All the Hacks: Money, Points & Life
Jun 24, 2026 · 1 hr 3 min · 16 segments
#284: Chris breaks down the credit card benefits that save real money but rarely get attention, from getting a cracked iPhone repaired for free to purchase protections, travel coverage, and a deep…
Over the years, I've gotten thousands of dollars of value from my credit cards, but not just from welcome bonuses, points, cashback, or even those big monthly credits.
Sure, I've earned thousands of dollars there as well, but I'm talking about the benefits you get that no one talks about.
Things like getting your broken iPhone or your MacBook replaced or repaired for free, getting a car rental claim without having to run it through your own car insurance, hundreds of dollars of cashback from card-linked offers, and a lot more.
So I wanted to find all the benefits, not just for one card, but for every major issuer and network.
Some benefits disappeared, some improved, and there are quite a few new ones that I didn't even know existed.
For example, I bet most people listening to this have access to free international data, no matter what carrier they're on.
I also think that most people are probably able to get some of their public transit costs partially refunded if they have the right card.
So today, I'm gonna walk through all this and make sure you are not leaving any money on the table, and that you always know which cards to use so you're protected with every purchase.
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Coming off the heels of last week, where we went deep on travel insurance and some of those benefits on your card, I wanted to cover all of the other benefits of all of our credit cards because I did this three years ago and did an episode, and a lot has changed.
This also took a lot of research, reading a lot of guide to benefits, especially Cap One, which is super complicated because they actually don't publish which card is in which platform.
If you go to their website, you will see a credit card, and you'll realize it doesn't actually even say if it's a Visa or a MasterCard, and who knows if in the future it'll be a Discover card, other than the Venture X.
And for most of these benefits, the only requirements to get them is to hold the card or to use the card.
And so if you want to know the specifics for your own card, you just search card and guide to benefits, whatever the name of the card is, and sometimes those are easier to find, sometimes they're harder, sometimes they're just linked on the website.
But I'll run through most of the things that you need to know and give you an idea of what to look for, what matters, and where you can get value.
Now, the first bucket I'm gonna talk about are purchase benefits, and for many of these benefits the only requirement is that you put the cost of your purchase on your card, and filing claims is super easy.
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