Until last spring, my Nissan Leaf was the most reliable car I’ve ever owned. But I was about 20 miles from home when just about every possible error message flashed on my dash and the power dwindled to nothing.
Thankfully, I was able to safely pull over to the side of the highway. Instead of calling around for a tow truck and paying an exorbitant rate, I was able to call the number on the back of my Chase Sapphire Reserve® and quickly have my car towed to the nearest dealership.
What is roadside assistance?
Roadside assistance is a card benefit that will dispatch and, in some cases, pay for certain minor services. Eligible services include towing, tire changes, jump starts, fuel delivery, standard winching and lockout, not including key replacement.
How the Chase Sapphire Reserve helped
After calling the number on the back of my card, I quickly reached a representative.
The representative found an available tow truck and sent me a text link to a site that gave me the driver’s information and expected arrival time. Not wanting to wait around too long, I reached out to the driver, told him exactly where the vehicle was, and that I wanted it towed to the nearest dealer. I then called a ride service to take me home.
Since the dealer was just a few miles away, there was no charge for the towing. Chase will cover the tow so long as it's under 5 miles.
In addition to the Nissan Leaf’s battery failure, roadside assistance helped when my wife was running an errand and hit more of a crater than a pothole when entering a shopping center.
The crater left her with two flat tires, but again the Sapphire Reserve roadside assistance service had the car towed to the nearest tire shop. Another time, our minivan started emitting thick smoke, and the check engine light came on. Once again, the Sapphire Reserve roadside assistance benefit came to the rescue, as we later learned the car had an oil leak caused by a known defect.
Does Roadside Assistance cost anything?
The Sapphire Reserve roadside assistance benefit differs from the roadside dispatch services offered by many other credit card issuers.
Dispatch services only send assistance, but you must pay for any charges. However, the Chase Sapphire roadside assistance service offers a single number to call to send help, and will also pay for covered services.
In each case of car trouble, I received the service at no charge. If I needed the car to be towed a long distance or received some other type of service that wasn’t covered, I would have been responsible for payment. This benefit is limited to $50 per occurrence, up to four times per year.
Other credit cards that offer roadside dispatch
It would be hard to find another card that offers complimentary roadside assistance, but many cards offer roadside dispatch services that charge a fee.
These include the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card and Chase Freedom Flex®*. All Visa cards offer roadside dispatch for a flat fee of $79.95 per call. Master RoadAssist Roadside Service is also offered on select Mastercards.
*All information about the Chase Freedom Flex has been collected independently by CNET and has not been reviewed by the issuer.
