Yes, it was a covered reason. After the loss was occurred, here are the steps I took:

1) Called the airline to cancel my flights, but retain the value on the ticket. This is important -- if you cancel the ticket entirely and convert to credit, you lose track of where the credits came from, so you can’t prove you haven’t spent them.

2) Called Amex to ask about my scenario, and whether a claim might succeed. The agent was super helpful, and while I got the standard disclaimer nothing was guaranteed until reviewed by an adjuster, they thought the claim would probably get approved. They even offered an example, which made sense to me: “If you were traveling for a wedding and missed it, a credit doesn’t do you much good, does it? The wedding already happened. You don’t need to fly anymore.”

3) Emailed airline to cancel ticket according to the fare rules, and saved a copy of the response.

4) Submitted claim to Amex. I took extra time to ensure my claim was well-formed and had all required documentation on first submission. Adjusters have it tough and need to review thousand of claims. My opinion is the easier I make their job (e.g., clean cut rubber stamp they can justify to their bosses), the more likely I'll get approved.

Hope that helps. I must admit, this was all a bit time consuming. If had any use for travel credit, I would’ve taken it. But that was never going to happen, so I filed the claim -- and it worked out.