The Easiest Way To Use The Amex Airline Fee Credit

The Easiest Way To Use The Amex Airline Fee Credit

Many credit cards come with a variety of benefits that help to reduce the cost of travel. American Express has a few cards that offer an Amex airline fee credit as a benefit.

These cards include:

• Amex Platinum card — Up to $200 airline incidental credit on your selected airline
• Amex Business Platinum card – Up to $200 airline incidental credit on your selected airline
• Amex Gold card – Up to $100 airline incidental credit on your selected airline
• Amex Hilton Honors Aspire card – Up to $250 airline incidental credit on your selected airline

I actually have all of these cards except the Amex Platinum card. This means I have $550 worth of Amex airline fee credits to redeem!

The problem is that they are not super easy to use. The Amex airline fee credit is primarily restricted to incidental airline fees.

This is very unlike the $300 travel credit that comes with the Chase Sapphire Reserve which is very broad and covers so many different travel related expenses. For example, if you purchase any airline ticket with the Chase Sapphire Reserve you’ll automatically be reimbursed with a credit. The Amex airline fee credit is much more restrictive.

 

First Select An Airline

There are several steps that you have to take in order to use the airline fee credit.

First, you have to log in to your American Express account online and designate a specific airline for this benefit. You will find this on the menu under “benefits”.

Then there is a drop down menu for you to select your designated airline. Once selected, hit the “submit selection” button.

Airlines that you can choose from include:

• Alaska Airlines
• American Airlines
• Delta Air Lines
• Frontier Airlines
• Hawaiian Airlines
• JetBlue Airways
• Spirit Airlines
• Southwest Airlines
• United Airlines

As you can see, there’s a decent number of airlines that you can select.

What Counts As Incidental Airline Fees?

To trigger the credit, you are supposed to use your Amex card to pay for incidental fees on your designated airline.

Incidental fees include:

• Checked baggage fees
• Overweight/oversize baggage fees
• Change fees
• Phone reservation fees
• Pet flight fees
• Airport lounge day passes and annual memberships
• Seat assignment fees
• Inflight amenity fees (beverages, food, pillows/blankets, etc.)
• Inflight entertainment fees (excluding wireless internet)

Airfare purchases do NOT count as incidental fees. Or at least they are not supposed to.

It’s also important to note that the Amex airline fee credit is valid every calendar year from January 1 through December 31. It doesn’t roll over to the next year, so it’s a “use it or lose it” credit.

 

The Amex Airline Fee Credit Is Very Restrictive

As you can see, the Amex airline fee credit is hard to use. First you have to use your specific Amex card that contains the airline fee credit benefit. Then, you have to incur incidental fees such as one listed above.

Additionally, the incidental fees MUST with the designated airline that you originally selected.

I don’t typically incur a lot of incidental fees. As a minimalist, I almost always bring a carryon bag, thus I rarely incur checked baggage fees. Pet flight fees don’t apply to me since I don’t bring my dog on flights as a comfort animal; I’m not that guy. Priority Pass already gives me lounge access, so I don’t need to pay for it. And I don’t really care too much about inflight amenities and entertainment.

 

The Easiest Way To Use The Amex Airline Fee Credit

I suspect that most reasonably frugal people like me will have a hard time racking up incidental fees just to use the Amex airline fee credit.

Fortunately, there are still a few work arounds that trigger the airline fee credit. Frequentmiler blog lists a few things that still work

In my opinion, the easiest way to use the Amex airline fee credit is to select Southwest Airlines as your designated airline and purchase airfare under $100. Doing this will trigger the airline fee credit.

Airfare Under $100

Since Southwest Airlines is a low cost carrier that sells reasonably priced one way tickets to a variety of cities, it’s not very hard to find airfare under $100.

In fact, it’s not uncommon for Southwest to have promotions in which flights from Southern California to Northern California or Las Vegas are incredibly cheap, as low as $49 one way.

This is perfect because I was planning on flying to Las Vegas to attend the Physician Wellness and Financial Literacy Conference.

