London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Friday, Sep 12, 2025

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.

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Suspect Arrested: Utah Man in Custody for Charlie Kirk’s Fatal Shooting
In a politically motivated trial: Bolsonaro Sentenced to 27 Years for Plotting Coup After 2022 Defeat
German police raid AfD lawmaker’s offices in inquiry over Chinese payments
Turkish authorities seize leading broadcaster amid fraud and tax investigation
Volkswagen launches aggressive strategy to fend off Chinese challenge in Europe’s EV market
ChatGPT CEO signals policy to alert authorities over suicidal youth after teen’s death
The British legal mafia hit back: Banksy mural of judge beating protester is scrubbed from London court
Surpassing Musk: Larry Ellison becomes the richest man in the world
Embarrassment for Starmer: He fired the ambassador photographed on Epstein’s 'pedophile island'
Manhunt after 'skilled sniper' shot Charlie Kirk. Footage: Suspect running on rooftop during panic
Effective Protest Results: Nepal’s Prime Minister Resigns as Youth-Led Unrest Shakes the Nation
Qatari prime minister says Netanyahu ‘killed any hope’ for Israeli hostages
King Charles and Prince Harry Share First In-Person Moment in 19 Months
Starmer Establishes Economic ‘Budget Board’ to Centralise Policy and Rebuild Business Trust
France Erupts in Mass ‘Block Everything’ Protests on New PM’s First Day
Poland Shoots Down Russian Drones in Airspace Violation During Ukraine Attack
Brazilian police say ex-President Bolsonaro had planned to flee to Argentina seeking asylum
Trinidad Leader Applauds U.S. Naval Strike and Advocates Forceful Action Against Traffickers
Kim Jong Un Oversees Final Test of New High-Thrust Solid-Fuel Rocket Engine
Apple Introduces Ultra-Thin iPhone Air, Enhanced 17 Series and New Health-Focused Wearables
Macron Appoints Sébastien Lecornu as Prime Minister Amid Budget Crisis and Political Turmoil
Supreme Court temporarily allows Trump to pause billions in foreign aid
Charlie Sheen says his father, Martin Sheen, turned him in to the police: 'The greatest betrayal possible'
Vatican hosts first Catholic LGBTQ pilgrimage
Apple Unveils iPhone 17 Series, iPhone Air, Apple Watch 11 and More at 'Awe Dropping' Event
Pig Heads Left Outside Multiple Paris Mosques in Outrage-Inducing Acts
Nvidia’s ‘Wow’ Factor Is Fading. The AI chip giant used to beat Wall Street expectations for earnings by a substantial margin. That trajectory is coming down to earth.
France joins Eurozone’s ‘periphery’ as turmoil deepens, say investors
On the Anniversary of Queen Elizabeth’s Death: Prince Harry Returns to Britain
France Faces New Political Crisis, again, as Prime Minister Bayrou Pushed Out
Murdoch Family Finalises $3.3 Billion Succession Pact, Ensuring Eldest Son’s Leadership
Big Oil Slashes Jobs and Investments Amid Prolonged Low Crude Prices
Court Staff Cover Up Banksy Image of Judge Beating a Protester
Social Media Access Curtailed in Turkey After CHP Calls for Rallies Following Police Blockade of Istanbul Headquarters
Nayib Bukele Points Out Belgian Hypocrisy as Brussels Considers Sending Army into the Streets
Elon Musk Poised to Become First Trillionaire Under Ambitious Tesla Pay Plan
France, at an Impasse, Heads Toward Another Government Collapse
Burning the Minister’s House Helped Protesters to Win Justice: Prabowo Fires Finance Minister in Wake of Indonesia Protests
Brazil Braces for Fallout from Bolsonaro Trial by corrupted judge
The Country That Got Too Rich? Public Spending Dominates Norway Election
Nearly 40 Years Later: Nike Changes the Legendary Slogan Just Do It
Generations Born After 1939 Unlikely to Reach Age One Hundred, New Study Finds
End to a four-year manhunt in New Zealand: the father who abducted his children to the forests was killed, the three siblings were found
Germany Suspends Debt Rules, Funnels €500 Billion Toward Military and Proxy War Strategy
EU Prepares for War
BMW Eyes Growth in China with New All‑Electric Neue Klasse Lineup
Trump Threatens Retaliatory Tariffs After EU Imposes €2.95 Billion Fine on Google
Tesla Board Proposes Unprecedented One-Trillion-Dollar Performance Package for Elon Musk
US Justice Department Launches Criminal Mortgage-Fraud Probe into Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook
Escalating Drug Trafficking and Violence in Latin America: A Growing Crisis
×