Budapest Post

Cum Deo pro Patria et Libertate
Budapest, Europe and world news

This app reveals your credit card's secret perks

This app reveals your credit card's secret perks

Extended warranties and cash back are just the tip of the iceberg. Here's how to use all the benefits.

Once while traveling home, my evening flight was canceled due to weather. That meant I needed a hotel, but because there wasn't a mechanical issue to blame for the cancelation, the airline didn't offer to foot the bill. I was stuck with it.

What I didn't know was that the bank whose credit card I used to book the flight, Chase, would have stepped in to cover my hotel expense. Like many (most?) folks, I'm woefully unaware of the various benefits afforded me as a cardholder. Sure, I knew about the points I earned with each purchase, and I was fairly sure I could get an extended warranty on certain product purchases. But travel insurance? I had no idea.

Enter Sift, a service that catalogs every perk offered by a wide variety of credit cards, with complete descriptions of each one and instructions for how to access it.

That's already quite useful, but Sift also tracks your purchases and notifies you of price drops, return options, warranty coverage and more. It can even automatically get you a refund if there's an applicable price-protection policy.


Install the app or visit the website

The Sift app is available for Android and iPhone, but the company also has a website if you prefer to use a browser. By the way, there's no direct cost to using Sift, but if the service is able to save you money (see below), you'll be charged 25% of those savings.


Link your cards and accounts

To make the most of Sift, you'll need to add at least one credit card. Fortunately, that doesn't mean sharing your actual card number. You can add one or more cards just by browsing or searching the list and selecting them by name.

If you want to see (and enjoy) the benefits associated with individual purchases -- price protection, return options and so on -- add the last four digits of your card number. That'll allow Sift to match your purchase receipts to the correct card.

To do that, you'll also need to link an email address. Sift will scan your messages in search of receipts. (Other services, like Paribus, work similarly. Obviously if you have privacy concerns, you'll want to check out Sift's privacy policy.) Note that if you are part of Google's Advanced Protection Program, which requires a physical key to log into your Gmail, Sift will not be able to access your email, so this aspect of the service won't work.

Finally, in another stab at freaking out the privacy-minded, Sift asks you to link your Amazon account -- again for purposes of price protection, help with returning purchases and other services.


Review your benefits and purchases

Once you've completed these Sift profile steps, you can start investigating the various benefits. Select the Credit Cards tab at the top of the the website or tap Cashback on the bottom of the app and then tap Credit Cards up top for a summary of each card's benefits. You can select any one of them to get more information - including, in some cases, a link and a phone number for claiming the benefit.

I must admit, I loved seeing all these perks listed in one convenient place. Most of them were news to me. It's not like they're listed anywhere in my Chase app, and even poking around the Chase site wasn't particularly fruitful. I actually had to do some Googling to find the bank's card benefits, and even then they weren't presented as completely or efficiently as they were here.

Next, check out Purchases to see items you've bought via Amazon and your linked credit cards. For any given item, you'll see which price-protection, warranty and return options are available. You can also search for a specific purchase - helpful for long lists - and filter the results based on item category.

Tap Drops for an automatically updated list of price changes for your past purchases. (Pro tip: Give the app permission to notify you when it detects one, so you don't miss the window.) Where possible, Sift will actually intervene on your behalf to file a price-drop claim, either with your credit card or the store.

To take advantage of this, however, you'll need to keep a credit card on file so Sift can charge you 25 percent of whatever it's able to save you. (This charge occurs once per month.) So, for example, if the service finds three price drops in a month, and is able to score price-protection refunds totaling $20, that money will be refunded to whichever cards you used to make the purchases - but you'll also incur a separate charge of $5.

Sure, you could monitor each and every purchase yourself and file individual price-protection claims yourself. Would you catch each and every one? And how much time would that take? Although 25 percent may seem steep, chances are good you'll still come out way ahead. Call it unexpected-cashback-after-the-fact.

Additionally, much like other finance apps such as Credit Karma and Mint, Sift has a tab on the mobile app called Best Cards that offers up credit card recommendations based on your credit score (which you must provide -- Sift does not pull your credit score like some other apps) as well as other factors. Of course, Sift lets you know it may make a commission from any cards you apply and are approved for through the Sift app.

Bottom line: Sift rocks. It provides some pretty useful and enlightening data about your credit cards, and if you're willing to provide some personal information, it can save you money as well.

