Jan 4, 2017, 6:59 am
Last edit by: mia
CAUTION: In February 2019, American Airlines changed the coding of gift card transactions. Although there are a few successful data points since, in general, Gift Card purchases are now explicitly identified, and no longer reimbursed by American Express.
Reminder: you must enroll and select your airline BEFORE making a reimbursable purchase. http://www.americanexpress.com/airlinechoice -or- "Call the number on the back of your Card to select a qualifying airline."
Data Points on automatically reimbursed incidentals since 2017:
Admirals Club Memberships: Admirals Club Passes:
Wifi is provided by one of three third-party providers and is thus not eligible for the incidental credit.
* For items not automatically reimbursed but which are not excluded by Amex, you can try and request manual reimbursement from American Express; however, you may need to wait 14-28 days first.
To review AA reimbursement reports from 2011-2016 as well as information on gift cards, click HERE.
Reminder: you must enroll and select your airline BEFORE making a reimbursable purchase. http://www.americanexpress.com/airlinechoice -or- "Call the number on the back of your Card to select a qualifying airline."
Data Points on automatically reimbursed incidentals since 2017:
Admirals Club Memberships: Admirals Club Passes:
- Yes - Hilton-gold, moe8555
- No - ShrinkTheGlobe, canesfan, jasmians, soy
- Yes - Dedicated, Rakibullslam, tsmith12, lotrbfme, mia, GTITAN, cdoobiest
- No - Alex_I, exmike, jb0506, fangtl, nall, javabytes, chitink
- Mixed - PatrickTM, Visconti, iahphx
- No - cubs105, prhocky2607
- No - PatrickTM, mileshound
- Yes - LuizMiranda, fotoflyer88, nk15, joshvworld, Hilton-gold, captaink, JCN, aftortoriello, nall
- No - pubsmeister
- Yes - jvel
- Yes - JDiver
- No - AUSINSIGHT
- No - mrlemm
- Yes - Segments
- Yes - wireless_999, saunders111, mosfet, Budoka, sdsearch
- Mixed - inevitability
Wifi is provided by one of three third-party providers and is thus not eligible for the incidental credit.
* For items not automatically reimbursed but which are not excluded by Amex, you can try and request manual reimbursement from American Express; however, you may need to wait 14-28 days first.
To review AA reimbursement reports from 2011-2016 as well as information on gift cards, click HERE.
Airline fee $250/$200/$100 reimbursement reports: AA only (2017-2019)
Jul 5, 2019, 9:46 am
#1936
Moderator
Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: Miami, Mpls & London
Programs: AA & Marriott Perpetual Platinum; DL & HH Gold
Posts: 48,956
Jul 6, 2019, 9:09 pm
#1937
Join Date: Dec 2015
Posts: 39
On 4 July paid $91 for seat selection on a flight from HNL to LAX. Went with main cabin extra which says up to 6 extra inches. I do recall paying for the extra before and I didn't notice any difference. Anyway, the fee is described as Preferred Seat Upgrade. The upgrade language seems to have not been reimbursed for others. If it doesn't automatically get refunded I'm going to contact amex as it is a seat selection within same economy class. Figure others may be interested.
Edit: Posted a day early. My tracker has decreased so expect the fee to be reimbursed despite the seat upgrade wording.
Edit: Posted a day early. My tracker has decreased so expect the fee to be reimbursed despite the seat upgrade wording.
Last edited by act0fgod; Jul 7, 2019 at 11:38 am
Jul 7, 2019, 12:38 pm
#1938
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: home = LAX
Posts: 25,933
On Thu 4 July early morning I paid $350 co-pay for an international mileage upgrade (coach->business) using my Hilton Aspire card. After it went pending, I selected the option online to get an email alert when it had posted. Well, it posted yesterday (Sat 6 July) morning, but it wasn't until many hours later that I got my email alert that it had posted. I checked Amex again then and again early this morning and it still said I had $250 in AA incidental credit to use through the end of the year. Then after reading the post right above from act0fgod that was updated in the last hour, I decided to check Amex again right now, and now (Sun 7 July midday) finally it says in my Benefits page:
"You have used all of your $250 Airline Fee Credit for this year.
It will renew again starting Jan 2020:"
I presume that I will have to wait another day or two for the credit to actually appear, but I'm not worried anymore now that it says the above in my Benefits page.
...
I fear that some negative reports may be people wanting to post "too early" about success/failure, and Amex being slow sometimes, and people not always coming back later to update. For over a day, it seemed as if Amex wasn't going to give me credit, but they were just being a bit slow about it, and sometimes they're way slower than this
! So please don't rush to post negative reports without waiting "long enough". Thanks.
