Chase Sapphire Preferred Improved Travel Benefits

Several months ago there was a thread regarding included trip cancellation coverage from your credit cards. This morning several blogs regarding credit cards benefits released new information regarding changes to the Chase Sapphire Preferred Credit Card that are effective immediately. Appears they are mostly improved benefits with the most important an increase to $10K per person for trip coverage and CDW becoming primary for car rentals world wide. While the particulars are yet to be sent to customers for sometime, this is good news for travelers.

See below for a summary of changes from one of the blogs:

Unfortunately the 7% annual point dividend on top of all earning is being phased out. Existing customers will still earn the 7% points dividend in February 2015 for 2014 purchases and one final time in February 2016 for 2015 purchases.

On the plus side though, effective today Chase is adding free primary car rental CDW insurance for every country in the world to the Sapphire Preferred card. Almost every other credit card out there (besides for Chase United cards) only offers secondary coverage when you rent a car in your home country.

The difference between primary and secondary coverage is huge. Secondary coverage requires that you file a damage claim with your own car insurance company and only if your personal car insurance denies the claim will the credit card pay out. You would have to be crazy to file a claim with your personal insurance for a scratch on your rental car. With primary coverage the credit card will cover all damage done to your rental car and your personal car insurance will never have to find out-so you won’t have to file a claim with your personal car insurance and your premiums won’t go up.

Most credit cards also exclude countries like Israel from coverage, however all Chase cards cover you worldwide, including in Israel. And they will give you a letter of coverage stating that you are covered in Israel so that you don’t have to argue at the rental car counter that your Chase Visa does give CDW coverage.

With primary worldwide coverage on top of 2 points per dollar for car rentals, there is no better card today to rent a car on than Sapphire Preferred.

Chase also announced that effective today trip cancellation and trip interruption insurance on the Sapphire Preferred card will go up from $5,000 per trip to $10,000. Other card benefits include:

-Lost luggage protection ($3,000 per person)

-Trip delay protection ($500 per person for trips delayed by 12+ hours or that require an overnight stay)

-Baggage delay protection (If delayed 6+ hours: $100 per day per person up to 5 days)

-Travel accident insurance

-Price protection ($500 per item that drops in price within 90 days of purchase)

-Return protection ($500 per item for 90 days)

-Purchase protection ($500 per item damaged or stolen for 120 days)

-Extended warranty protection ($10,000 per item for an extra year on original warranties of 3 years or less)

Thanks for the report!

Thanks for the great news. Now it looks like I will just need to get medical insurance for most trips. :)

Thanks for the great news. Now it looks like I will just need to get medical insurance for most trips. :)

Medical coverage is very cheap for a yearly travel for outside the US policy.

Our policy is around $200 for the two of us. We have claimed charges incurred on the ships as well as on land and have always been paid in full.

This is what we have done this year and I am glad to know it works well. We do have the Sapphire card and similar benefits come with oour Rewards card. Our medical coverage was $138 for $500,000. What a savings! Thanks for posting/verfying.

Lynne

Dave,

Thank you for posting this great news. Is the 10K per person or total? This is my primary CC already.

One question - do you have to ACCEPT CDW when renting a car ? Previously you had to DECLINE CDW for the CC to cover your damages.

BTW, I (unfortunately) had to collect cancelation fees for a trip from the Sapphire card recently (under $5K)- worked very well. The increased limit is great news.

Paul

Dave,

Thank you for posting this great news. Is the 10K per person or total? This is my primary CC already.

One question - do you have to ACCEPT CDW when renting a car ? Previously you had to DECLINE CDW for the CC to cover your damages.

BTW, I (unfortunately) had to collect cancelation fees for a trip from the Sapphire card recently (under $5K)- worked very well. The increased limit is great news.

Paul

Until Chase send out the new booklet with the revised limits, etc., all we can do is speculate educated answers to your questions. Since the current limit is $5K per trip or claim, have to assume the change to $10K would remain the same as to trip or claim. Hopefully it is per person however, doubtful it would be that much of a change.

