Amex Clawing Back Airline Credits Again
The Amex RAT (rewards abuse team) is going after airline incidental credits once again. We saw a round of clawbacks in February, and now more people are reporting them in the last few days.
These credits that are clawed back, are probably for booking seat fees and similar charges, for flights that are ultimately canceled. But while in the past it was usually customers canceling their flights, now it also affect the many people who have had their flights canceled by airlines due to the coronavirus outbreak.
Nobody is really safe from this. They are clawing back credits from 2019, credits from closed cards etc. So if you have a cancelled flight, keep an eye out for it. There are still plenty of people that haven’t seen clawbacks, but it looks like it will happen in batches.
Conclusion
American Express makes it difficult for cardholders to use some of the extra benefits in some of the credit cards. This is a hassle especially for those who have closed a card. With many flights canceled right now, we should see more people affected.
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@Gene – agree if you get a voucher Amex shouldn’t claw back anything and I suspect they wouldn’t since the original charge wasn’t reversed on your statement.
I have a situation where I fully expect a clawback and am OK with it. When I got my DL Platinum Amex (mainly for sign up bonus) in December it had a $100 DL credit. I bought a one way ticket for $197 in early May to New Orleans (used AA miles for return) so with credit my net cost was $97. Just cancelled the flight with DL and got the money refunded since they changed flight over 2 hours. I expect a $197 credit and then a clawback from Amex of $100 to leave me a net credit of $97 (which is what my net cost for the ticket was). Yeah I may lose the $100 credit (don’t remember if it had a time limit or good entire first year). Again, I understand the clawback in this situation and have no problem w it. If it happens I will call Amex to see about using the $100 credit on a future DL flight however not sweating potentially losing $100.