If you plan to change your Amex airline of choice but haven’t done so for the annual airline credits, you have one week left to act.
Change Amex airline of choice in January for annual credit
Each calendar year you can receive $100, $200 or $250 in statement credits for airline incidental fees, such as checked bags, seat selection, in-flight wifi and refreshments, charged to eligible American Express cards:
- $100 for Amex Premier Rewards Gold Card;
- $200 for all versions of Amex Personal Platinum Cards;
- $200 for Amex Business Platinum Card.
- $250 for the Hilton Aspire Card.
The reimbursement is usually automatic, but you have to designate the airline of choice during the month of January. You can only change it once a year during this period. To change your Amex airline of choice, start here. You don’t need to do anything if you don’t want to change your airline of choice.
[SEE: How to use your Amex Platinum $200 airline credit.]
Make Amex airline of choice wisely for the Business Platinum Card
One advice related only to the Amex Business Platinum Card. Choose your airline choice wisely so that you can take advantage of the card’s 35% point rebate benefit. For coach tickets, the rebate benefit only applies to the designated airline. The rebate points usually post back to your account one month after they were redeemed for flights purchased on Amextravel.com.
Back in 2017, I made great use of this benefit when the rebate was 50%. But going forward I will most likely transfer my Membership Rewards points directly to airlines for flight redemption.
Buying airline gift cards using the Amex airline credit
Since I basically have a credit card with all major domestic airlines, I don’t get charged on luggage fees. I also rarely pay for seat selections either. So to claim the annual Amex airline fee credit, I normally buy electronic gift cards. You must first designate your Amex airline of choice before purchasing airline gift cards.
Besides the changes for Delta gift cards, It is worth noting:
- Per Flyertalk thread for Hawaiian Airlines here. gift card purchase was not reimbursed as of December 2017.
- Per Flyertalk thread for Alaska Airlines here, gift certificates are no longer reimbursed as of June 2017. There were reports of small ticket purchase prices were reimbursed, so it is entirely YMMV!
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I accidentally pick United this year and realize United doesn’t sell gift card anymore. What other ways you can use to incur the credit?
Did you check the Flyertalk forum for United? People are getting reimbursed through a Travel Bank they set up. Read the very top of the forum for instruction how to set up Travel Bank.
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/american-express-membership-rewards/1812742-airline-fee-200-100-reimbursement-reports-ua-only-7.html
When you had Alaska as your designated airline, were you able to pay with points and still use your companion fare discount code you get from the BofA Alaska Visa? Or can you only use that code when booking directly with Alaska?
@Zoe you can set up and fund a gift registry for yourself. Check out the MR section on the flyertalk forums.
It is two entirely different thing. To use the companion fare discount code, you MUST book directly with Alaska. With Amex pay with points, you designate Alaska as the airline of choice, pay with points, you get charged a cash amount equal to the fare but also get a credit for the same amount. You get charged for full MR points but get a credit of 50% of the MR points.
You can just call in and change your airline choice at any time with an agent if you haven’t used it yet. I’ve done this multiple times.