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« Kudos to Discount Tire | Main | Star Money Articles and Carnivals for the Week of July 25 »

July 28, 2011

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Does your membership with AAA cover the cost of towing your car? It sounds like the roadside assistance offered by the credit card is just a pre-negotiated rate and the charges would be applied to your card. How is this necessarily better than calling a tow company yourself?

I have used the price protection option before and it was pretty cool! I did have to talk on the phone for about 20 minutes and scan a few documents/receipts to the case worker – however they promptly issued the refund. I have also used the extended protection feature before and it was a similar process – well worth it.

Jenny – I have AAA membership and it covers the full cost of the tow (up to 100 miles). If you have AAA PLEASE consider pay the extra $20-40 a year to get the extended towing covered (I think the basic version is only for about 5 miles of free towing).
****NOTE: hey fellow FMF readers!!! Notice FMF has a search bar on the top left hand side of the screen now. I have been using it to explore the archives (especially the reader profiles) – pretty cool!!****

Have a great night everyone,

Amex has most of these benefits, which I used as follows: I used the purchase protection once when I cut a power cord on speakers when unwrapping the packaging. Amex credited my account within 3 days of faxing a copy of the receipt. I used the extended warranty twice, one time for an internal hard drive in a 6-month-out-of-warranty Dell computer. In that case I had to submit copies of (1) an email exchange with Dell that the hard drive was not covered any longer under the warranty as well as how much a replacement would cost and (2) a copy of the Dell warranty. My account was credited for the replacement cost within 7 days.

On the otherhand FIA (formerly Schwab) handled a purchase protection claim poorly. The object was an external USB 3 Seagate drive I unfortunately dropped on the floor 30 days into my purchase. FIA had me jump through hoops. They wanted copies of the invoice, emails from Seagate stating the damage was not covered under their warranty (duh!), a copy of a repair estimate/statement of non-repairability from local repair facility, as well as a copy of my homeowners insurance policy and insurance agent's contact info. The entire process took over 3 months because they requested the information sequentially and did not give me complete information about their policies. I was reimbursed a lower amount than I paid because of a price drop during the months of dealing with FIA.

That was my first claim with FIA. It will be my last, as I've switched all major purchase back to my Amex card. My time is worth more than the lost 1% cash rebate.

Has anyone else experienced problems collecting from FIA?

It looks like most of the coverage is from Mastercard. I've used the extended warranty thing once before as well. People are down on credit cards but I love them for the protection they provide, especially with large purchases. The "better"n your card is Gold vs Platinum, etc. the better your benefits.

KaseyD --

I have that card but have never tried to collect from FIA.

Nate --

Ha!

FYI, everyone, Nate suggested the new search bar so you can thank or blame him depending on what you think of it. :-)

And for those of you who want to read past posts, another way is to check out my archives. It lists posts both by month as well as by category (need to scroll down for the latter) here:

http://www.freemoneyfinance.com/archives.html

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