This Credit Card Perk Is Vanishing: Here’s How You Can Still Get It Free

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Credit card perks continue to quietly evaporate.

Earlier this year, Discover dropped five cardholder benefits and Chase reduced its trip cancellation insurance benefit. Now, MarketWatch reports that these companies are cutting back on benefits like price protection.

The latest scaling back of cardholder benefits is due to customers generally not using the affected perks much, according to MarketWatch. So, perhaps you won’t miss price protection if you recently lost the perk.

If you understand what price protection is, however, you will likely wish you had it. If that’s the case — or if you were among the minority of cardholders using the perk in the first place — you can still get it for free. You just have to know where to look.

What is price protection?

Price protection enables you to get money back if the price of something you bought drops within a certain time period after you purchased it.

Say you buy a TV for $600, and the price drops to $500 one week later. If you bought it from a retailer with a price-protection policy or paid for it with a credit card that offers price protection, you stand to get back $100.

Retailers and credit card companies are the two main types of entities that offer price protection.

How to get price protection for free

If you lost or never had the cardholder benefit of price protection, one option is to look for a new credit card that still offers the perk.

Failing that, you can always take advantage of a retailer’s price protection policy. Sometimes it’s referred to as a price-drop or price-adjustment policy, or is part of the retailer’s price-match policy.

For example, Walmart’s price-match policy for online purchases allows for what the retail giant calls price adjustments. It states:

“If an item previously purchased from Walmart.com (not including items from a Marketplace or third-party seller on our site) is now listed at a lower price, and the item is within its eligible return window, contact Walmart.com Customer Care to request an adjustment for the price difference. …”

The return window generally ranges from 14 to 90 days, depending on the type of item being returned.

So, say you buy that $600 TV from Walmart.com, and the price drops to $500 one week later. Provided that no exceptions apply to the situation, you can get back the $100 difference.

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