Which credit card networks provide travel insurance perks?

Travel insurance is often a neglected benefit of many credit cards. We're usually more focused on accumulating rewards and avoiding foreign transaction fees (which are certainly worthwhile), sometimes failing to notice that the same credit card could make your journey easier when things don’t go as planned.

However, as more cardholders are discovering how to make use of additional travel perks, some of these benefits may be disappearing.

Citi is eliminating its car rental, trip cancellation, baggage delay, and travel emergency assistance benefits from its Prestige, Premier, Double Cash, and American Airlines cards starting September 22, as the company announced last month. Citi explained the change was due to customers not fully utilizing these travel-related perks, including Price Rewind.

While most of Citi’s cards are part of the Mastercard network, this doesn’t mean that all Mastercards in your possession will lose their coverage—or that they even had it to begin with.

Here’s a breakdown of the travel protection benefits offered by each of the major card networks.

Visa

Visa provides its travel benefits primarily at the Infinite level, which includes the widely used Chase Sapphire Reserve card. Visa’s travel coverage includes the following:

• Emergency and travel assistance services

• Travel accident insurance

• Trip cancellation and interruption coverage

• Reimbursement for trip delays

• Lost luggage reimbursement

Both traditional Visa cards and Visa Signature cards include auto rental collision damage waivers, and the Infinite level offers the same. Visa Signature cards also provide travel and emergency assistance services.

Mastercard

Mastercard’s travel protections are determined by the card issuer rather than the card level, so it’s important to check the terms for your specific card and the issuing bank. In general, Mastercard claims it offers the following travel protections:

• Travel assistance services

• Baggage delay coverage

• Car rental collision damage waiver

• Hotel/motel theft coverage

• Lost or damaged luggage insurance

• Travel accident insurance

• Trip cancellation coverage

Discover

In early 2018, Discover eliminated travel benefits such as auto rental insurance and flight accident coverage, explaining that not enough customers were utilizing these services. Discover also discontinued its purchase and price protection benefits.

American Express

American Express provides the following travel benefits with most of its cards:

• Baggage insurance

• Rental car loss and damage protection

• Global Assist hotline

• Travel accident coverage

Always review your travel benefits before booking your next trip

If you’ve used a specific credit card to purchase travel tickets before, don’t assume your coverage will be the same when booking your next vacation. Always check your card’s benefits guide online to ensure the pamphlet you received when you first opened the card is up-to-date. Then, carry that booklet with you while traveling so it's available if you need to start a claim.

Also, don’t ignore notifications from your credit card issuer. While they often require you to log in and navigate to the “secure message center” to read updates like new privacy policies or notices, this is also where the company may announce changes to benefits. Alternatively, they might post an alert on your account homepage, so be sure to check for any notifications when you log in to pay your bill, even if you’re not planning a trip. You don’t want to be caught off guard by any changes to your benefits later on.

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