Originally Posted by
Eujeanie
I wish they would just make it similar to the resort credit - $250 off any airline purchase - the resort can be room, or restaurant, or spa, or cabana, etc...just any money spent at a resort.
Restricting the airline credit to just peripheral spend (upgraded seats, baggage fees, etc.) makes it very difficult to use for those of us who primarily fly one airline but already get the seats they want and checked bags for free. It forces people to do "tricks" to get the credit, and for saps like me who don't want to do that, I leave some credit on the table almost every year. Why not just make it $250 off any airline purchase....sure, most will end up with a free flight or two, but they're already giving us a free hotel room, what's so terrible about a free or close to free flight, or a small chunk out of a very expensive flight?
Be careful what you wish for. If they changed it to any airline purchase, they'd also probably change it to $25 off, not $250 off, because they would know everyone would get it. The whole reason it's $250
is because it's not so easy to get.
But the bigger risk is that they'll get rid of the airline "incidental" credit rather than changing it. They already got rid of the airline "incidental" credit on the Amex Gold card.
And, btw, it's
not any money spent at a resort that counts, it's only money
billed to the resort (whether spent in person or spent online). If there's someplace within the resort that does their own billing, that won't trigger the resort credit. And prepaid online doesn't work in the USA, because USA prepaid rates are billed to Hilton central, not to the individual hotel/resort.
Remember, it's Amex that's giving the airline "incidental" credit, but it's Hilton that's giving the resort credit. So it's not the same "they" in both cases.
Card benefits on partner cards are co-designed between the credit card company and the partner, and you shouldn't assume that all the benefits are coming from the same place.