In this episode, I give you the run down on how I received $96.34 back on my credit card statement after ALL of my Apple Airpods Pro drama. I received the price of replacing one of the ear buds all because of the extended warranty benefit from my Costco Anywhere Visa Card by Citi. No, this is not a plug for you to go sign up for their credit card (although I have no qualms about referring you to them). This is an important reminder for you to familiarize yourself with the benefits you have access to by being a credit cardholder with any credit card company. Take a listen to learn all about the extended warranty benefit and my current real life example. See below for show notes if you’d rather scan in text. 🙂 As always, I appreciate you taking the time to listen!
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SHOW NOTES: This post contains affiliate links. You don’t pay any extra, and I earn a small commission. I’d also like to call attention if prices I mentioned in this episode were prices I paid at the current time and may not reflect the prices you would pay at the time of reading or listening to this.
My Airpod drama is over…In episode 29, I referenced what my dilemma was when my husband’s left Apple Airpod ear piece stopped working. We were basically left with deciding on purchasing a brand new pair or purchasing a new brand, because I did not elect to purchase the Apple Care extended warranty. I just didn’t think we’d have a problem with them being less than 2 years old! Oh well.
I then recalled my extended warranty benefit on my Costco Anywhere Visa Card by Citi. This enables protection on eligible purchases for an extra 2 years. The end result…I just received confirmation that I’ll be getting a payment of $96.34 credited back to my credit card account, which was the cost of my replacement left Airpod. Here are the steps I took to get it done, so that YOU can repeat the steps in the future.
Where I found this information: credit card website>rewards and benefits>card benefits>shopping benefits>extended warranty. This gives you two additional years of protection past your manufacturer’s warranty. So, in my case. I elected not to purchase AppleCare for my husband’s airpods.
What is it? (keep in mind that I pulled this information from my credit card’s website, which can change at any moment, so do your current research!)
Warranties run out. Get an extra 24 months added to your warranty when you purchase items at least in part with your Citi card and/or your Costco credit card reward certificate. In the event of a covered failure, the item will be repaired or you will be reimbursed up to the amount charged on your Citi card (including Costco credit card reward certificate) or the cost to replace the item, whichever is less, up to $10,000.
What is covered?
Coverage is limited to the lesser
of the following:
The cost to repair or replace the item.
The purchase price of the item.
The amount charged to the
Citi Card (including Costco
credit card reward certificate).
$10,000 per item
What’s not covered?
Cars, boats, aircraft or any motorized land, air or water vehicles and their original equipment. Tires are not covered.
Items that do not come with a manufacturer’s warranty.
Coverage doesn’t apply under these circumstances:
You fail to care for or service the item appropriately as required by
the manufacturer.
The item has a product defect, recall, or experiences normal wear
and tear where no failure has occurred.
The item is damaged because of an act of God, such as a flood,
hurricane, lightning, wind or earthquake
They require to return all required documents within 180 days of the incident.
Here is what I did:
Printed out and filled the claim form out. I needed to know the date of purchase 12/10/2019, amount charged on credit card $269.54, merchant Apple, Item Apple Airpods Pro, Brand Apple, Model or serial number, Length of manufacturer’s warranty 1 year. I had no clue so I had to do some digging on Apple’s site. I was able to locate under their support area, a page where I could input the serial number and it would show the coverage. I had to answer did you purchase an extended warranty? No..in Apple’s case, I didn’t purchase AppleCare.
Then needed to list date of failure I put 5/27/21, Total amount of reimbursement requested I put $89 which was the amount of the left ear piece minus tax. Then I listed out description of what happened. Here is what I wrote:
“Left and Right airpod ear pieces would no longer pair together. Took into Apple Store for repair and assessment. They found the Left Ear piece failed to connect and that it would need to be replaced. It was out of warranty. However, it still is in the 2 year warranty time frame for my citi-card. So, requesting reimbursement for the left ear piece.”
I signed it, scanned it and printed it as a pdf to save in my computer folder. I recommend creating a new folder labeled in my case airpod warranty claim.
Then I gathered all my required supporting documents. On my claim form, there were check boxes to mark off: billing statement or itemized receipt showing how much you paid, copy of manufacturer’s warranty and extended warranty if you purchased one, photo of damaged item, repair estimate or bill.
Here are some notes on those items:
-Billing statement- I had to request archived statements online. I purchased these in December of 2019. I requested January of 2020 billing statement and I did February 2020 as well just in case there was a delay. It took about 24 hours. Saved it as a pdf and put in my “apple warranty desktop folder”. I also had the original receipt email, so I made that into a pdf as well and attached it.
-Manufacturer’s warranty..that’s where I went to apple support site and inputted my serial number, then I took a screen grab of the page that showed what my coverage was. I saved it as a pdf and put in my folder. If you aren’t aware how to take a picture of your screen, you can in most cases just hit the keyboard key “Print Screen” or use a snipping tool in my case. I can hold down the windows key+Shift+S to take a snip it of the screen. Then simply save it as a pdf.
-Photo of the damaged item. Simply took a picture of the airpod left ear piece. There was no noticeable damage.
-Repair estimate or bill…in my case, I had already paid at the apple store for the replacement. So, I included the summary of diagnostic report, which concluded the left was damaged and then the receipt I paid for the replacement, which was for $96.34.
After all that was complete, I emailed it all to the email address on the claim form instead of electing to mail it in. I highly suggest you do that as well. The claim form said to allow 2 weeks after they receive the documentation for a response. And I just got it. Woohoo! I only requested the $89 that didn’t include tax, and they reimbursed the tax as well.
Laura Lessons:
-Save your original receipts….scan them for big ticket items.
-Buy your big purchases strategically with a credit card that has an extended warranty benefit (most do)
-Take a few steps to be proactive when you purchase your big purchase item. Just put the info in a spreadsheet or a desktop folder.
-Include the tax in your requested amount
-It doesn’t hurt to try!
-If you have concerns over paying for a replacement and not getting reimbursed for it, call the customer service line and talk with a representative to get more info and guidance.
-Keep in mind that if your repair cost ends up being reimbursed, it’s not immediate. It’ll take 1-2 billing cycles to show up. So, you need to make sure you’re not relying on that money.
All in all, I’m happy! If you found this valuable, please share with a friend!