Everything you need to know about American Express purchase protection

Purchase protection

Purchase protection will reimburse you for theft, loss or accidental damage to eligible items that occurred within 90 days of purchase. To be eligible, all you have to do is charge a portion of your qualifying purchase to your American Express card — but you’ll only be reimbursed up to the amount charged to your card.

With most Amex cards, you’re covered for up to $1,000 per covered incident and up to $50,000 per year, but the reimbursement doesn’t include any shipping or handling expenses. However, certain premium cards cover your purchases for up to $10,000 per incident, with the same limit of up to $50,000 in total claims per calendar year.*

Cards with this higher level of coverage include:

As with any insurance policy, the devil is always in the details. In this case, you must purchase an item eligible for coverage, and the loss can’t be due to an excluded reason.

The information for the Centurion, Business Centurion and Hilton Aspire cards has been collected independently by The Points Guy. The card details on this page have not been reviewed or provided by the card issuer.

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*Eligibility and benefit levels vary by card. Terms, conditions and limitations apply. Visit americanexpress.com/benefitsguide for details. Policies are underwritten by AMEX Assurance Company.

What’s excluded?

The following are ineligible for coverage:

• Covered by an unconditional satisfaction guarantee
• Damage through altercation or modifications
• Animals or living plants
• One-of-a-kind items, such as art and antiques
• Consumable or perishable items such as perfume, light bulbs and batteries
• Negotiable instruments, including travelers’ checks and gift cards
• Items that are rented, leased or borrowed
• Motorized vehicles, parts and accessories (with limited exceptions)
• Anything purchased for resale or commercial use
• Permanent household fixtures
• Land or buildings
• More than one article in a pair or set
• Downloadable services
• Items voluntarily or involuntarily discarded
• Medical or dental equipment or devices
• Indirect or direct damage to any other item or property resulting from a covered event
• Items purchased for professional or commercial use, such as education, training or skills

Also excluded is loss or damage due to any of the following reasons:

• Riots
• Illegal activity
• War, acts of war or service in the military
• Normal wear and tear
• Damage through alteration
• Items not being safeguarded or left at an unlocked location
• Items seized by a government authority
• Items left in someone else’s control

Return protection

Purchase protection covers items you want to keep; return protection covers items you don’t want to keep when the store won’t accept a return.

Cards that offer this benefit include:

This benefit compensates cardmembers when a store will not accept an eligible item for return within 90 days of purchase. In these cases, Amex will refund the entire purchase price up to $300 per item, excluding shipping and handling charges.

This benefit is limited to $1,000 annually. To be eligible, you must pay for the entire cost of the item with your eligible American Express card, and purchases must be made in the U.S. or U.S. territories.^

^Eligibility and benefit levels vary by card. Terms, conditions and limitations apply. Visit americanexpress.com/benefitsguide for details.

What’s excluded?

The purchase must be made in the United States, the item must be in “like new” condition, and the merchant must have previously denied the return.

The following items are excluded from this policy:

• Animals and living plants
• Limited edition items
• One-of-a-kind items, such as antiques and artwork
• Going-out-of-business sale items
• Consumable or perishable items like food and batteries
• Jewelry and watches
• Services and additional costs, such as installation charges, warranties, shipping, handling and memberships
• Rare and precious coins
• Purchased used and/or altered items
• Custom-built items
• Compact discs, digital video discs, mini discs, audiotapes and videotapes
• Computer software
• Firmware, such as console games
• Maps
• Books, magazines or periodicals of any kind
• Health care items and/or medical equipment
• Personal hygiene items or any devices (medical or nonmedical) that have been personally used and could be considered a health risk to others
• Formalwear
• Tickets of any kind
• Motorized vehicles, their parts and accessories, as well as those parts and accessories intended for use with the motorized vehicles
• Land, buildings and fixtures
• Firearms and ammunition
• Negotiable instruments, such as stamps and travelers’ checks
• Cash and its equivalent (including, but not limited to, gift cards and gift certificates)
• Items permanently affixed to a home, office, vehicle, etc.
• Seasonal items

Extended warranty coverage

When you purchase an item with a manufacturer’s warranty, this benefit can add an extra year to the warranty. Amex’s extended warranty perk applies to warranties of five years or less.

All American Express cards with extended warranty benefits provide the same coverage. The extended warranty period is an additional year and is limited to covering the actual purchase amount paid for with your card. There is a maximum coverage amount of $10,000 per item and $50,000 per calendar year.*

Amex shopping protection policies in action

It’s easy to write off these policies as being too much of a hassle — or, conversely, too good to be true. However, I’ve filed two claims with Amex in the past; in both cases, I was pleasantly surprised at how quick and easy the process was.

The first claim was for a child’s bicycle seat that was supposed to be mounted on my bike’s handlebars. It sounded like a good idea at the time, but once I received it and had a chance to install it, I realized that it scared my daughter and seemed too dangerous to me as well.

Since I was outside of the store’s 30-day return policy but still within 90 days of purchase, I filed a return protection claim online with Amex. The claim was quickly accepted, and I was issued a statement credit for my purchase.

My next chance to use these benefits came when a computer part failed about a year and a half after purchase and had a warranty of just one year. The manufacturer was completely unwilling to repair or replace it, but once again, I remembered my Amex extended warranty policy and filled out an online claim form.

I was notified about a week later that my claim had been accepted, and I was issued a statement credit for the purchase price. I was not asked to return the items in question in either case.

How to get the most benefit from these policies

First, you have to have the right card. Beyond that, it’s prudent to factor these protections in deciding which card to use whenever you make a large purchase. I lean toward my Amex card when I buy a television, computer or a major appliance that can be costly to repair — even if it means sacrificing bonus points.

I confess that I don’t save a copy of the register receipt from every purchase I make — I’m just not that organized. Thankfully, it’s easy to search my email inbox to find receipts for everything I’ve bought online. Failing that, I can also search my order history at Amazon, eBay and other online retailers I use.

An increasing number of brick-and-mortar retailers (from The Home Depot to the Apple Store) will now email you a receipt from the register. These online records helped me file my Amex claims quickly, rather than digging through a shoebox full of paper receipts.

Finally, it’s not hard to snap a photo of a receipt and retain it in your smartphone’s cloud storage archive for many years.

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