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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 the Gold Card® from American Express;
  • $200 for all versions of the Platinum Card® from American Express;
  • $200 for the Business Platinum Card® from American Express OPEN
  • $250 for the Hilton Aspire card

You can see the different American Express cards here, including ones with signup bonuses of over 100,000 points (I may receive a commission if you apply for a card through my link)

It’s a new year and it is time to claim your 2019 Amex airline fee credits!

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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.

[SEE: How to use your Amex Platinum $200 airline credit.]

One advice related to The Business Platinum® Card from American Express OPEN. 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. I loved this card when the rebate benefit was 50% last year and used it to book a lot of tickets  Now that the rebate is only 35%, I think I would transfer the points directly to airlines instead.

Since I basically have a credit card with all major domestic airlines, I don’t get charged on luggage fees. I rarely pay for seat selections either. So to claim the $200 fee credit, I normally buy electronic gift cards. But before I make the purchases, I usually check the Flyertalk forum for my airline to make sure that the credit still works on gift cards. You can check the forum for United Airlines here, American Airlines here, Delta Airlines here, Jetblue Airlines here, Southwest Airlines here.   Be sure to go straight to the LAST page for the most recent posts.

My husband and I both have the Business Platinum card. Since we can no longer get gift cards from Alaska, I have American Airlines and he has Delta as the designated airlines. The gift cards we purchased earlier this month were all reimbursed.

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If Delta is your airline choice, be sure to purchase gift cards only on Delta’s desktop site. Gift cards purchased from Delta mobile app are processed by CashStar and are not being reimbursed by Amex.

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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!

Have you claimed your Amex airline fee credits for 2019 yet?


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