Anyone know if the CC has to remain open for the coverage to maintain? Suppose I signed up for the Chase Reserve premium card, made a purchase, and cancelled the card after one year to avoid the annual fee. Then months later, the item breaks. Would Chase still cover it, or does the card need to remain open? Also wonder if it makes a difference if I have other Chase cards, so it’s not like I’m a stranger with no account calling in.
If coverage is limited to CC account opening lifespan, then it might be prudent to specifically use cards you don’t plan on closing.
@TripleB
That’s an excellent question. I’ve wondered that too. I also wonder whether doing a PC on a card would affect the continuation of the extended warranty benefit.
The Guide to Benefits for most cards should, I think, have the answer to this. Most that I’ve read talk about the benefits being only for cardholders. But if the extended warranty started while you were a cardholder, does it evaporate if you close the card? I guess I’m not good enough at deciphering legalese to figure this out. And I wonder whether the answer might vary from one issuer to another.
I believe Amex is the outlier with them only requiring that you remain a member - meaning, you need to maintain at least 1 amex centurion bank card throughout.
With Citi, you can mix gift cards and your CC. However, you are limited then to the amount charged to your card for the warranty protection.
Get an extra 24 months added to your warranty when you purchase items at least in part with your Citi card and/or ThankYou® Points. If your eligible item breaks, we’ll repair, reimburse or replace it**, up to the amount charged on your Citi card** and/or ThankYou® Points or up to $10,000 per item, whichever is less.
Working through my first citi warranty claim now. My garmin watch had its band break at ~20 months (12 month mfr warranty). I dumbly opened the claim over the phone rather than starting with the form submitted through email, but maybe would have went through the same run-around initiating through email. The person who opened the claim initially denied it and didn’t allow me to provide any documentation, said I had to wait for adjuster to review her decision and receive a letter if denied or receive an email asking for docs if she was overruled by the adjuster. Was only asking to cover replacement cost of the band ($40) and self-install/repair. She said “we would only cover if the electronics stopped working.”
Received the letter now two weeks later, citing “wear and tear is not covered” in bold and then quoting the relevant section from the terms “Coverage doesn’t apply if the item has [longer sentence with defects/recalls,etc], or experiences normal wear and tear where no failure has occurred.” They conveniently ignored the last five words. Clearly wear and tear is not excluded where a failure has occured.
Called back in calling attention to those words and got claim re-opened for review and have now submitted documents.
Since the first person directed me to take it for a repair estimate “at one of those kiosks or something” rather than obtaining a website advertisement for just the failed part and because I am annoyed now, I submitted an actual repair estimate directly from Garmin, $120 (it’s a flat rate for any issue, but specifically has “broken band” selected). Will update with how things turn out.
Since I originally researched that, these are the terms from Citi benefits:
“The coverage period of the services described in this Guide will be
cancelled on the date your charging privileges on your card have in
any way been suspended, or if your account is suspended, or if for
any reason your account has been closed. If your account is closed,
or you default under your Cardmember Agreement, your eligibility
to receive the services described in this Guide will immediately be
cancelled.”
Pretty explicitly, the second your account is closed for any reason, you are no longer entitled to any benefits. In the same way you usually forfeit points left in reward programs, etc… when a card is closed.
There are exceptions. When they sell/transfer accounts (like Hilton cards were sold to Amex earlier this year), the terms specifically said that all benefits remained valid for purchases before the account closure date. Similar verbiage shows up when they convert cards, even though the old account may show as “closed”.
I think this may be the case when the conversion is on their end or if you downgrade/upgrade to another card with identical benefits. It’d make sense to not punish customer when they do a conversion.
But in case you simply close the account, the terms are pretty specific so to TripleB’s question, yes you may not want to use cards that you don’t plan on keeping open (say those you do to churn signup bonuses only) for your purchases on which you want the extended warranty. Especially since you don’t know ahead of time if you do a conversion whether they’ll allow you to preserve those benefits.
Believe Amex is an exception too. Last I checked, they care about the relationship, not the specific card being open. So if you had a Green, got a Plat, then closed the Green, items purchased on the Green is still covered because your relationship with Amex is intact.