There exists an amazing suite benefits that come along with using a credit card. This ranges from supplementary rental auto insurance to bag protection to roadside assistance to extended warranties to purchase protection. That big, bulky book of details that comes when you get a new card? There’s actually some helpful benefits that are worth taking advantage of. To do that, first you have to understand what they are. This is going to focus on Purchase Protection (“Purchase Security”) on Visa Infinite card.
This is part three in a four-post series on my experience buying, crashing, and replacing that big purchase.
- The Purchase – Buy Now Pay Later
- Homeowners Insurance Claim Coverage
- Visa Purchase Protection (this post)
- Merchant Crash Replacement Coverage
The “Purchase Security” benefit (link to Visa Infinite details)
Purchase Security protects new retail purchases made with Your eligible Account and/or rewards programs associated with Your covered Account within the first ninety (90) days from the date of purchase. To be eligible for this coverage, You need to purchase either a portion or the entire cost of the item using Your Account and/or rewards program associated with Your covered Account.
At the Benefit Administrator’s discretion, this benefit replaces, repairs, or reimburses You, up to the total purchase price of Your item for a maximum of ten thousand dollars ($10,000.00) per claim and fifty thousand dollars ($50,000.00) per cardholder, in the event of theft or damage.
The purchase & accident
July 31, 2025, I bought a set of Shimano SPD-SL Ultegra PD-R8000 bike pedals from REI for $211.80, including tax. These were on my Capital One Venture X Visa Infinite card (although I only used this card because my REI card was at home, and it was an in-store purchase).
These were installed in that shiny new bike, and went on to be scuffed heavily on a few short weeks later. The left pedal even is the likely culprit for my leg break in the accident!
Filing a claim and getting reimbursed
First off, this is secondary and supplementary to my homeowners insurance claim, as that also covers the same incident and damaged item. That means this has the potential to cover some of the deductible ($2,000) from that larger set of damage. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the pedal itemized in that bike repair quote explicitly, so should have had a slightly higher payment from that to begin with.
Secondly, there are so many exclusions with the Visa benefit around coverage. Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, the pedals were actually in scope of coverage and not subject to the big long list of excluded purchases.
Filing a claim itself was reasonably easy, registration and submission at the Visa website (Cards Benefit Services). What was not easy, however, was the process. There were multiple rounds of rejections due to insufficient documentation. Ultimately I had to contact my USAA insurance agent for additional documentation.
The hassle here probably wasn’t worth the $200. 13 distinct sets of documentation for this claim feels a lot like Visa working to make the process as hard as humanly possible to take advantage of a benefit to discourage usage. I’m nothing if not persistent, though. In the end, they pony’d up the full $200 claim, and that helped to fully cover the same pedals for the replacement bike.
The key takeaway here is to make sure you understand the benefits you have on your cards, and to take advantage of them when appropriate!
Post-ending gif
