Originally Posted by
Mdog35
Applied for the platinum mercadez-benze on 11/27, purchased 4x$50 e-certificates on the same day, my purchases posted on 11/29 and they were credited today (11/30). While I'm happy that I got credited, this airline credit thing was a pain in the .... I think Amex needs to get it together and liberally apply travel credits like chase sapphire reserve and citi prestige. It's apparent to me that Amex makes you jump through a bunch of hoops to get this $200 airline credit designating an airline, claiming its an incidental under $50). It seems like they want to charge their high annual fee and make it hard to recoup any of that fee.
Umm, yes, that would be the point, since that helps their bottom line. Same reason why mail-in rebates are advertised in big red numbers, but then require you to fill out a tiny form, cut a barcode out of your package, mail everything in, and then wait 12 weeks for a check which you then have to go deposit. They're counting on credits/rebates going unused.
Also, the Amex credit is clearly marketed as an airline
fee reimbursement, which is somewhat different from the travel/airfare credits marketed by Chase/Citi.
They could also shut down this eGift loophole at any time, since it's technically against the T&Cs. For those who actually understand the intent of the benefit and use it appropriately, it's actually no problem at all.