As to declining CDW, have coverage, but not primary on several cards and they all state you have to decline coverage so have to again assume it will be the same for primary coverage. Why would anyone pay the exorbitant per day charges to the rental company if you are getting primary coverage with the card and, why would anyone pay the rental company when Chase covers the rental??

Could always hope for more but, this is a great change and hopefully American Express will now listen to what Chase is doing and improve their coverage.

Dave,

Thank you for posting this great news. Is the 10K per person or total? This is my primary CC already.

One question - do you have to ACCEPT CDW when renting a car ? Previously you had to DECLINE CDW for the CC to cover your damages.

BTW, I (unfortunately) had to collect cancelation fees for a trip from the Sapphire card recently (under $5K)- worked very well. The increased limit is great news.

Paul

Thanks to you, Paul, Chase Preferreds are DH and my primary cards, too. We also have United Explorers now (one of the points deals) so on upcoming cruise I did our air upgrades using Explorer ( which covers $1,500 ) and we each are paying for the cruise with our own Sapphire. That way all I had to purchase was insurance to cover medical. Now with the new higher limits, all we will need is medical and I'm going to investigate what the OPs posted about annual insurance.

Hope your cancellation was nothing serious and you will be traveling soon. Best to you and Marsha.

Joanna

Medical coverage is very cheap for a yearly travel for outside the US policy.

Our policy is around $200 for the two of us. We have claimed charges incurred on the ships as well as on land and have always been paid in full.

Great rate. Would you mind sharing carrier information?

Thanks.

Thanks to you, Paul, Chase Preferreds are DH and my primary cards, too. We also have United Explorers now (one of the points deals) so on upcoming cruise I did our air upgrades using Explorer ( which covers $1,500 ) and we each are paying for the cruise with our own Sapphire. That way all I had to purchase was insurance to cover medical. Now with the new higher limits, all we will need is medical and I'm going to investigate what the OPs posted about annual insurance.

 

Hope your cancellation was nothing serious and you will be traveling soon. Best to you and Marsha.

 

Joanna

Hi Joanna,

You are welcome - enjoy the benefits of Sapphire & MP Explorer cards.

The cancellation was due to an illness but we are OK now - thank you for your concern. Our best to you and Miles.

Happy trails :)

Paul

The Chase Sapphire preferred is my go to travel card.

The new primary car rental insurance is huge.

The reason that I use this card is that you get double REAL miles for all travel and dining. Double miles for charging cruises, and restaurants. No foreign transaction charges

The mileage partner is primarily United, BA and Korean Air..

Note that like AMEX , these are REAL transferable miles into a frequent flier account. Not fake miles, ie points ( Capital One ) Points translate into dollars. I just transferred 44,000 miles for a round trip ticket to Maui on United. That flight would have cost $900. I charged a $22,000 Seabourn cruise on the Chase card and it paid for my Maui flight.

The Chase Sapphire preferred is my go to travel card.

The new primary car rental insurance is huge.

The reason that I use this card is that you get double REAL miles for all travel and dining. Double miles for charging cruises, and restaurants. No foreign transaction charges

The mileage partner is primarily United, BA and Korean Air..

Note that like AMEX , these are REAL transferable miles into a frequent flier account. Not fake miles, ie points ( Capital One ) Points translate into dollars. I just transferred 44,000 miles for a round trip ticket to Maui on United. That flight would have cost $900. I charged a $22,000 Seabourn cruise on the Chase card and it paid for my Maui flight.

BTW and FWIW,

If you use your MP Explorer card to pay for a cruise (any cruise line) with United cruises, you get up to 8 miles/$ (for balcony cabin and up). The prices are the same as booking through cruise lines directly.

As some cruise lines no longer allow fare discounts as such any longer (i.e. Oceania), the miles you get are worth a lot more than the couple hundred $ OBC you may get from the TA. Thus your $22K cruise would have given you 176K UA miles - not just $44K as with the Sapphire. The insurance benefits of the MP Explorer are up to $10K as well.

Great rate. Would you mind sharing carrier information?

Thanks.

We have for several years bought from HTH Worldwide 888-254-8769.

The service from them has been very good and professional.