AI Disclaimer: An advanced artificial intelligence (AI) system generated the content of this page on its own. This innovative technology conducts extensive research from a variety of reliable sources, performs rigorous fact-checking and verification, cleans up and balances biased or manipulated content, and presents a minimal factual summary that is just enough yet essential for you to function as an informed and educated citizen. Please keep in mind, however, that this system is an evolving technology, and as a result, the article may contain accidental inaccuracies or errors. We urge you to help us improve our site by reporting any inaccuracies you find using the "Contact Us" link at the bottom of this page. Your helpful feedback helps us improve our system and deliver more precise content. When you find an article of interest here, please look for the full and extensive coverage of this topic in traditional news sources, as they are written by professional journalists that we try to support, not replace. We appreciate your understanding and assistance.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
IMF Upgrades Global Growth Forecast as Weaker Dollar Supports Outlook
House Republicans Move to Defund OECD Over Global Tax Dispute
France Opens Criminal Investigation into X Over Algorithm Manipulation Allegations
Trump Steamrolls EU in Landmark Trade Win: US–EU Trade Deal Imposes 15% Tariff on European Imports
ChatGPT CEO Sam Altman says people share personal info with ChatGPT but don’t know chats can be used as court evidence in legal cases.
Intel Reports Revenue Beats but Sees 81% Rise in Losses
Politics is a good business: Barack Obama’s Reported Net Worth Growth, 1990–2025
UN's Top Court Declares Environmental Protection a Legal Obligation Under International Law
"Crazy Thing": OpenAI's Sam Altman Warns Of AI Voice Fraud Crisis In Banking
The Podcaster Who Accidentally Revealed He Earns Over $10 Million a Year
UK Government Considers Dropping Demand for Apple Encryption Backdoor
Japanese Man Discovers Family Connection Through DNA Testing After Decades of Separation
Russia Signals Openness to Ukraine Peace Talks Amid Escalating Drone Warfare
Switzerland Implements Ban on Mammography Screening
Pogacar Extends Dominance with Stage Fifteen Triumph at Tour de France
President Trump Diagnosed with Chronic Venous Insufficiency After Leg Swelling
CEO Resigns Amid Controversy Over Relationship with HR Executive
NVIDIA Achieves $4 Trillion Valuation Amid AI Demand
Tulsi Gabbard Unveils Evidence Alleging Political Manipulation of Intelligence During Trump Administration
Centrist Criticism of von der Leyen Resurfaces as she Survives EU Confidence Vote
Trump Announces Coca-Cola to Shift to Cane Sugar in U.S. Production
FIFA Pressured to Rethink World Cup Calendar Due to Climate Change
Zelensky Reshuffles Cabinet to Win Support at Home and in Washington
"Can You Hit Moscow?" Trump Asked Zelensky To Make Putin "Feel The Pain"
Church of England Removes 1991 Sexuality Guidelines from Clergy Selection
Superman Franchise Achieves Success with Latest Release
Hungary's Viktor Orban Rejects Agreements on Illegal Migration
Air India Pilot’s Mental Health Records Under Scrutiny
Jamie Dimon Warns Europe Is Losing Global Competitiveness and Flags Market Complacency
Moonshot AI Unveils Kimi K2: A New Open-Source AI Model
Martha Wells Says Humanity Still Far from True Artificial Intelligence
Nvidia Becomes World’s First Four‑Trillion‑Dollar Company Amid AI Boom
EU Delays Retaliatory Tariffs Amid New U.S. Threats on Imports
Trump Proposes Supplying Arms to Ukraine Through NATO Allies
US Opens First Rare Earth Mine in Over 70 Years in Wyoming
Bitcoin Reaches New Milestone of $116,000
Severe Heatwave Claims 2,300 Lives Across Europe
Declining Beer Consumption Signals Cultural Shift in Germany
Emails Leaked: How Passenger Luggage Became a Side Income for Airport Workers
Polish MEP: “Dear Leftists - China is laughing at you, Russia is laughing, India is laughing”
Western Europe Records Hottest June on Record
BRICS Expands Membership with Indonesia and Ten New Partner Countries
Elon Musk Founds a Party Following a Poll on X: "You Wanted It – You Got It!"
China’s Central Bank Consults European Peers on Low-Rate Strategies
France Requests Airlines to Cut Flights at Paris Airports Amid Planned Air Traffic Controller Strike
Poland Implements Border Checks Amid Growing Migration Tensions
Emirates Airline Expands Market Share with New $20 Million Campaign
Amazon Reaches Milestone with Deployment of One Millionth Robot
Yulia Putintseva Calls for Spectator Ejection at Wimbledon Over Safety Concerns
House Oversight Committee Subpoenas Former Jill Biden Aide Amid Investigation into Alleged Concealment of President Biden's Cognitive Health
×