How I Burned 3 Amex Airline Incidental Credits In Minutes

Delta Amex Airline Incidental Credits

I wanted to share my experience of burning my Amex airline incidental credits on Delta in rapid succession a few weeks ago. What works on Delta has been well covered, and you can check out our complete Amex airline incidental credits guide for all airlines, but I did things slightly different this time around. My main goal was to maximize all of our cards’ credits in rapid succession. My other goal was to spend as little out of pocket money as possible.

What Works For Delta Amex Airline Incidental Credits

There are things that are guaranteed to work, and then things that shouldn’t work – but do. That is where the gray area of burning your Amex airline incidental credits comes into play. As a quick refresher:

These Fees Are Included In The Terms Of The Benefits

Here are the options that are laid out in the terms of the airline incidental credits for ALL eligible airlines.

• Checked baggage fees
• Overweight/oversize baggage fees
• Change fees
• Pet flight fees
• Airport lounge day passes and annual memberships
• Phone reservation fees
• Seat assignment fees
• Inflight amenity fees
  • Food & beverages
  • Headphones, etc.
• Inflight entertainment fees
  • This DOES NOT include WiFi

These Fees Are Listed As NOT Eligible

Here are the options that are laid out in the terms of the airline incidental credits that should not work for ALL eligible airlines:

• Airfare / ticket purchases
• Charges on airlines that are not your selected airline
• Upgrades
• Purchasing Miles
• Anything purchased BEFORE you make your airline selection
• Airline miles transfer fees
• Gift cards
• Duty-free purchases
• Award tickets
• United TravelBank

The Delta Airlines Gray Areas

As I said above, just because it shouldn’t work doesn’t mean it won’t. You also have to realize these gray areas will work, until they won’t. In walks the United TravelBank option…

Here are things that work for Delta Airlines when using Amex airline incidental credits even if some of them technically shouldn’t:

• Companion ticket taxes
• Award tickets taxes and fees
• Split airfare purchases totaling under $250 on your card (must be paid partially with a gift card or e-credit + the rest on a credit card)
• Comfort Plus upgrades have mixed reports but should be eligible if you ask via chat
• Luggage
• Pet Fees
• Rare data points on Mileage Booster reimbursements
• Seat assignment fees
• In flight purchases
• Award booking fees have mixed reports
• Sky Club access & memberships
• Link to most recent data points

Starting From Ground Zero

In the past I have used a Delta flight credit, or gift card, to pair up with a flight booking to trigger the credit. This time I didn’t have either to kick things off with. I could have purchased a $50 Delta gift card, but they take several days to fully activate when purchased. This is an annoying part of all airline gift cards. I even checked resale gift card sites, but they had zero Delta Airlines stock. If they were in stock they would work right after purchase, since they are “used” and have aged enough to be fully active.

That left me with another option I had never used before, booking a Delta Airlines flight with my Amex Business Platinum card at 1.5 cents per point with the 35% rebate. My goal was just to find a cheap flight to anywhere that I could book this way. That would give me a Delta flight credit to pair up on my booking to trigger the Amex airline incidental.

Most people think you need to wait a few days to cancel the Delta flight in order to get the credit to roll over into your incidental credit booking. If going that route you don’t want to cancel a flight within 24 hours of booking because it will just be refunded to the card you purchased the flight with. I didn’t want to wait though, and I didn’t have to. Selecting change flight works exactly the same way for all intents and purposes here. That will be the underlying theme of this write up.

Triggering My Amex Airline Incidental Credits On Delta

I found a flight for just under $100 and booked that with Membership Rewards points at 1.5 cents a piece. Remember that I was trying to spend as little money as possible here. Immediately after booking the flight I went back in and selected change flight.

Now I was looking for any flight that was $200 more than the original booking. It could be as much as $250 more, but I didn’t want to come out of pocket at all here. I searched flights from hub to hub on random dates and a few minutes later I found a flight that worked. Just be sure it isn’t Basic, since you can’t change those tickets. Once we work our way up this stacking ladder I started looking at Comfort Plus and Delta Business rates too.

Flight 2

As you can see above, I was able to find a flight that was $195 more than the initial Amex Business Platinum 35% rebate booking. I put that amount on our first Platinum card and locked it in. Now I had a $293.49 credit to work with, but needed to find something about $200 more than that next. I did leave $5 on the table here, but I can use it booking a one way domestic award flight etc. My goal was not to spend money, so I would rather be a few dollars short versus a few dollars over. After I booked the flight I went right back in to change it again.

Flight 3

It didn’t take long to find another flight that worked for $195 more again. This time it was a Comfort Classic booking to seal the deal. After this booking I now had a $488.49 credit to work with. That meant I needed to find something for around $688 if possible for the next one. As we move up in amount the difficulty of the search increases too.

Flight 4

I was able to find a horribly overpriced 1 stop flight to San Diego that fit the bill. This flight came in $195.01 more than my rolling credit. Hey, I am a consistent flight searcher I guess. Once I booked this flight I had a whopping $878.29 Delta Airlines flight credit to work with. It took me around 30 minutes to pull all of this off in quick succession too. Most of the time was spent searching routes for prices that work. Searching with flexible dates and looking at the price calendar comes in handy here.

Flight 5 & Beyond

Right after booking the 4 flights I needed to create this credit I booked the flight I actually wanted. I changed flight 4 once again and picked the routing I needed. The cost was well below my total credit, and that left over amount was added as a flight credit on my account.

Burning Amex Airline Incidental Credits On Delta

Hopefully this proves that you can start from nothing and still use your Amex airline incidental credits fairly quickly, all without spending a ton of money. If you don’t already have a credit or gift card to work with, then booking a flight you can change works too. If you want to avoid laying out any cash then use the 35% Business Platinum rebate (assuming you have one). Booking a super cheap flight is the quickest way to get the ball rolling no matter how you do it.

Let me know if you have done something similar with your incidental credits down below or in the MTM Facebook Group.