We’ve already discussed the fraud protection cardholders get: If you notify the issuer, you’re legally liable for only a maximum of $50 if someone uses your card in a fraudulent manner. And with the zero-liability policies most issuers offer, you probably won’t even be out the $50.

But what if the issue isn’t the fraudulent use of your card? What if something you bought with a credit card gets stolen or a merchant won’t replace a defective product that you bought? You might have protection for those circumstances, too.

Although the details vary by issuer and even by card, you’ll typically have some degree of free coverage in case something you bought with a credit card in the last 90 days is stolen, breaks, or gets lost.

I can personally attest to the value of this benefit. My wife and I bought a new lawnmower and some lawn equipment a few years ago and were very distraught when the shed containing our lawn equipment was broken into a few months later. The crooks took everything, and we were so upset.

When I finally came to my senses after the initial shock, I remembered that our card offered purchase protection. I filed a claim with our card company (a simple one-page form) and received a check in the mail within about 30 days that refunded the full purchase price of the mower and equipment. Although this didn’t take away our feelings of being violated, I did feel a great sense of relief when I received the check in the mail. Heck, I almost kissed my credit card!

We all get basic purchase protection, thanks to the Fair Credit Billing Act (FCBA), which established a process for requesting the credit card issuer’s help in billing disputes with merchants.

If you send in a written complaint about a merchant (assuming, of course, that you made the initial purchase on your credit card), the card issuer must investigate your claim. The dispute must be resolved, or you must be told why the lender is maintaining the charge—usually, it’s because the merchant disagrees with you. In the meantime, you can withhold payment and you can’t be denied credit just because you are disputing a bill. This is a great benefit!

The FCBA also applies when you order something with a credit card and don’t receive it, or when you receive shoddy or damaged goods. Technically, this applies only if the merchandise in question costs more than $50, if you purchased it in your home state (or within 100 miles of your billing address), and if you made a “good faith effort” to work out your differences with the merchant.

However, I’ve found that when cardholders write to issuers for help with merchant-related complaints, lenders often follow through—even if the purchase isn’t made in a particular state or within a specific number of miles. They want to keep us as customers, so by all means, promptly and politely complain if you ever have these types of problems. It might take some time to get things resolved, but it’s worthwhile to request that the issuer intercede on your behalf to get what you deserve. Let your card issuer do the legwork for you!

For example, when Dustin from New York City tried to return defective merchandise, his request was refused, so he disputed the charge on his Citibank Diamond Preferred Rewards card. “They made it very easy. The first time I called, it was two days after the purchase...they told me to wait three days for the charge to post,” Dustin explains on the Cardratings.com forum.

When he called back three days later, Citibank marked the amount as being in dispute and conditionally credited Dustin’s account with that amount. “They sent me a letter asking for information. I filled out the form and sent them everything (receipt copy, return policy of the store, explanation of what happened, etc.),” reports Dustin.

It took 90 days for the issuer to reach a final decision because the merchant didn’t respond to the form Citibank sent to investigate Dustin’s claim. “But I got my money back after making two phone calls and sending in a letter,” he concludes.

Many card issuers extend the length of a manufacturer’s warranty without any cost to you if you use their card to make the purchase. Adding a year to the warranty on a product that already comes with a one-year guarantee is typical. But more is possible, too.

In fact, because the free extended warranties on cards normally provide more than enough coverage, in many cases, you have my permission to spare yourself from even listening to the salespeople’s pitches for them—unless you are buying a rear-projection microdisplay television or an Apple computer. Consumer Reports recommends extended warranties for only these two items.^[2] In virtually every other case, the cost of an extended warranty is too high and the likelihood of needing the coverage is too low.

Warranty Week, an industry newsletter covering the warranty business, has a somewhat different point of view: “We believe there is a price ratio between a product and its extended warranty that even the Consumer Reports editors would concede is a good value, if only they took the time to examine the differences in prices and coverages.”

On Cyber Monday 2007 (the Monday after Thanksgiving), Warranty Week priced a medium-sized Samsung LCD television and a large Philips plasma screen on the websites of 45 different electronic retailers. The results showed great disparities in the price of the televisions and the price of the warranties. Warranty Week reports:

Although that might sound reasonable, if you play your cards right (yes, a pun was intended), you can take advantage of a free built-in extended warranty, courtesy of MasterCard, Visa, Discover, or American Express. So before you buy something for which an extended warranty might be useful, call your card issuers to decide which card to use.

Find out the following information:

When you know which card will serve you best, you can shop by price alone and save more of your hard-earned cash in the process. I hope you score quite a deal!

Some card issuers offer free merchandise from their catalogs as a reward. Historically, these reward programs have often been a raw deal for cardholders. The goods you get are typically overvalued.

However, some cards offer you discounts at select merchants without requiring you to use any of your reward points, which might be a much better value for you. Using such a card can be a great way to pay less for things you would buy anyway and to try new things for less. The secret is to make sure you don’t buy so much at a discount that you bust your budget. More “stuff” won’t pay the rent or buy groceries, no matter how great the value.

Technically known as accidental death and dismemberment insurance, this form of life insurance your card offers can be very valuable coverage. And the price is sure right: free. Unfortunately, it’s something we never want to need, so this perk doesn’t get the attention it deserves.

Although the details vary, chances are, you already have a credit card that provides between $100,000 and $1 million in accidental death and dismemberment insurance. All you have to do is make sure you use that card when you charge airplane flights, cruises, train rides, and bus trips.

So the next time you’re about to book a trip, choose your card carefully. Before you make your reservations, have a conversation with the customer service representatives at your card issuers. Find out how much coverage your heirs would receive with each card.

