7 Credit Card Perks You Are Probably Not Using

Every U.S. card comes with a guide to benefits — a document from the issuer or the payment network setting out each protection, its limits and its claim deadline. It is usually a PDF in your online account, and it is the only source that binds anyone.

Read yours before assuming any of the seven below applies to you. Benefits are also withdrawn from time to time, so a guide from three years ago is not evidence of what you have today.

This is not a perk your issuer chose to give you. Federal law gives credit card holders the right to dispute billing errors and, separately, to withhold payment on goods or services that were not delivered as promised, subject to conditions.

It is also the reason to put a large purchase on a credit card rather than a debit card. The protections are stronger, and the money is not out of your account while it is being sorted out.

Some cards add time to a manufacturer's warranty on things you bought with the card, at no cost. On an appliance or a laptop that is real money.

The catch is process. You will normally need the receipt, the original warranty and a claim filed within a set window — so the perk only exists if you keep the paperwork.

Cover for an item that is damaged or stolen shortly after you buy it. Limits per item and per year vary widely, and exclusions are long — but for a phone stolen a week after purchase it can be the difference between a claim and a loss.

Many cards include some form of cover for a rental car, which is what the desk agent is selling you at the counter. Whether yours is primary or secondary matters enormously: secondary cover pays only what your own insurance does not, so a claim still goes through your policy.

Two conditions are almost universal: pay for the whole rental with that card, and decline the rental company's own waiver.

Trip delay, trip cancellation and baggage delay cover appear on a lot of travel cards and on some that are not marketed as travel cards at all. They typically reimburse reasonable expenses after a delay passes a stated threshold.

Nobody claims these because nobody remembers they exist at 11pm in an airport. Check yours before a trip, not during one.

A growing number of cards cover damage or theft of a phone whose monthly bill you pay with that card. There is normally a deductible and a claim limit per year.

It is worth comparing against what your carrier charges for the same thing, which is often a monthly fee for similar cover.

Not a benefit you claim — a fee you avoid. Cards without a foreign transaction fee cost you nothing extra on purchases abroad, and cards with one add a percentage to every single transaction on the trip.

This is the one item on the list you can check in seconds, and it is the one that most reliably pays for itself.

Benefits are worth having and they are not worth carrying a balance for. Interest on a revolving balance will outrun any protection on this list, quickly.

The same goes for an annual fee. A fee is only justified by benefits you will actually use, and the honest test is to add up what you claimed last year.