Are There Issues With The BOA Premium Rewards Travel Credits?
Airline incidental, or travel credits, have become somewhat of a mine field the last year or so. American Express ended the work around of buying gift cards for their credits in 2019 which made using them much more difficult. Chase and Citi do a good job of keeping their credits easy to use, since they are a true travel credit. Bank of America was more along the lines of Amex with their Premium Rewards card. There were work arounds that coded properly like American Airlines gift cards. No one has had a credit post yet on their account in 2020. So are there issues with the BOA Premium Rewards travel credits in 2020 or is it just a delay?
What Issues Do You Speak Of?
As you guys know I love knocking out my airline incidental and travel credits on January 1st. Then I am not left scrambling at the end of December trying to figure out what to do with them. So I went ahead and used my tried and true work around for the BOA Premium Rewards travel credits, American Airlines gift cards.
I even checked recent FlyerTalk data points before going forward with it and the credits were coding perfectly fine at the end of December. Remember that the BOA travel credits are based on calendar year so it is possible to get two in the first year of card membership, what I was attempting to do.
I purchased my American Airlines gift card on January 1st and it posted on January 3rd. Then I waited and waited and waited. Nothing, no credit. And now my statement has cut so I need to make the $100 payment.
I went back to FlyerTalk to see if it was just me. It appears that no one has had a credit post so far this year and there are multiple data points. But today people have started seeing the tracker update showing the credit was used, myself included. No credits have posted as of yet but it should happen in a day or two.
How To Check Your BOA Premium Rewards Airline Incidental Tracker
How do you check your airline incidental credit tracker? There are a few simple steps that you can follow to check for yourself, you will need the BOA app though.
- Open BOA app on your phone
- Select your Premium Rewards card
- Scroll down to Premium Benefits and select that
- You should see your tracker at the top of the next page
Final Thoughts
It is good to see that the issues with the BOA Premium Rewards travel credits appear to just be delayed posting. Normally you will see your credit within 3-4 days but this year it has taken up to 15 days to see the tracker updated. I am sure it is just because of the beginning of the year back log. We should all start seeing credits post in the next day or two. Enjoy that free gift card on your travels 😉.
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Purchased on 1/7, credit on 1/18
Mine just hit too – finally!
Thanks for the reminder. I didn’t realize the credit is per calendar year. Do you have any recommendations on cashing in the AA gift card? I sold my last one on Raise.com but only got about $82 back after all the fees.
I don’t think that is terrible – public rates are around 75%.
Credit hasn’t posted but app tracker just updated from $0 to $100 credit for 2020. Purchased AA gift card on 1/9/2020.
Awesome – thanks for the DP Sean. Looks like they did a massive batch / catch all today for everyone.
*it’s not free. You are paying an AF to get that back. Look at it this way: would you rather have the card with no AF and have the $95 (ok, fine, $100, whatever) in your pocket to spend on anything you want? of course you would. Thus the credit is a restricted rebate at best. But free? no, free it is not
It is if it is in your first year since you get $200 for $95 plus a $500 bonus.
On 1/3 I received credit from a transaction on 12/30. However, I have not received credit for transactions on 1/7. These were not GC purchases.
My tracker shows $0 used for 2020. BTW the transaction posted 1/6.
Hopefully it will update sometime next week then.
Thanks for posting, I was also wondering why the credit didn’t posted although the tracker shows it was used
Yeah I figured a lot of people were in a similar boat.