Some Gift Cards Not Triggering American Express Airline Fee Credit
American Express has several credit cards that offer airline fee credits such as the Platinum Card, Gold Card and Hilton Honors Aspire Card. While it’s easy to maximize these credits if you pay for checked bags, in-flight refreshments etc., most people try to get them without flying, by purchasing gift cards.
In the last week or so however, there’s been several data points showing some issues with this practice. Some gift card purchases, mainly in February, are not triggering the Amex credits. These thread at FlyerTalk and Reddit can provide more info. There’s still gift card purchases that are working fine, so this is not across the board. American Airlines gift cards are the ones that are having issues and they are now coding as “GIFT CERTIFICATE” instead of “MISC”.
Conclusion
It could be best to hold off purchasing any airline gift cards for now, especially American Airlines. Or at least read up more on data points and decide for yourself. This might be a temporary glitch or delay and hopefully nothing to worry about.
Let us know if you’ve made any purchases in the last few weeks and whether it triggered the Amex credit or not.
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I was just to change my airline from AA to SW by chat. Thanks up for the heads up and the suggestion that change might still be possible.
Has anyone been reimbursed for AA Gift Card using the B of A Premium Rewards card after 2/8.
Bought 1 $100 SW egift card on 1/31/19 with Amex Rose Gold not reimbursed after more than 2 weeks. Should I be worried about this one? I’m thinking I’ll wait a month for the next statement close date and maybe inquire by chat after that time. At least with companion pass the value doubles. I don’t like paying for airline tickets with real money that isn’t reimbursed.
Bought 2 $100 SW egift cards with Amex Business Platinum 2/1/19. Reimbursement for both came on 2/6/19.
Bought 2 Delta $50 gift cards on Feb 8 using my Hilton Aspire card and no credit yet. They posted as a $100 Delta Cstar GFTCD.
Same as Bob and Sally, I purchased a $50 Delta e-gift card in early February with my Amex Platinum card and have not received the credit.
Similar to Bob above, (2) $50 Delta certs purchased in early Feb using Aspire, no credit as of yet. Previous purchases reimbursed 1-4 days later.
Delta $50 e-cert purchased on 2-1 with no reimbursement yet. This was purchased on a desktop in the same manner as the last three $50 e-certs which were purchased in January and which were reimbursed within four days. Former Mercedes Platinum.
Purchased a $200 gc for Southwest using AMX business plat on 2/9. Reimbursed 2/13.
Amex rep changed my selection from AA to SW today without any questions. I used the “chat with us” feature and it took effect immediately. Swap your selections!
Awesome!
Given how often you bloggers love yapping about these loopholes it’s a surprise it took them this long…
James why do you read the blogs then? Maybe because you learn things you wouldn’t know otherwise??? This is most likely a change in the way the purchase posts on AA’s end and has nothing to do with Amex.
This is exactly why I purchased mine within the first few days of the new year. You never know when the hammer is going to come down on redemptions like these.
Yeah just like Lukas said, you never know when these things end. I forgot the first few days of the year and I was worried I was going to regret it, but it worked out. Looks like it’ll be time to switch my airline next year.
In mid-January, I purchased five $100 AA e-giftcards, in separate transactions, on separate days when using the same card (I have both personal and business platinum cards and a personal gold card), and I was reimbursed for all. It took several days for the reimbursements to post, but I didn’t notice a lengthier delay than in the past. I’ll keep this in mind next year, though.
Purchased $100 AA on Feb 5th and credit given on Feb 7th