EDITED TO ADD: The $250 credit appeared this morning (Mon 8 Jul), about one day after the benefits counter updated and about 2 days after the $350 posted.
"You have used all of your $250 Airline Fee Credit for this year.
It will renew again starting Jan 2020:"
I presume that I will have to wait another day or two for the credit to actually appear, but I'm not worried anymore now that it says the above in my Benefits page.
...
I fear that some negative reports may be people wanting to post "too early" about success/failure, and Amex being slow sometimes, and people not always coming back later to update. For over a day, it seemed as if Amex wasn't going to give me credit, but they were just being a bit slow about it, and sometimes they're way slower than this
! So please don't rush to post negative reports without waiting "long enough". Thanks.EDITED TO ADD: The $250 credit appeared this morning (Mon 8 Jul), about one day after the benefits counter updated and about 2 days after the $350 posted.
Last edited by sdsearch; Jul 8, 2019 at 8:32 am
Jul 7, 2019, 2:16 pm
#1940
Join Date: Jun 2011
Posts: 3,528
This is the one category that seems to be very YMMV so there's clearly some attribute we haven't identified at play here.
Jul 9, 2019, 6:55 am
#1941
Join Date: Jan 2018
Location: BGI | MIA
Programs: AA Platinum Pro | Hyatt Globalist | HH Diamond | SPG Gold
Posts: 316
US Bank FlexPerks data point.
US Bank Visa FlexPerks now shows giftcard in the item charge as well. It was reimbursed through Real Time Rewards.
Blacked our my name and a serial number for the GC
US Bank Visa FlexPerks now shows giftcard in the item charge as well. It was reimbursed through Real Time Rewards.
Blacked our my name and a serial number for the GC
Jul 9, 2019, 10:23 am
#1942
Moderator
Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: Miami, Mpls & London
Programs: AA & Marriott Perpetual Platinum; DL & HH Gold
Posts: 48,956
$5.60 AA award ticket fee reimbursed.
Also: AA requires the name on the credit card to match the name on the AAdvantage account. I simply typed my spouse's first name, our shared last name, and my card number. The transaction was approved.
Also: AA requires the name on the credit card to match the name on the AAdvantage account. I simply typed my spouse's first name, our shared last name, and my card number. The transaction was approved.
Jul 10, 2019, 9:26 am
#1943
Join Date: Jun 2011
Posts: 3,528
I booked a couple of award tickets (one with ~$49 taxes, the other with $5.60) and neither qualified for the credit. However, MCE, 500-mile stickers, and Mileage Multiplier all qualified.
Did yours show up as a "Passenger Ticket" or something else?
I've been seeing that on one of my Visas since at least 2017.
Did yours show up as a "Passenger Ticket" or something else?
I've been seeing that on one of my Visas since at least 2017.
Jul 10, 2019, 9:43 am
#1944
Join Date: Jan 2018
Location: BGI | MIA
Programs: AA Platinum Pro | Hyatt Globalist | HH Diamond | SPG Gold
Posts: 316
Jul 10, 2019, 10:48 am
#1945
Join Date: Aug 2012
Posts: 6,752
I've had this credited too, but the credit stopped after the first time. Haven't tried it since, but, at least in my case, it appears the system learned not to credit the charge the next time.
Jul 11, 2019, 1:33 pm
#1946
Join Date: Jan 2016
Programs: AA, Hyatt, Marriott, Hilton
Posts: 501
booked two short-haul flights, ~$140-$150 each way. Used $100 gift card for each direction and paid rest with my Amex Plat. $45 reimbursed on one flight, $40 on other doesn't show up in the counter. Bought the tickets about 20 minutes apart, so not sure why one would post over the other. Have a couple more of these in my future so hope to use the rest of my credits this way.
Jul 11, 2019, 1:48 pm
#1947
Join Date: Jun 2011
Posts: 3,528
booked two short-haul flights, ~$140-$150 each way. Used $100 gift card for each direction and paid rest with my Amex Plat. $45 reimbursed on one flight, $40 on other doesn't show up in the counter. Bought the tickets about 20 minutes apart, so not sure why one would post over the other. Have a couple more of these in my future so hope to use the rest of my credits this way.
Jul 11, 2019, 9:56 pm
#1948
Join Date: Dec 2018
Posts: 31
Does anyone known if infant flight fees for international flights works for the incidental credit?
Jul 12, 2019, 9:16 am
#1950
Join Date: Apr 2015
Posts: 23
Airfare less than $100
What if the price of the ticket is less than $100 (ex. MIA-JAX for $58) Will the low cost airfare trigger the credit? Thanks!