What is the best credit card to use for a large purchase? Often, the answer is driven by which card offers the best rewards for your spend. The biggest bang for your buck usually comes from using the purchase to meet the spending requirement for a big new welcome bonus. Alternatively, you can look for a card that offers the best category bonus. Different cards are most rewarding for different types of spend. If that’s what you’re after, see this post for details: Best Category Bonuses: Which card to use where?
Another way to approach the “what’s the best card” question is to identify the card that offers the best purchase protection. If something goes wrong after purchase, which card has your back? Which cards offer extended warranty, purchase security, return protection, and price protection? This post aims to answer that question.
Overview
There are four types of purchase protection that are, or used to be, commonly offered by credit cards:
Extended Warranty
When you buy an item that offers a manufacturer’s warranty, a credit card’s extended warranty will extend that coverage. Typically, whatever is covered under the original warranty is also covered under the extended warranty.
Purchase Security
One type of purchase protection is referred to either as “purchase security” or “purchase protection.” Generally, this means that you are covered if your new item is damaged or stolen. Some cards also cover simply losing the item. Coverage typically lasts 90 or 120 days. This is usually secondary insurance. That is, if you have some type of insurance that covers the loss (home insurance, car insurance, etc.), then you must submit a claim to that insurance first. The credit card insurance will then cover up to the balance not paid by your primary insurer.
Return Protection
If you buy an item, change your mind, and the seller refuses to take it back, you can file a return protection claim. As you’ll see in the charts below, return protection is less common than purchase security or extended warranties.
Price Protection
If you buy an item and the price drops shortly afterwards, price protection can help you get the difference back. Unfortunately, very few credit cards offer price protection.
Purchase Protections by Card
In each table below, the hyperlinks will take you to the relevant benefits guides where the information shown here was sourced. I highly recommend checking the guides for additional restrictions not posted here. If the card you’re interested in isn’t listed below, this post will help you find the relevant benefit guide: How to find credit card Benefit Guides online.
American Express
| American Express | Extended Warranty | Purchase Security | Return Protection | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Extension | Max Claim | What’s Covered | Max Claim | Days from Purchase | Days from Purchase | Max Claim | |
| Platinum (consumer & business), Delta Reserve (consumer & business), Hilton Aspire, Bonvoy Brilliant | 12 Months | $10K | Damage, loss, or theft | $10K | 90 | 90 | $300 |
| Bonvoy Bevy | 12 Months | $10K | Damage, loss, or theft | $10K | 90 | N/A | |
| Amazon Business, Amazon Business Prime, Blue Cash Preferred, EveryDay Preferred, The Plum Card | 12 Months | $10K | Damage or theft | $1K | 90 | 90 | $300 |
| Other Amex credit and charge cards | 12 Months | $10K | Damage or theft | $1K | 90 | N/A | |
Capital One
With Capital One, purchase protections are determined by the card’s payment network (e.g., Visa Signature, World Mastercard). Additionally, Capital One doesn’t guarantee that a particular card will be with a particular payment network. For example, it is possible to have either a Visa or a Mastercard version of the Venture Rewards card. So, the best way to use this table is to look at your Capital One card to see which network it uses, then find the appropriate row of the table:
| Capital One | Extended Warranty | Purchase Security | Return Protection | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Extension | Max Claim | What’s Covered | Max Claim | Days from Purchase | Days from Purchase | Max Claim | |
| Visa Signature (e.g. Venture Rewards) | Double, up to 12 Months | $10K | Damage or theft | $500 | 90 | N/A | |
| Visa Signature Business, Enhanced Visa Signature Business | Double, up to 12 Months | $10K | Damage or theft | $10K | 90 | N/A | |
| Price Protection: | 60 Days, $500 Max Per Claim | ||||||
| Visa Infinite (e.g. Venture X) | 12 Months | $10K | Damage or theft | $10K | 90 | 90 | $300 |
| Visa Infinite Business (e.g. Venture X Business) | 12 Months | $10K | Damage or theft | $10K | 90 | N/A | |
| Price Protection: | 60 Days, $500 Max Per Claim | ||||||
