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Getting your Amex Platinum Airline Fee Credit with Alaska Airlines

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Update: 10/12/18:

I picked up an American Express Gold, selected Alaska Airlines as my airline of choice and booked two tickets to Las Vegas for $48 a piece. Both qualified towards the $100 incidental fee credit and I was able to deposit them into my wallet.

Update May 2018: Alaska has changed their 60 day + free cancellation since writing this article. Only applies to Gold and G75 now.

A quick tip.

One of the benefits that’s great, but also frustrating, about the American Express Platinum ( any version ) is the annual $200 airline fee credit. The frustrating part is, unlike the Chase Reserve or Citi Prestige, the credit can’t be applied directly to purchased airfare, but rather to incidental fees like change and baggage fees. On top of that, you have to select a specific airline and up until this year I had selected American. That’s pretty limiting, but hadn’t really affected my ability to use up the credit because I purchased gift cards that triggered the fee credit.

This year, I’ve switched to Alaska, and as of last summer, Alaska Airlines gift card purchases don’t trigger the incidental fee credit. The solution? For the time being, it seems as though purchasing low fare tickets actually triggers the fee credit. I recently purchased a ~$40 ticket to Vegas, set a pending alert on my Amex, and waited to see if it was refunded. A day after it posted, wham, bam, it was refunded on my account.

I purchased a one way ticket on Feb 11th from AlaskaAir.com

It went pending on the 11th, and 72 hours later, on the 14th, it posted to my account. The 15th, the Airline Fee Reimbursement was triggered and reversed the charge. It doesn’t reflect the 15th below, but it turned negative a day after the initial posting.

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Make sure you wait 24 hours for the ticket to actually process before canceling. After that point, simply cancel and deposit into your Alaska Wallet.

If you don’t carry MVP Gold or G75 then you’ll want to purchase tickets that are more than 62 days out so that you can deposit them without penalty. 62 because Alaska allows free cancellation if you do so 60 days out. This will give you a bit of buffer for the ticket to process with Amex and to cancel. The cost of the ticket is then deposited into your Wallet. You have a year from the date of purchase to then use those funds.

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Hope this helps!

h/t ft

Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.

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9 Comments

  • Crystal June 11, 2021

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  • Jason July 29, 2019

    Great post by the way. I just got my AMEX platinum and trying to figure out how to get the refund.

    I know you said WAIT 24 hours for the ticket to process before cancelling, but it seems as if Alaska may have a policy against that? Read below:

    “For tickets purchased 24 hours or more prior to your scheduled departure time, you may also cancel and refund it to the original form of payment within 24 hours of the original purchase with no fee.
    A fee of $125 USD per person will also be assessed for all other changes and cancellations.”

    So this means if you wait > 24 hours, and then you cancel, there will be a 125 dollar cancellation fee.
    Please advise.

    • Miles July 30, 2019

      Hey Jason – thanks so much for reading. Couple of things to note. One Amex may no longer be reimbursing these any longer. I haven’t personally tried it in a couple of months, but Amex no longer reimburses gift cards on many airlines which it routinely had done until a couple of weeks ago. Second…if you carry MVPG or MVPG75 then you can still cancel fee free after 24 hours, the fare will just get refunded into your “wallet” to use on future Alaska flights ( within 12 months ). Hope that clarified

  • […] easily make use of the card each and every year I hold the card. Read this for tips, but it’s a solid […]

  • Mary June 11, 2018

    I need your advice. I called AMEX ahead to assign Alaska Airlines for my airline travel credit. To my surprise, all the charges in my credit card statement showed as Virgin America. I bought my ticket in Alaska Airlines website and I checked my ticket, it shows all the flight numbers are associated with Alaska Airlines, so I am completely dumbfounded to learn about the difference in the vendor name. Will Amex credit me back my travel purchases I made? If not, what should I do? Thanks so much!

    • Miles June 11, 2018

      Mary – it’s a sticky situation. flights aren’t technically covered by Amex’s airline fee reimbursement perk, but have qualified with purchases under $50ish for some reason ( my guess is the way that Alaska’s IT flags these flights) – calling Amex wouldn’t be fruitful as you’re requesting a credit that isn’t technically a benefit.

  • JEANLUC March 2, 2018

    Miles, thanks!And thanks for sharing your great posts every week!

  • StephanieK March 1, 2018

    Miles, thanks for the article post.Really thank you! Great.

  • Sean Ostrander February 15, 2018

    This is sheer brilliance.

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