A reader writes in with what could be a very interesting tip: they recently opened the Air France KLM World Elite Mastercard and found an interesting detail in the account terms: according to the paper terms, this card has 24 month extended warranty coverage that doubles the original warranty up to 24 months — or even adds 24 months on top of an extended warranty — and price protection. Note that the Guide to Benefits says that it is effective October 1, 2019 so there is some chance that they have changed benefits and not updated the paper copy, but since this is what they’ve sent to a new cardholder I think it is reasonable for that cardholder to expect these terms to apply.
The reader who reached out with this tip provided a full scan of the card’s guide to benefits. The relevant sections about extended warranty and price protection are seen below:
It is a little tough to read, but here are the highlights for each key benefit.
Extended Warranty: Up to 24 months
The terms indicate that Extended Warranty doubles the original manufactuer warranty up to a maximum of 24 months in most items you purchase. Interestingly, it says that products with multiple warranty components with separate warranty periods will have each warranty time period doubled up to 24 months.
More interestingly yet, it says that if you purchase a service contract or optional extended warranty of 24 months or less on your item, the card will cover an additional 24 months after both the original manufacturer’s warranty and the purchased service contract or extended warranty period ends. You won’t get any coverage if the extended warranty exceeds 24 months, but it sounds like if you buy a product that has a 24-month warranty and you buy an 18-month extended warranty (as an example), you’ll still get an additional 24 months beyond the end of the extended warranty. That’s pretty amazing if true.
You obviously need to purchase the new item entirely with your covered card and there are limitations / exclusions. See the fine print for details, but this seems like great coverage.
Price protection
According to the terms, the included price protection coverage covers you for 120 days from the date of purchase up to $250 per claim and up to 4 claims in a 12-month period. As is typically the case with price protection, they require either a printed advertisement or non-auction internet advertisement and item and model number need to match and there are exclusions like motorized vehicles, customized items, jewelry, art, etc. See the fine print for full details, but this looks like the kind of standard price protection we used to see on many cards.
What makes this special is the end of that last paragraph: we used to see price protection on many rewards credit cards, but it has been dropped from the vast majority of cards over the past couple of years. If the Air France KLM World Elite Mastercard truly still carries price protection, it would make this a great card to have when holiday sales roll around.
Bottom line
An eagle-eyed reader noticed that the Air France KLM World Elite Mastercard looks like it comes with excellent extended warranty and price protection coverage. These benefits could certainly make the card more valuable. Note that the terms are dated current as of almost two years ago, so there is a chance that they have changed and they just sent out an old paper copy, but if they sent me that copy I would certainly push for the benefits. If they are correct, you may not have to push at all. For more information on the card, see our Air France KLM World Elite Mastercard page.
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FYI, just got something in the mail saying the price protection benefit on this card will end on October 1, 2022.
I’d be very interested to hear from anybody that can corroborate this. After wasting about an hour speaking with two different Bank of America reps, two different World Elite Mastercard reps (Concierge and MC Assist), and one third-party benefits administrator, I got absolutely zero indication that this is a live benefit. I finally gave up when the 2nd BoA rep started searching the internet for random Guides to Benefits documents… Even if this benefit carried over from back in 2019 (questionable, as it was axed from pretty much every other card issuer), the incompetence I encountered from the CSRs in what should have been a simple question makes me think that actually taking advantage of the benefit would be an absolute nightmare.
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The fact this earns 1.5 miles per dollar with no foreign transaction fee, with a bonus that basically offsets the annual fee made this stand out to me as a non-bonus international keeper card, with domestic black Friday shopping a great bonus.
The warranty extension is similar to if not identical to the Citicatd extended warranty.
Exactly, does not look special. Citi adds 24 months to any combination of original and extended warranty if it’s 5 years or less total. Price protection on the same card is really nice though.