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I’m testing out the incidental airline fee credit
As I’m sure you know, the American Express Platinum cards offers a $200 incidental airline credit as an annual benefit. For the past several years I’d selected American Airlines as my go to airline and purchased 2 – $100 gift cards. Within a few days they would be credited. I’d read where this worked on multiple airlines, one being Alaska, and for 2018 I went ahead and changed my airline of choice align with my favorite loyalty program: Alaska Airlines. The problem? As of mid-2017, AS gift cards no longer code as incidental fees, and aren’t refunded if you purchased them with your Amex Plat. The fix? It’s reported that some cheap fares are being fully reimbursed…BINGO! So to test it out, I purchased a $40 one way fare to Vegas.
I set up a “pending monitor” so I can see if the charge gets reversed once it’s processed.
Log into your Amex account, go to pending charges, and there is an option in the upper right to request notification when the post moves from pending to posted. This is great, as I’ll just wait for the notification rather than having to go through the palava of logging in and pulling up my current statement.
If it gets reversed, I’ll buy 4 more of these bad boys, cancel them, and deposit them into my wallet to use on future flights. I’ll keep you guys up to date.
Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.
Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
Welcome Offer
Earn 60,000 bonus points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening.
Annual Fee
$95
Points Earned
Transferrable Chase Ultimate Rewards
- 5x on all travel purchased through Chase Travel℠
- 3x on dining, including eligible delivery services for takeout & dining out
- 3x on select streaming services
- 3x on online grocery purchases
- (excluding Target, Walmart and wholesale clubs)
- $50 Annual Chase Travel Hotel Credit via Chase Travel℠
- The begins immediately for new cardmembers and after your account anniversary for existing cardmembers
- 2x on all other travel
- 10% Anniversary Bonus
- Every year you keep the card, your total spend will yield a 10% points bonus. If you spend $10k in a year, you’ll get 1k bonus points
- Chase Sapphire Preferred continues to redeem at 1.25c in the Chase Travel℠ and the slew of other benefits remain in tact including Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver ( primary ), purchase protections, etc.
- Points are transferrable to 14 Ultimate Rewards partners
- Redeem in Chase Travel℠ for 1.25 cents per point
- No foreign transaction fees
- Suite of Travel and Purchase Coverage
- Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver is my favorite
- Get complimentary access to DashPass which unlocks $0 delivery fees and lower service fees for a minimum of one year when you activate by December 31, 2027.
- $95 Annual Fee
We keep an up to date spreadsheet that lists the best ever offers: You can find that spreadsheet here.
Historically 80k is a very, very good offer and hit in both 2022 and 2023. In 2021, we saw the offer hit an all time high of 100k. Who knows if that will ever come back.
Main Cast:
Cards that earn flexible points and should be used on the bulk of your purchases.
Supporting Cast:
Cards that earn fixed points in the currency of the airline/hotel and can not be transferred at attractive rates. These cards yield benefits that make it worth keeping, but not necessarily worth putting a lot of your everyday spend on.
The Chase Sapphire Preferred® is exceptional starter card and offers transferrable Ultimate Rewards, and pairs well with other Chase cards.
If you carry this card alongside Chase’s cashback cards like the Chase Freedom Flex® and Chase Freedom Unlimited® or the business versions: Ink Business Cash® , Ink Business Unlimited® you can combine the points into Preferred account and transfer into hotel and airline partners
Annual fee is quite low at $95 a year + you get a 10% anniversary bonus on points + $50 hotel credit in Chase travel.
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