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Buy Your Phone with AMEX

krause734

krause734

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 30, 2010
592
1,405
They have the best extended warranty coverage. Your phone has Applecare for one year. American Express doubles the warranty if anything is to happen to your phone. If anything does happen, they will refund you the money you spent on the phone if Apple won't in most cases. Consumer Reports says that they have the best warranty policy and fastest reimbursement. Note that they will only refund the price you pay for the phone, so if you bought an iPhone 7 32GB for $199 subsidized, they will only refund that much. If you pay full retail, they will pay that price.

There is also purchase protection:
Purchase Protection is an embedded benefit of your Card Membership and requires no enrollment. It can help protect eligible purchases made on your Card when they're accidentally damaged, stolen, or lost, for up to 90 days from the date of purchase. Please read important exclusions and restrictions to see if your item is eligible for coverage.
 
I haven't really looked deep enough into it, but I'm guessing it wouldn't really work when it comes to financing/device payment plans or trade-in type of deals the are going on now.
 
krause734 said:
They have the best extended warranty coverage. Your phone has Applecare for one year. American Express doubles the warranty if anything is to happen to your phone. If anything does happen, they will refund you the money you spent on the phone if Apple won't in most cases. Consumer Reports says that they have the best warranty policy and fastest reimbursement. Note that they will only refund the price you pay for the phone, so if you bought an iPhone 7 32GB for $199 subsidized, they will only refund that much. If you pay full retail, they will pay that price.

There is also purchase protection:
Purchase Protection is an embedded benefit of your Card Membership and requires no enrollment. It can help protect eligible purchases made on your Card when they're accidentally damaged, stolen, or lost, for up to 90 days from the date of purchase. Please read important exclusions and restrictions to see if your item is eligible for coverage.
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Unfortunately, for the thousands of us trading in our 6's for $650, we have to pay with NEXT payment plan (on AT&T), so no AMEX involved.
 
Keep in mind that Amex doesn't cover items still under installment billing (e.g., Next, IUP, etc.) for extended warranty. However, other eligible CCs (such as Citi Costco Anywhere Visa) do work with installment plans so do your research beforehand.
 
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bought my 7+ 128 outright with AmEx :D

I havent gotten to exercise it tho, usually dont hold onto my phones longer than a year.

iPhone 5 may be the only exception (and even then, did Nexus 5 for a few months and then back to iPhone 5)
 
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I've always used my Amex to buy all smartphones, outright. Coupled with the extra warranty ( I believe it's $1000 coverage per incident, iirc ) I also get some extra points ( Premier Rewards ) :)

Amex CS is second to none!
 
JayLenochiniMac said:
Keep in mind that Amex doesn't cover items still under installment billing (e.g., Next, IUP, etc.) for extended warranty. However, other eligible CCs (such as Citi Costco Anywhere Visa) do work with installment plans so do your research beforehand.
Click to expand...

Good to know. And if Citi is doing it for the Costco card, I'm sure they are doing it for their other cards as well, so I am protected, JIC. (I do have AppleCare but Citi offers 90 days of damage/theft protection!)
 
Mrbobb said:
Includes accidental damage? Anybody actually submitted a claim?
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Yes, Amex includes 90-day accidental damage protection. I've filed two claims with Amex under Extended Warranty and the process is basically the same. You take the defective (or damaged if within 90 days) iPhone to Apple and pay for the out of warranty repair cost to get the replacement iPhone. Amex will then reimburse you up to the amount you charged to the card in the next billing cycle. You can even file a claim after the fact (swap it out then file a claim). They do not always ask for paperwork (receipt, etc.).
 
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Time Less said:
Many Visa Signature cards offer similar purchase protection, extended warranty, and even price adjustments.
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From some reading I've done on it at one point about 1-2 years ago it seemed that using the purchase protection and extended warranty through AmEx has generically been a simpler, easier, and faster experience compared to getting similar results from Visa (or MasterCard which also offers some of this on some of their cards).
 
My Chase United Mileage Explorer Visa Signature card has the same protections that OP listed.

In fact, the process was so much simpler with Chase than Amex when I had fraud on both cards, respectively.

The whole "Amex is superior in every way possible" is foolish. Those days are long gone. The competition has caught up and Amex has stalled relying solely on nostalgia and their brand.
 
C DM said:
From some reading I've done on it at one point about 1-2 years ago it seemed that using the purchase protection and extended warranty through AmEx has generically been a simpler, easier, and faster experience compared to getting similar results from Visa (or MasterCard which also offers some of this on some of their cards).
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Yes, that's why I've continued to use my Amex card even though my other card, Citi Costco Anywhere Visa, has better benefits, including 2-year extended warranty coverage and 120 days of protection against accidental damage and theft.
 
The citibank costco card offers and additional 2 years of coverage on top of the original warranty and purchased extended warranty. If you purchase the iPhone with Applecare, you'd get 4 years of warranty (1+1+2).

I can't vouch for the ease of use of the Citi/Costco EW program as I've not used it. I do know that the Amex EW program is pretty pain free.
 
I'd also like to note I'm fairly certain that Black/Platinum/PRG holders get preferential treatment over standard revolving Amex cards.
 
12vElectronics said:
I'd also like to note I'm fairly certain that Black/Platinum/PRG holders get preferential treatment over standard revolving Amex cards.
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Even with my lowly Amex Blue Cash card, they didn't ask for paperwork for my wife's defective iPhone. All I did was file a claim over the phone and they credited $399 plus tax (the subsidized price for the middle tier iPhone) on the next billing statement.
 
Amex purchase protection is far easier than Chase. Chase required a lot more documentation and time. My experience with amex was just a submitted claim online and fast reimbursement without additional documentation.
 
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Most CC's have this. The benefit extends the 1 year manufacturer warranty too. Keeping a phone for 2 years is fully covered.
 
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