are high for what you get and they are such a pain to deal with at renewal or cancel time. I used to subscribe, but too much hassle. I listen to my own music and podcasts now; haven’t missed Sirius a bit. Even their once useful traffic has been whittled down to a few cities, and map routing software (e.g. waze) is far better.

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#8

It’s about time they add trip delay/cancel to their premium cards. They haven’t been competitive in this respect compared to Chase/Citi, although getting them to payout is always a pain.

As for the warranty, I’ve only used it for Apple products which are one year anyway. YMMV I guess.

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#9

So far, the quoted terms look much more restrictive than Chase for these.

On topic of paying travel benefits, Chase’s admin was extremely easy for a $280 rental car windshield replacement I just had.

The warranty cuts is pretty annoying. I had moved all my large purchases to Amex because Citi’s Virginia Surety makes up additional terms to not pay. Chase has better rewards and on paper at least the warranty looks the same as the new amex, so I might just move things to Chase 100% instead of 75%.

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#10

This same from Barclays Arrival.

Your Extended Warranty, Price Protection, Purchase Assurance, Satisfaction Guarantee and Trip Delay benefits will be removed; however, claims can be submitted for eligible purchases made through October 31, 2019 .

Adding some cell phone protection, changing some car rental aspects.

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#11

So the Apple warranty is 1 year, does AMEX extend it so the 2nd year is from AMEX going forward? I know that’s the way it used to be and I’ve used it before. Guess I won’t be using it on the Blue Card going forward since it’s being removed but I have the free Hilton card and appears to be staying there.

#12

That’s how I understand it. First year Apple, and second year Amex. My experience is only with the platinum products.

#13

Privacy.com lets you control this. Alternatively, you can use a prepaid card with a dollar balance. It’ll authorize to be added to the account, but wont have enough for the renewal.

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#14

I’ve mostly replaced sirius with CarPlay/Echo Auto in conjunction with tunein. As long as I have an internet connection, I can just listen to whatever speciality station I want.

#15

I’m generally a fan of the changes. With Citi getting rid of trip delay insurance, AMEX is filling that much needed benefit. And now with both Citi and AMEX offering 5x on air travel, AMEX is the clear winner.

Also, it looks like the corporate platinum gets the trip delay insurance as well, for some possible extra benefits ;). Maybe it’s time to hope for trip delays on business trips.

#16

What issues have you had with Citi not paying out? I have been moving my electronics purchases from AmEx to Citi because of Citi’s longer extended warranty.

#17

The big issue with Citibank on their travel insurance with them not paying out on delays that caused a misconnection when the first flight wasn’t 3 hrs delayed. I dunno about the warranties.