Every time you rent a car, the sales agent is instructed to ask you if you want to buy collision and liability insurance. If you whip out the right piece of plastic, you can say “no” to that extra cost with confidence.

Collision damage waiver (CDW), sometimes called loss damage waiver (LDW), reduces your responsibility if damage occurs to the car or if it’s stolen. Liability insurance covers damage that you do to someone else while driving the rental car.

You definitely want protection, but your personal auto insurance might also cover rental cars. Most policies do provide some coverage, although it might be limited. Look through your policy or check with your agent to find out what you’ve got. If your insurance covers only a limited amount, you probably need more. But the good news is that you might not have to buy it from the car rental company.

You might already have this very valuable card perk without even realizing it. Some cards will give you a refund if you buy something and then later see the exact item advertised for less. Each card has its own restrictions on this freebie benefit, commonly known as “price or retail protection,” although all seem to limit the time frame to somewhere between 30 and 90 days after the initial purchase date.

Items that you buy online are often excluded, and usually, a print advertisement must show the lower price. For example, if you use a Citi Diamond Preferred MasterCard to buy something and then you see it advertised (in print and within 60 days) for less, you can get a refund of up to $250 to make up the difference. “Certain conditions, restrictions, and exclusions apply. Details of coverage will be provided upon card membership.”

A savvy member of CardRatings.com’s forum, spjoink, took advantage of the 90-day price protection on his American Express Platinum card to get $2,400 back on the 12 iPhones he bought for his employees. When Apple dropped the price on these phones not too long after they went on sale for the first time to the public, spjoink called Amex. “After putting me on hold for less than 5 minutes, they refunded me $200 for each phone...they told me they didn’t have to do this, but since I am a valuable customer, they chose to do so!”

What a savvy consumer spjoink is! Unfortunately, spjoink’s friend wasn’t so lucky. He used a MasterCard to buy his iPhone, and it had only a 60-day price protection policy. Apple hadn’t dropped the price by the end of those two months, so he couldn’t get a penny back from his card issuer.

To take advantage of a card’s price protection, you first need to know it exists. I recommend that you do the following:

It has probably happened to every traveler. You make it to your destination, but your luggage doesn’t. Next time that happens to you, the credit card you used to book your airline ticket might be able to help.

At the very least, many cards offer a toll-free number to call to enlist representatives who can keep you posted on the airline’s progress in tracking down your bag. And with some gold and platinum cards, you get even more help when your luggage goes missing. For example, the Chase Freedom card offers lost luggage coverage of up to $3,000 for checked baggage, and it reimburses you for up to $300 in immediate needs if your bags are delayed.

So before you make reservations for your next journey, call your card issuers to see which one has the best lost-luggage benefit. Use that card to charge your tickets if all other things are equal (such as the same number of frequent flyer miles, the same amount of cash back, and the same travel insurance coverage).

Then if your luggage is delayed or lost, you’ll be able to whip out your credit card, and call the 800-number with confidence, knowing that you’ll get help.

Heading off on an international travel adventure or for an extended stay overseas? Be sure to pack your favorite card.

Credit cards typically offer a much better exchange rate than you or I can get. The reason? Visa and MasterCard usually get the same wholesale rate on international transactions that large banks and corporations get—not the retail rates offered to you and me. Although getting a break on the exchange rate is a definite financial advantage, it’s not free. Visa and MasterCard levy a 1% fee on all transactions made abroad. Not surprisingly, many card issuers pass on this fee to cardholders and even tack on additional fees of their own, often as much as 2%.

This could make your transaction fee as high as 3% of the U.S. dollar amount of every transaction. At $3 for every $100 you spend, those fees can really add up over the course of a two-week vacation, and they can make a huge dent in your wallet if you’re traveling or living abroad for an extended period of time.

What would you do if your wallet was ever misplaced or stolen, or if you found fraudulent charges on one of your cards? Most of us would probably struggle to remember which cards were in the wallet, and then we’d scramble to call all our card issuers to report the loss.

Credit card registration services (aka card protection services) are a paid option that you might want to consider. For a monthly or yearly fee, card registration services come in handy if your credit and debit cards are ever lost or stolen. Although the fee is usually small, it’s up to you to figure out whether the services offered are worth it.

Credit insurance, which pays off the minimum monthly payment when cardholders cannot make their payments, is sold not only by card companies, but also by stores, car dealers, and more.

Yearly sales of credit insurance totaled $5.6 billion in 2006, according to Insure.com, with the average premium charge being about 50¢ for each $100 of loan coverage per month. For example, if you carry a monthly balance of $3,000, you’d pay about $15 a month for credit insurance. That might not seem like a lot, but small sums add up: $15 a month would cost you $180 a year. If your monthly balance is $6,000, you’d pay $30 a month, or $360 a year, for credit insurance. Ouch.

Several types of credit insurance are available, and many policies cover all the following:

A typical credit insurance policy offers the following:

The key point to remember is what most credit insurance offers don’t eagerly highlight: Coverage typically pays only the required monthly minimum each month, except with credit life insurance.

There you have it—ten more credit card benefits for you to weigh and use as you see fit. Although you might not have heard of them before, I hope you already have some thoughts on how you can take advantage of one or more of them in the near future.

Just remember to call your card issuer to verify the details instead of relying on some hype you think you saw someplace. While you’re on the phone, ask for the other benefits that your card offers. As consumer advocate Marc Eisenson puts it, “Not asking is an automatic ‘No.’” And who knows? A terrific unpublicized freebie might be yours for the asking.