| World Mastercard | N/A | ||||||
| Mastercard Business | Double, up to 12 Months | $10K | Damage or theft | $10K | 90 | N/A | |
| World Elite Mastercard | Double, up to 24 Months | $10K | Damage or theft | $1K | 90 | N/A | |
| Price Protection: | 120 Days, $250 Max Per Claim | ||||||
Chase
| Chase | Extended Warranty | Purchase Security | Return Protection | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Extension | Max Claim | What’s Covered | Max Claim | Days from Purchase | Days from Purchase | Max Claim | |
| Ritz-Carlton, Sapphire Reserve | 12 Months | $10K | Damage, loss, or theft | $10K | 1201 | 90 | $500 |
| Chase Business Cards (Ink, IHG, Southwest®, United, etc. | 12 Months | $10K | Damage, loss, or theft | $10K | 1201 | N/A | |
| Chase consumer cards not listed above (Sapphire Preferred, Freedom, Bonvoy, IHG, Hyatt, etc.) | 12 Months | $10K | Damage, loss, or theft | $500 | 1201 | N/A | |
1) 90 days for New York residents
Citi
| Citi | Extended Warranty | Purchase Security | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Extension | Max Claim | What’s Covered | Max Claim | Days from Purchase | |
| Strata Elite | Double, up to 24 months | $10K | Damage or theft | $10K | 1202 |
| Strata Premier | 24 months | $10K | Damage or theft | $10K | 90 |
| Strata, Custom Cash, AA MileUp | 24 months | $10K | Damage or theft | $1K | 90 |
| Double Cash | Double, up to 24 months | $10K | N/A | ||
| AAdvantage Business | N/A | N/A | |||
1) 90 days for New York residents
Wells Fargo
| Other Popular Cards | Extended Warranty | Purchase Security | Return Protection | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Extension | Max Claim | What’s Covered | Max Claim | Days from Purchase | Days from Purchase | Max Claim | |
| Wells Fargo Active Cash | N/A | ||||||
| Wells Fargo Attune | N/A | ||||||
| Wells Fargo Autograph Journey | N/A | ||||||
| Wells Fargo Autograph | N/A | ||||||
| Wells Fargo Visa Signature | 12 Months | $10K | Damage or theft | $500 | 90 | N/A | |
| Price Protection: | 60 Days, $250 Max Per Claim | ||||||
Other Popular Cards
| Other Popular Cards | Extended Warranty | Purchase Security | Return Protection | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Extension | Max Claim | What’s Covered | Max Claim | Days from Purchase | Days from Purchase | Max Claim | |
| Bilt Blue | N/A | ||||||
| Bilt Obsidian | Double, Up to 24 Months | $10K | Damage or theft | $1K | 90 | N/A | |
| Bilt Palladium | Double, Up to 24 Months | $10K | Damage or theft | $1K | 90 | N/A | |
| Price Protection: | 90 Days, $250 Max Per Claim | ||||||
| BOA Atmos Rewards Summit Visa Infinite | 12 Months | $10K | Damage or theft | $10K | 90 | 90 | $300 |
| BOA Premier Rewards Elite | 12 Months | $10K | Damage or theft | $10K | 90 | 90 | $300 |
| US Bank Altitude Reserve | 12 Months | $10K | Damage or theft | $10K | 90 | 90 | $300 |
| US Bank Altitude Connect | N/A | ||||||
Conclusion
If you’re about to buy something expensive, it’s worth checking whether you have a credit card that can help protect the purchase. The tough part is figuring out what type of protection you value the most, since different cards have different strengths. The best card depends on which type of purchase protection you want:
Extended warranty
If you value extended warranties most, pay with a card that offers a fixed 24-month extension. Or, if the manufacturer’s warranty is at least 24 months, pay with a card that doubles the warranty up to 24 months…
24-month extended warranty
The following popular cards offer a fixed 24-month warranty extension:
- Citi Strata℠ Card
- Citi Strata Premier℠ Card
- Citi Custom Cash® Card
- American Airlines AAdvantage® MileUp® Mastercard
Note: I’m sure there are other Citi cards with this feature, but Citi doesn’t provide a way to access benefit guides unless you have the card in question.
Double warranty, up to 24 months
The following popular cards double the manufacturer’s warranty, up to 24 months:
- Capital One World Elite Mastercards
- Citi Strata Elite℠ Card
- Citi Double Cash® Card
- Bilt Obsidian Card
- Bilt Palladium Card
Purchase security
The best cards for purchase security cover not just damage & theft, but also accidental loss. Additionally, look for cards that offer up to $10K of coverage per item, and 120 days of coverage rather than 90.
The following popular cards offer all three (accidental loss, $10K coverage, 120 days):
- Chase Sapphire Reserve® Card
- The Ritz-Carlton™ Credit Card
- Most Chase Business cards:
- All Chase Ink Cards
- Sapphire Reserve for Business℠ Card
- Southwest business cards
- United business card
- Etc.
