As a holder of multiple credit cards, I am typically covered when it comes to flight delay insurance, car rental insurance and extended warranties.
One of my favorite cards, the Capital One Aspire Mastercard provides me with an added benefit that most people don’t actually utilize, Price Protection.
I actually had the chance to use the benefit for the first time when I purchased my Bose Quiet Comfort 25s … which by the way are AMAZING noise cancelling heaphones, a must for those that travel. In fact, the noise cancelling technology in these headphones is almost like magic. As soon as you turn them on and play some music, it’s like you are in your own concert and the noise from the engines disappears. But I digress.
When I purchased these headphones, I did so directly from Bose and when I did so, I used my Capital One Aspire card. In truth, I chose the card because it doubles the manufacturers warranty. So rather than the original 1 year warrantly, I now had 2 years, which for electronic devices is a lifetime.
I purchased these headphones for use on my many flights as part of our Round the World vacation and wouldn’t you know it … as soon as I purchased them, they went on sale at CanadaComputers.com, an online retailer for $79 off the original price. I later found out that Bose was going to release their Quiet Comfort 35s shortly and CanadaComputers was trying to clear out their inventory.
As I was in Istanbul at the time and wouldn’t be back in Canada for another couple of weeks, I knew that the chances of Bose pricematching the sale would be slim. Then I remembered the Price Protection Insurance that Capital One offered as part of their Aspire card.
If you find a cheaper price for an item you purchased within the first 60 days, you qualify for price protection. The only caveat is that the purchase needs to be made using the Capital One Aspire card.
The process is a bit long and drawn out but in the end, you will end up with a cheque for the difference. I received that cheque yesterday and it is now in my bank account.
As far as the process goes, here’s what you need to do:
- Call Capital One and ask to take advantage of the Price Match Guarantee
- Capital One will transfer you to their insurance provider and you will provide them with some information including:
- Original price of the item
- Sale price of the item
- Date of purchase
- Price difference between the original price and the sale price
- Other personal identification information
- Once you complete the first two steps, you are sent a form via email to complete
- You are required to fill out the form and the information required is pretty much what you provided in Step 2
- You need to mail the completed form along with proof of the sale to the insurance provider
After 4-6 weeks, you will receive a cheque in the mail for the price difference, in my instance, I recieved a cheque for $79.
Some of the things that you want to ensure you have as part of your proof of sale include:
- Sale price
- Date the sale is valid for
As my screenshots did not show the dates of sale, I did provide a URL to the forum that was discussing the sale which verified that the sale occurred within my 60 day protection period.
While this process is not as simple as taking your receipt in for a price match, it provides you with another avenue to ensure you are getting the best price for your item.
Aside from the extreme flexibility I enjoy with Capital One points, the added insurance provides excellent additional value but it’s incumbent on you to ensure that you know your benefits so make sure you read the fine print.