American Express to add Trip Cancellation and Delay Coverage as of January 2020

The Good & the Bad - Amex Benefits Revamp

Positive and Negative Changes to American Express Cards coming January 1, 2020.

To the Point

While many other banks and credit card companies are rolling back rewards, eliminating travel coverage, and reducing points multipliers, American Express seems to continually be providing their cardholders with increased benefits and value. Unfortunately to provide the card holders more, American Express had to remove and reduce a few of the lesser used perks. On September 24, 2019, TPG reported a slew of changes to several American Express card's benefits. American Express should be contacting cardholders on Tuesday October 1, 2019 to notify them of the following changes:

The Positive

Trip Cancellation and Interruption

Better late than never, right? American Express' premium cards will be receiving a much needed trip cancellation and interruption benefit. This new benefit will cover up to $10,000 per trip, and $20,000 per year, for flight cancellations for a covered reason. Covered reasons include weather, terrorism, jury summons, and injury or illness. Also, those cardholders that pay with points or book award tickets and use their eligible card for taxes and fees will still be covered. A small caveat to this coverage is that the itinerary needs to be round trip. These shiny new perks still come with a price of $450 annual fee or more, and will only be available on these specific American Express premium cards:

·         Platinum Card (including Personal, Business and Corporate)

·         Hilton Honors Aspire Card

·         Delta Reserve (including Personal and Business)

·         Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant

Trip Delay Coverage

Trip delay coverage is something we have seen on cards like the Chase Sapphire Reserve for a while now, and thankfully American Express is following suit. American Express has even graciously extended it's trip delay coverage to it’s mid-tier cards. 

The Platinum Card (including Personal, Business and Corporate), Hilton Aspire, Delta Reserve (including Personal and Business), and Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant will be covered for expenses up to $500 for meals, lodging and personal use items, if their trip is delayed more than 6 hours.  

The Gold Card (including Personal and Business), Green Card, and Delta Platinum (including Personal and Business) will be covered for expenses up to $300 for meals, lodging, and personal use items, if their trip is delayed more than 12 hours.

Again, these trip delay benefits only kick in on round trip itineraries, and are still included for award trips and points redemptions as long as the taxes and fees were paid on your eligible card.

The Negative

Extended Warranty

American Express will be lowering their extended warranty benefit from two years past the manufacturer's warranty to just one year past the manufacturer's warranty. American Express had just increased this benefit from one year past to two years past in August 2018. Looks like they are rolling back to the original coverage as of January 2020. Also, many of the no annual fee American Express cards will be losing their extended warranty coverage entirely. If you have the Blue, EveryDay, Cash Magnet or Blue Cash Everyday American Card, you may want to consider making important purchases on a card like the Chase Freedom which still extends the manufacturer's warranty of three years or less by one year.  

Purchase Protection

Again, despite American Express recently increasing their purchase protection from 90 days to 120 days in August of 2018, they are now reducing it from 120 days back to 90 days as of January 1, 2020. The level of protection still varies between cards, for example the Platinum Card covers "lost" property where the Gold Card only covers damaged or stolen property. If you still want that full 120 days of coverage consider using cards like the Chase Sapphire Reserve, United Club Card, or even the Chase Freedom.

Travel Accident Insurance

Another benefit that met the chopping block was the Travel Accident Insurance, this insurance would cover you or any other covered traveler in the extreme case of an absolutely catastrophic emergency such as loss of life, limb or even eye sight.  American Express is completely removing this benefit as of January 1, 2020.

Roadside Assistance

The American Express Roadside Assistance is one of the benefits we are most sad to see go. We have used this super handy benefit multiple times this year, most recently having returned home from a long trip to a dead car battery. The process was quick, easy and response time had always been fast for a jump, but also covered gas, towing and tire changes! Luckily, the Chase Sapphire Reserve will still cover our roadside needs, but unfortunately Chase won't cover you if your vehicle needs assistance at your place of residence.

Return Protection

American Express Return Protection is a simple but terrific benefit which covers cardholders if the merchant refuses to accept their return within 90 days of the date of purchase. American Express will refund the full purchase price for up to $300 per item and maximum $1,000 per card account per calendar year. The following cards will retain this benefit: Platinum Card (including Personal, Business and Corporate), Hilton Honors Aspire Card, Delta Reserve (including Personal and Business), Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant, Plum Card, Blue Cash Preferred, and Everyday Preferred. Unfortunately, Return Protection will be removed from all other American Express Cards.

Final Point   

Overall, we are most excited to see Trip Cancellation, Interruption and Delay coverage added to our American Express Platinum Card. Now we can earn that sweet 5x Membership Reward points on airfare with more peace of mind. American Express was late to the game with this coverage, but as we mentioned before, it’s better late than never. We are most disappointed about the loss of the Roadside Assistance since this is something we have used multiple times in the past. Thankfully, other cards like the Chase Sapphire Reserve offer it, so until Chase takes it away we should be fine! Seeing the Purchase Protection be reduced back to 90 days is another negative change we did not love, but we will have to deal with it, or again use a different card. Unfortunately, not all of the upcoming changes are ideal. American Express reported that some of these benefits are only used by less than 1% of cardholders so the impact should be limited. Nevertheless, losing a benefit is never fun. Despite some of the more negative changes, our verdict is that these changes overall increase the value and use case of most of the premium American Express cards, including the American Express Platinum Card especially for flights!