Credit posted to PRG card on July 3.

Not so sure about this. Purchased a ticket for $155 on 7/6 and meter hasn't moved, still no credit.

Another post upthread suggested that perhaps the cap was/is $109.

For what it's worth, a month later, that refunded Southwest purchase never had the Airline Fee Credit reversed. Not that I'd recommend trying to do that intentionally (just getting it as a flight credit is a better plan in that case as someone mentioned above,) but it seemed like an interesting data point nonetheless. The particularly surprising part of it to me was that the fee credit actually posted for that transaction two days after the transaction had already been refunded. I wonder if there's a bug in their system where it doesn't detect the transaction being refunded if the refund happens before the credit itself triggers. Or perhaps it's just not set up to reverse the credit in the event of a refund, though that seems very much unlike Amex.

Correct. American Express does not automatically reverse credits for refunded transactions, BUT they may discover it later in an audit. Unfortunately, later could be next year, see here:

Clawbacks of 2019 reimbursements for REFUNDED airline "fees".

The method to get AmEx credit on a ticket over $108.98 is to use Travel Funds and/or GC and "buy down" the ticket price into the AmEx credit range.

I purchased tickets for three separate passengers in one transaction (early 2020) at a cost of ~$79 each. Each passenger's ticket posted separately with their names attached on my Amex statement, and each one received an Amex reimbursement. If I were counting on this purchase to make back my reimbursement, I would probably have bought them separately just to be safe. But everything on this thread so far seems to indicate that tickets post individually.

I have not tried with gift cards.

So, I booked a $98 flight last year to receive the airline credit which I converted to travel funds. Trouble is those travel funds are due to expire in September and I have no clue how to go about using them. What do I do in this case?

Also, I should be eligible for airline credit this year as well but is there a better option besides travel funds for using the credit?

Do you fly AS? If so, you can change your designated airline to AS. Then use the credit card for upgrades from economy to economy plus. AMEX will rebate this charge.

Hmm, thanks for the suggestion. How will the upgrade work? Like book a flight, then upgrade and get the credit? Will I be able to cancel the AS flight without fees and keep the credit? We've not being flying at all for the last 18 months and I don't know how when that's going to change. I was hoping there's like a gift card route as opposed to travel funds which expire or an option that doesn't require flying.

Then my suggestion is not for you. It worked well for me as I was actually flying.

Your first step would be to find a Southwest flight that you want to take prior to the expiration date. Then, during the purchase process, you'll be able to apply travel funds. You can use your travel funds + a credit card if the new ticket is greater than $98. But you'd actually need to fly this one: you can't use this as a trick to perpetually extend credit.

Depending on your exact expiration date in September, you should be able to find some decent fares and destinations...

I'm not sure how exactly AS handles upgrades that later get canceled. Might be a question for the similar thread about AS. When I've upgraded AS in the past, I've fully upfared to first class to get the EQM bonuses. (This often costs little or nothing more than a kiosk F upgrade.) But that shows as a real ticket purchase and wouldn't trigger the AMEX credit. Premium (their version of E+) probably works differently but I haven't personally done it. If you could get the funds dumped into your AS wallet, that would probably be the best bet. But at some point you'd have to actually fly Alaska. (That's not a bad thing...just a limited route map.)

For your 2021 credit, why not just find a couple Southwest tickets for later in the year that fit your needs? It's July now - not like you need to do anything crazy to get your $200-250 for 2021.

See United Airlines thread: https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/amer...ly-2020-a.html

I had a prior AS upgrade that was cancelled. In that case, Alaska refunded the amount to my Amex Platinum and my prior credit was reversed.

I recently took a flight to New Jersey with seat upgrades and moved that to a new flight to Alaska. They said they could send me a check for the amount I paid for the seat upgrade, as per my request, as I was concerned about another reversal. However, they did not send a check, but instead credited the upgrade right back to my Amex, which I did not want. Fortunately, so far that amount has not been clawed back.

In the first example, the upgrades were cancelled relatively shortly after booking. In the second example, the upgrades were refunded a number of months after the booking, so that *may* make a difference.

@Stockjock, @mia @pinniped

Thanks for your responses.