Originally Posted by
dioxide45
The certificate expires in November. Do the flights actually have to be before the expiration date or do we just need to book the flights before the expiration but the actual travel dates can fall after expiration. I read through all the small print on the back of the certificate and nothing specified if you could travel after expiration as long as you booked before. We could likely use it for a early spring trip in 2016.
I don't KNOW the answer, but I can give an educated guess? I just read through the fine print on my $100 Citibank discount letter. My interpretation (and experience with these types of codes) is along the lines of how you're reading it: you just have to use the code to book a ticket by the expiration date. (Basically, the purchase has to occur by expiration; no restrictions on when the travel has to occur.)
Unfortunately, I would hesitate to even ask you to call the customer service folks. They tend to not know much about these ancillary card benefits and often just make things up. (One year, I had to call in 4 times to get my code issued. Each time, the customer service agent gave a different - and blatantly incorrect - reason why I hadn't received the code yet. Each time, I read the T&C directly from the Citibank website to refute them. E.g., One told me the $30K calculation was based on calendar year even though it's calculated based on membership year. One agent told me that I should have already received it via email, yet couldn't confirm which email it would have been sent to. Another agent tried to tell me that it would be automatically credited back to me if I charged a flight to my card. The final agent told me that the benefit was only available for a different AA-branded card.)