As of this year the coverage is with Blue Cross.

We have for several years bought from HTH Worldwide 888-254-8769.

The service from them has been very good and professional.

As of this year the coverage is with Blue Cross.

Thank you so much. Will investigate this before buying anymore travel insurance for furure trips. Love CC for all these helpful bits of information!

Thank you for posting this. Another reason to love our CSP - though losing the bonus points stings!

This eliminates the need to travel insurance other than medical, which is often cheap.

Any experiences with the trip cancellation portion and how it works?

Any experiences with the trip cancellation portion and how it works?

See my post #6 above.

I collected through Sapphire almost $4,000 for cancellation (full amount requested) without any problems.

Chase uses a third party insurance group for claims.

Since the first thread on this I have completely moved to

Annual travel medical

Medjet assist

Cancellation insurance through credit cards

The news about sapphire is great

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Since the first thread on this I have completely moved to

Annual travel medical

Medjet assist

Cancellation insurance through credit cards

 

The news about sapphire is great

 

Your plan for coverage sounds good and I am thinking about using it myself. Only question I have is that since Medjet assist covers only hospital to hospital evacuation, I wonder whether one would need to buy other evacuation coverage for evacuation directly from the ship or for transportation home if you are injured, but do not require hospitalization?

 

Your plan for coverage sounds good and I am thinking about using it myself. Only question I have is that since Medjet assist covers only hospital to hospital evacuation, I wonder whether one would need to buy other evacuation coverage for evacuation directly from the ship or for transportation home if you are injured, but do not require hospitalization?

Wouldn't the annual travel medical cover that?

Medical coverage is very cheap for a yearly travel for outside the US policy.

Our policy is around $200 for the two of us. We have claimed charges incurred on the ships as well as on land and have always been paid in full.

I just went to the HTH Worldwide site and got a quote and it was 618.00 per month! How on earth do you get a yearly travel policy for $200.00 for the two of you.

DH and I are 52 and 51. It clearly can't be that we are too old??

I just went to the HTH Worldwide site and got a quote and it was 618.00 per month! How on earth do you get a yearly travel policy for $200.00 for the two of you.

 

DH and I are 52 and 51. It clearly can't be that we are too old??

You might be going on the wrong website. I just tried myself and got a quote of $179 for both of us.

Thank you Orchestrapal for sharing this information. We are using CSP for charging all our travels. 10K coverage increase is great.

I have a new Chase/Hyatt Signature Visa card that seems to have the same (old) benefits that are being mentioned here. I have gone over the brochure closely and am not sure I believe what I am reading because it seems to be too good to be true.

The definition of a covered trip is:

"Covered Trip means any pre-paid tour, trip or vacation when some portion of the cost for such travel arrangements less any redeemable .......(language about FF miles, coupons, etc.)".

I WANT to believe that I could charge just the hotel for instance and get the cruise fare covered if I had to cancel, but I have trouble believing that. I am using other cards to pay for cruises for the American Airlines miles.

Has anybody ever charged a small portion of the trip cost and been reimbursed for portions that were not charged to the card?

Wouldn't the annual travel medical cover that?

I take out Allianz yearly policy and it is great.. covers everything but cancellation for only $254 a year..

Jancruz1

BTW and FWIW,

If you use your MP Explorer card to pay for a cruise (any cruise line) with United cruises, you get up to 8 miles/$ (for balcony cabin and up). The prices are the same as booking through cruise lines directly.

As some cruise lines no longer allow fare discounts as such any longer (i.e. Oceania), the miles you get are worth a lot more than the couple hundred $ OBC you may get from the TA. Thus your $22K cruise would have given you 176K UA miles - not just $44K as with the Sapphire. The insurance benefits of the MP Explorer are up to $10K as well.

Great info...I'm getting a MP card ASAP. .. 8 united miles per dollar spent on cruise fare ? Wow. Can you say business class?

Has anybody ever charged a small portion of the trip cost and been reimbursed for portions that were not charged to the card?

This is something I would not risk with a Chase card. The benefits are quite different between Hyatt card and sapphire preferred, though I am not sure about the travel insurance part.