How Chase saved me from a $2,700 rental car incident bill

Travel cards are great to earn points. But they provide something even greater: travel protection.

When I first got a travel credit card, this was not top of mind for me. But then my worst travel nightmare came true and I jumped head first into learning about the Chase Sapphire Preferred travel benefits. The CSP saved me a lot of money, and a whole lot of tears.

My rental car ended up getting damage during a road trip. Thankfully, the car was drivable but I was so distraught on what to do next. I called a friend with the CSP and he reminded me about the rental car protections through Chase. Since I had booked on the card, they would cover any collision damage and I actually didn’t need to alert my normal insurance company.

Chase works a third-party to process travel insurance claims like rental car damage. Fast forward a few weeks, a bunch of documents, and a couple of phone calls later with the third-party company, Chase cut me a check to cover the $2,700 in damage that happened to my rental car.

The only silver lining I could find (besides the rental car damage being covered) is I got the extra points by paying for the damage with my credit card before they reimbursed me.

I ended up having to use the benefits a year later as well. I had a flight that was cancelled for two days and Chase covered both my hotel stay and my meals for the entire two days I was delayed.

Last year, we lost a suitcase while traveling and I immediately started looking up the protections Chase offers for delayed and lost bags. Luckily it arrived a day later so we didn’t have to replace everything in it, but I knew I was protected if the worst case scenario happened.

Many travel cards (including the Chase travel cards, Capital One Venture X, and Amex travel credit cards) include built-in travel insurance protections like trip cancellation, trip delay reimbursement ,and rental car collision coverage.

It’s important to note you MUST book your travel on the card that offers the protection. Otherwise, you will not be covered.

Even if you are not swayed to get a travel credit card for the points, it could potentially save you thousands if you ever get into a worst case scenario while traveling.

Let’s wander wiser together.