Originally Posted by pinniped

I'm with you. Amex's version of airline credits are so restricted that they are practically useless to anyone who travels semi-often. The kinds of fees it covers aren't the fees that frequent travelers pay, and they specifically exclude most of the fees we *do* occasionally pay. I know the Amex forum has a thread dedicated to how to maximize value for each given airline, and it's no surprise that they're basically loophole-exploitation threads. When I had a Citi card that had a $250 travel credit, it was just the first $250 you spent on an airline ticket in the given year. That was much easier.