I didn’t find any one way fares to Las Vegas for $49, but I did find one for $88.88. Since this is under $100, I knew it would trigger the airline fee credit.

Sure enough, it worked.

I received the reimbursement credit on Jan 2, exactly three days after I made the purchase on Dec 30.

The above screenshot of transactions and credits is actually from my American Express Gold card. That’s why you can see that I am earning 4x points on grocery stores and 3x points on airfare, plus I received an airline fee credit AND a dining credit. Those are some of the perks and benefits of having the Amex Gold card.

But What If You Can’t Find Airfare Under $100?

Perhaps you want to fly somewhere farther. Or maybe you want to book a flight in the Summer when flights aren’t as cheap. You won’t always find cheap Southwest fares under $100. So how can you utilize the Amex airline fee credit in this case?

Fortunately, there’s another trick that works. You can split your airfare payment so that only less than $100 is actually charged to your card.

I had to do this with the return flight from Las Vegas to San Diego because there were no convenient flights under $100 on the day I wanted to fly back.

The flight that I wanted was just over $100. It was $108.98 to be exact.

Ouch. I knew that this would not work since it was over $100.

Multiple data points suggest that airfare purchased with Southwest MUST be less than $100 in order to trigger the Amex airline fee credit.

How to Make Split Payments that Trigger the Amex Airline Fee Credit

First, it’s important to know that Southwest sells electronic gift cards that can be purchased for as low as $10.

Also, Southwest allows you to split your airfare payment between gift cards, travel vouchers, and credit cards.

Here’s an example. If you want to purchase a $200 flight, you can use a $100 Southwest gift card to cover half of the purchase and charge your credit card $100 to cover the other half.

This is exactly how I did it

Since the fare that I wanted was $108.98, I purchased an electronic gift card for $10.

Purchasing an Southwest electronic gift card is relatively easy.

First, you log on to your Southwest account online an scroll to the bottom. Under “Southwest Products” section, click on “Southwest gift card”.

Then, click on the “Buy a Southwest gift card” tab and click on continue.

Next, you should see a page that looks like this.

From here, all you have to do is enter the amount that you want, the quantity of cards, delivery method, and the email of the recipient.

In my case, I entered $10, quantity of 1, email delivery (free AND fast), and my own email. After hitting continue, it will ask for a credit card to complete the gift card purchase.

I used my Chase Sapphire Reserve card so that I can earn 3x points AND the purchase actually counts towards the Chase travel credit. I was reimbursed for this $10 through Chase!

After about 15-20 minutes, I received my electronic gift card via email with the card number and security code.

How To Make Split Payments

Making split payments is actually pretty simple and straight forward.

After confirming your flight details and passenger information, you will choose a method of payment. The page generally looks like this.

 

Select the “Southwest gift card” button and enter your card number along with the security code.

Then hit the “Apply gift card” button and the amount of the gift card will show up on the “funds applied” section as seen below.

After the gift card was applied, my total due was $98.98.

Perfect! Just under $100.

I then proceeded to charge my Amex card for the remaining $98.98 that was due.

As you can see, I received the Amex airline fee credit a few days after making the purchase on Feb 3.

It worked again. Success!

 

Bottom Line

For people like me who like to travel but also live a frugal and minimalist lifestyle, it could be quite a challenge to maximize Amex airline fee credits.

In my opinion, the easiest way to use this benefit is to select Southwest as your designated airline and use your Amex card to purchase Southwest airfare for under $100.

If airfare under $100 is not available, you can buy a Southwest gift card then strategically split the payment so that you charge your card for an amount that is less than $100.

Ideally, you would use a credit card like the Chase Sapphire Reserve to buy the gift card because it has a good earning rate for travel (3x Ultimate Rewards points) and airline gift cards count as “travel” for the travel credit that is reimbursed.

By doing all this, your flight will truly be free (or at least fully reimbursed). Not only that, you will earn Southwest Rapid Rewards for the flight to boot.

And don’t forget that if you have the Southwest companion pass, you do even better because you double your savings!