fishywang

I bited the bullet last year to open an Amex Plat card (mainly for the discount on AA business class fares through Amex travel), but I found it almost impossible to use the $200 yearly airline credit since I'm MVPG:

• I never need to pay for checked bags (as MVPG)
• I have had very good upgrade rate on AS, so I almost never need to purchase food/drink onboard either (I only had roughly one or two failed upgrades every year)
• The only lounge on my home airport (SJC) is available via priority pass
• It looks like inflight wifi is not eligible to Amex's credit either

I actually chose AA as the airline for the credit last half year, but I also didn't find any chance to use it on AA either (the only time I tried is inflight wifi on an international flight, but that doesn't seem to qualify for credit either). Now it's January and I need to decide if I should switch to AS or keep the credit on AA, but I find it very hard in either airlines. For AA I almost only book discounted business class tickets, as if it's economy I would rather fly AS instead.
The only way I can think of to spend the credit is probably pay for lounge day pass when I have to travel from SFO instead of SJC (AS did cut a lot of flights from SJC so last year I was forced to travel a lot more from SFO compare to pre-pandemic years), and SFO is still one of the few lounges that still sell day passes, but judging by the trend I don't know how long that would last. Is there any other "good" ways to spend the credit that I didn't think of?

Eastbay1K

I use mine on WN for the cheaper intra-CA short hops.

flytoeat

Read this thread: Airline fee $250/$200 reimbursement reports: AS only (2020-23)

notquiteaff

On United

RedPanda5

this, turn AMEX credit into AS Wallet Funds

navydevildoc

In the past, Alaska Lounge. 2022's renewal will be the last of those as I will start using my 100k benefit for AL+ membership.

So, it will just become a $200 coupon to upfare to J/C/D/I for WFBF.

be_rettSEA

Alaska Lounge membership

Kacee

AS ticket spend.

So easy.

maradori

Last year, I picked AA and used the reimbursement on Admiral Club day passes. This year, I'm switching it back to AS and combining it with the Hilton Aspire to split the AS Lounge+ membership

As others say, AS ticket spend is what I used to do ... but I still need to properly master this trick

eponymous_coward

It's super-duper-duper unreliable, for me about 75% of the time l I had to get someone in AMEX chat to manually intervene. Given that anything on DL and WN flies through, I decided to use it on those two airlines for 2023.

Eujeanie

'splain, Lucy. Aren't tickets explicitly excluded?

Since they've switched from Q400's to the Embraer's I've been burning mine on upgraded seats from EUG to SEA - woo hoo. Also inflight food and bev. But other than that I find the $250 extremely hard to use (different card, same benefit).

eponymous_coward

Read the thread in the AMEX forum that's already been linked in the discussion.

Airline fee $250/$200 reimbursement reports: AS only (2020-23)

TL;DR: cheap AS tickets can (unreliably without asking a chat rep, in my experience) be reimbursed using the Platinum and Hilton Aspire misc airline fee credits.

I specifically changed my airlines to DL/WN because those go through routinely without manual intervention from AMEX, AS charges don't.

Eujeanie

They never go through for me even with manual intervention....all they do is read me the list of exclusions.

MapleLeaf93

Technically, tickets are supposed to be excluded, but empirically, it seems that if your tickets are cheap enough (likely needs to be under $100 and possibly even needs to be under $50), lots of people report getting reimbursed. Here's my data point, but it's been nearly a year and a half since I did it: https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/33471327-post441.html

Another way that should work if you're okay with wallet credit would be to make a non-Saver booking, then in a separate transaction, pay for an upgrade to PC. You may or may not be automatically reimbursed, but if not, since seat selection is definitely valid for reimbursement, you can call or chat and request a reimbursement. Just mention that you want to be reimbursed for "seat selection" and there shouldn't be an issue if you say those magic words. Once the reimbursement posts to your account, cancel your flight for wallet credit, and the cost of the flight plus the PC upgrade should go to your wallet.

TEDisgone

Tickets, no matter how inexpensive, have not credited for a couple years for me so I use it for lounge membership towards the end of the year.