Return protection
The cards that offer the best return protection provide up to $500 per claim, compared with $300 for most other cards:
Price protection
If you think there’s a good chance that the price of the item will soon drop, pay with one of the few cards that offer price protection. Unfortunately, cards that offer price protection don’t offer return protection. Here are the cards that offer price protection:
- Capital One cards on the following payment networks:
- World Elite Mastercard
- Visa Signature Business
- Enhanced Visa Signature Business
- Visa Infinite Business
- Wells Fargo Visa Signature Card
- Bilt Palladium Card
Customer service
Amex cards didn’t make any of the lists above for having the best individual coverage, but there is another factor worth considering. Some people have reported excellent customer service when filing claims with Amex. That’s not something you hear often about other issuers. A number of Amex cards offer strong purchase protections: 12-month extended warranty, 90-day purchase security, including accidental loss coverage, and 90-day return protection:
- American Express Platinum Card® (including alternate versions of this card)
- The Business Platinum Card® from American Express
- Delta SkyMiles® Reserve American Express Card
- Delta SkyMiles® Reserve Business American Express Card
- Hilton Honors American Express Aspire Card
- Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant® American Express® Card
Best overall?
It’s impossible to pick a single card that offers the best overall coverage. No card in this list offers both return protection and price protection, so it’s always necessary to pick one or the other. Also, the cards that offer the best purchase security against damage, loss, or theft don’t offer the best extended warranty. And none of the Amex cards in the list offer the best coverage in any one category. So, decide which factors are most important to you, then browse the tables above to find the best card for your needs.
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Another card for the “other” section:
The Robinhood gold card offers Visa Signature benefits. See the “Are there any VISA benefits with the Gold Card?” Section on this page: https://robinhood.com/us/en/support/articles/robinhood-gold-card-faq/
Interesting timing. I have always used my Amex Plat to purchase clothing/shoes marked “final sale, no return” on the retail site, and I’ve always gotten reimbursement for items I didn’t want to keep. Recently, however, my claim for a pair of shoes from Banana Republic was denied since the store showed the items were marked “final sale/no return” when purchased. Wondering if anyone else has recent data points?
That’s concerning. That’s a reason I use that card when items are listed as final sale.
Did you call AMEX about this?
Yes. I had a conversation with the rep when I filed a claim (I had purchased two items–both on final sale–and only wanted to return one, so I couldn’t figure out how to file a claim online.) Amex’s response was mailed to me and included copies of what BR had obviously mailed to them showing the items were listed as final sale. And the reason for the denial was listed as final sale. First time that ever happened to me…
I meant did you call them after you got the denial?
No, this has never happened to me.
No, I didn’t call. I was out of town for a month after I made the claim, so I figured it was a done deal by the time I read the letter. Maybe I should have….
Nice roundup, thanks
Well done. I’ve had excellent results with AMEX on warranty extensions. Basically provided the documentation and they acted quickly. Haven’t tried Chase because I almost always use AMEX for purchases that might require the protection.
The old Citi Prestige had price protection and I used it quite a bit until they yanked it. I no longer have that card.
Excellent article, and reminds me of something I don’t see being discussed anywhere: on this whole AA cards migration from Barclays Red Aviator to Citi Platinum, important protections will be lost.
What market leading benefits does barclays have?
Obviously it will depend on the benefit but I care mainly about (1) extended warranty and (2) travel delay, and Barclays isn’t market leading on either. Citi is at least market-leadng for extended warranty for some of their cards.
Great post! Thanks for the refresh.
What about price protection?
The community thanks you . . . yet again.
I’m quite surprised at Wells Fargo’s poor coverage.
I’m also quite disappointed at Bilt’s poor coverage as well as poor travel protections.
This will influence my choice of card for strategic purchases. Thanks again.
Great post!
All of which is kind of beside the point in a world where most of what we trade ia not goods, but services. What we all experience is a case where we rely on our card to reverse a charge and fight our corner for a service not delivered. So much depends on the card issuer at that point, and there is so little research by online points and miles sites as to which card issuers are actually worth a damn.
What’s the best card to cover you from porch pirates, without involving your homeowoners insurance (which would not make sense for what would generally be a small purchase)?
Great reminder Greg
Thanks for the updated post!
It would be great if this post had a refresh! FM is always my go-to, so it’s a shame this is a bit outdated.
came here looking for latest on this as I have a large purchase in mind. Could this one be one of the posts that gets a 2025 refresh?
And came back here again!