Amex Airline Fee Reimbursements. What still works?

Several American Express cards offer annual airline fee reimbursements. These reimbursements can go a long way towards easing the sting of the high annual fees charged by personal Amex Platinum and Business Platinum cards. Readers often wonder which types of charges will trigger these credits and/or which methods still work. When purchases work to trigger credits, those credits typically appear automatically within 2 to 21 days from purchase. Don’t panic if you made a purchase a week or two ago and haven’t yet seen any credits yet — the data points in this post provide a solid guideline for what is likely to work. If something is listed as working, it very likely still works; we’ll be sure to change it as soon as we have verified negative datapoints. On that note, reader input is always appreciated. Please share your data points in the comments.

Amex airline fee credits are offered by calendar year. For example, Platinum cardholders can get up to $200 in fee credits for charges made up until December of this year, and $200 more for charges made next calendar year.

Step 1 is to make sure that you’ve selected a preferred airline here. Officially, you can change this selection once per year in January (if you don’t change it, your previous selection remains in place). Anecdotally, chat agents are usually willing to help you change your selected airline if you need to do so during the year.

Step 2 is to make qualifying purchases with your airline of choice in order to get reimbursed.

Things you need to know about Amex airline fee credits

A few helpful notes for airline incidental credits:

1. Be sure to select your chosen airline at least one calendar day before attempting to use the credit. We sometimes see a lag before eligible charges are credited. Waiting for the email confirming that you’ve selected an airline is not always enough.
2. Wait at least 2 weeks before assuming failure. While credits often post within a few days and/or the benefit counter typically moves before the credits post, there are frequently periods where things post more slowly than usual. Wait at least two weeks before attempting a different charge, contacting Amex, or reporting a negative data point.
3. Charges are reimbursed based on the date of charge and count toward the allotment for the year in which the charge is dated. For example, a charge that posts to your statement dated December 29, 2024 will count against your 2024 airline incidental credit even if the charge itself doesn’t reimburse until early 2025. However, don’t wait until the very last minute — Nick once charged United club passes late at night on 12/31 and the charge posted with a 1/1 date and he missed using the airline incidental credits for the intended year.
4. While Amex officially says that you can change your airline once each year in January, chat agents are often willing to change it for you if you ask nicely, even mid-year (and sometimes even if you’ve used part of the credit already).

What purchases count… officially?

Eligible incidental fees include:

• Checked baggage fees (including overweight/oversize)
• Itinerary change fees
• Phone reservation fees
• Pet flight fees
• Seat assignment fees
• In-flight amenity fees (beverages, food, pillows/blankets, headphones)
• In-flight entertainment fees (excluding wireless internet because it’s not charged by the airline)
• Airport lounge day passes & annual memberships

And, officially, the following purchases are not deemed to be incidental fees:

• Airline tickets
• Upgrades
• Mileage points purchases
• Mileage points transfer fees
• Gift cards
• Duty free purchases
• Award tickets

What purchases count… unofficially?

Sometimes purchases of upgrades, award fees, or even low-cost airfare are reimbursed even though they shouldn’t be. In some cases there seem to be maximum dollar limits. The things that work or don’t work vary by airline and over time. Something that worked in the past won’t necessarily work today.

Summary Table

The following table shows a summary of the major unofficial stuff that works or doesn’t work with each airline that can be chosen as your preferred airline. Cells are blank where we don’t have enough data to indicate one way or the other.

^{1) Sometimes Alaska purchases do not credit automatically. After 2 weeks, you may have success requesting credit from Amex (try the online chat function).
2) By splitting the cost of a ticket between airline travel credits or airline gift cards and a small cash component, the cash component sometimes is treated as a reimbursable fee. In these cases there is often a maximum amount for the cash component to be treated this way.
3) Paying part of a ticket with miles no longer works.}

For additional data with each airline, see below…

Alaska Airlines

**Note** Since 2022, there have been many reports of Alaska charges not being reimbursed automatically. It seems that many have had success getting charges for premium seat selection and things that ordinarily should be included (like lounge access, onboard purchases, etc) manually credited via the chat function, but only after 2 weeks has passed since the transaction date. Historical Alaska data included below, but beware that you may need to chat and hope for a friendly agent. See more data in this Flyertalk thread.

What works to trigger Amex airline incidental credits on Alaska Airlines?

What fails?

American

What works to trigger Amex airline incidental credits on American Airlines?

AA What fails?

Delta

What works to trigger Amex airline incidental credits on Delta Air Lines?

Delta What fails?

Frontier

Frontier is no longer an option to select for Amex airline fee credits.

Hawaiian

What works to trigger Amex airline incidental credits on Hawaiian Airlines?

Hawaiian What fails?

JetBlue

What works to trigger Amex airline incidental credits on JetBlue?

JetBlue what fails?

Southwest

Note: Starting in 2023, credits for Southwest charges have been posting slowly, with some data points stretching as long as 3 weeks from the charge date. If you’re nervous about whether a charge is going to post, you could always consider making another charge for a fully refundable “anytime” fare under $109. Then, if your originally-intended use of the credit works, cancel your backup anytime fare for a refund. If your originally intended use fails, the sub-$109 airfare purchase will likely work. Inter-island Hawaii flights are a good place to look for those types of prices.

What works to trigger Amex airline incidental credits on Southwest Airlines?

Southwest what fails?

Spirit

What works to trigger Amex airline incidental credits on Spirit Airlines?

Spirit what fails?

United

**Note that you may need to wait until the next business day after selecting United as your qualifying airline. Since TravelBank works, most of the other uses are less interesting.

What works to trigger Amex airline incidental credits on United Airlines?

United what fails?

Please report your results!

If you try any unofficial options, please let us know via the comments whether it worked. Tell us the date of purchase, what you purchased, the dollar amount, and whether or not you were reimbursed. Please do not report purchases that are officially reimbursed unless you do not get the credit.

What to do if you’re not reimbursed?

First, double check that you picked the airline in question as your preferred airline. If you did not, then Amex won’t reimburse you (but they have been known to make an exception if you call and say that you forgot to set your preferred airline).

If you do not get reimbursed for things that are officially allowed (checked bags, change fees, lounge fees, etc.), then contact Amex for help. If you do not get reimbursed for things that are not officially allowed (gift cards, award fees, airfare, etc.) do not contact Amex. You weren’t really supposed to get reimbursed for those anyway.

Other cards that offer fee reimbursements

Quite a few other cards offer airline fee reimbursements. And, in most cases, the things that work for Amex cards as listed above will work with other cards too.

There are a few that are very different though, so we have dedicated posts for these:

• Chase Ritz Card: With this card, unlike Amex cards, you have to contact Chase to request reimbursement after you’ve made an eligible charge. As a result, what works and what doesn’t is solely at the discretion of the person who handles your request. For details, see: Chase Ritz-Carlton Visa airline fee credits: What works?
• US Bank Altitude Reserve: This card offers a very different type of reimbursement for travel expenses. When you set up your account for “Real Time Mobile Rewards,” you can use your card to purchase travel directly and then redeem points for 1.5 cents each to offset those travel charges. See: US Bank Real-Time Mobile Rewards. What works where?

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