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 American Express Platinum Card® 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:
- 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.
- 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.
- 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, 2025, will count against your 2025 airline incidental credit even if the charge itself doesn’t reimburse until early 2026. 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.
- 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.
| AA | Alaska1 | Delta | Hawaiian | JetBlue | Southwest | Spirit | United | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cheap Airfare | Mixed | No | Yes, under $50 | Yes, under $150 | Yes, under $109 | Yes | ||
| Airfare + Airline Credit or Gift Card | Mixed Results | Yes | Yes, max ~$2502,3 | Yes, max $502 | Yes, max $1002 | Yes | No | |
| Award Fees | Mixed Results | Yes, under $200 | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ||
| Paid Upgrade | Yes | Mixed Results | Yes | Yes | Mixed Results | Mixed Results | ||
| Buy Airline Gift Card or Airline Credit | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes, via TravelBank |
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 have passed since the transaction date. Historical Alaska data is 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?
| Purchase type | Recent Reports |
|---|---|
| Award redeposit fee | $125 (x 2 passengers) 6/19. Had to call as it did not post automatically (via Flyertalk) |
| Fare difference | Price increase if $9 and $50. 12/20 (ykz1991) |
| Seat selection |
|
| Club Membership | 7/19. Had to call to get it to post (Randy) |
| Future Lounge Passes | 11/24: $30 x 8 triggered $200 (via Flyertalk) |
| Split Airfare Purchase | |
| Airfare purchase | $58.10 & $78.10 saver fares (note previous failure reports below; YMMV) 12/20 (Grant) |
| Upgrade | |
| Change fee | 12/2023: $330 in change fees split over two transactions. Manually credited via chat. (Flyertalk) |
| Award taxes/fees* |
|
What fails on Alaska Airlines?
| Purchase type | Recent Reports |
|---|---|
| Airfare under $100 |
Via BK250: • 8/3/19: $63.30, reimbursed 8/7 • 8/9/19: $54.30, not reimbursed • 8/19/19: $63.30, not reimbursed • 9/12/19: $68.80, not reimbursed • 6/22/20: $49, not reimbursed (PeterSFO) |
| E-gift card | • Gift card purchases stopped working summer 2017 • $50 10/28/17 • $25 8/6/17 |
| Split Airfare | • $138 two tickets for $69 each on card + $25 Alasksa gift card not reimbursed 1/22 (Lrdx) • 1/22 (Victor) |
| In-flight snacks | 1/22 (Victor) |
| Award fees | 1/14/25: One $12.50 credit posted, but others did not and usually do not (via Flyertalk) |
American Airlines
What works to trigger Amex airline incidental credits on American Airlines?
| Purchase type | Recent Reports |
|---|---|
| Split airfare purchase | $107.60 ticket purchased with $60 flight credit + $47.60 on Platinum card 7/22 (redtop43 on flyertalk), but see negative data point in “What fails” section below also |
| In-flight food & beverage | $18 in drinks 8/22 (FallenPlat on flyertalk) |
| In-flight WiFi |
|
| Seat selection | • Main cabin extra purchased online ($320 triggered $200). 7/25 (Ethan) • Main Cabin Extra purchased online ($138). 8/22 (Nick) • Main Cabin Extra purchased at kiosk. 12/20 (durial) • First Class upgrade purchased at kiosk 12/20 (durial) |
| Admirals Club |
|
| 5 Star Service | $325 3/21/17 |
| Mileage Multiplier |
|
| Unaccompanied minor fee | 8/2022 (John) |
| Award taxes** | **Note that award taxes and fees are not consistently reimbursed. See “What fails” for negative data points. 9/2022: $11.20 x 2 (Robert) |
| Status Buyback | Buyback for Gold status triggered credit (reader report on YouTube) |
What fails on American Airlines?
| Purchase type | Recent Reports |
|---|---|
| Split airfare | $200 ticket using $140 trip credit and $60 on Platinum card 9/22 (lowkeyflyer on flyertalk) |
| E-gift card | Gift card purchases stopped working for many around February / March 2019. It just depends on how AA codes the purchase (coded as a gift certificate will not trigger the credit), and we have not been able to determine a way to predict how it will code. We had some positive reports in February, but most data points from mid-February onward have been negative. |
| $75 close-in fee | 7/15/19 (Dan P) |
| Award taxes | Reports here are inconsistent. Most fail, but there are some reports of fees being reimbursed (see this 5/22 report from merlin90 on flyertalk) September to December 2023: Several charges not credited (Vito) 8/2022: $64 did not credit (Nick) 6/2022: $5.60 did not credit (Mark) |
| Paid Upgrade |
Delta
What works to trigger Amex airline incidental credits on Delta Air Lines?
| What Works? | Recent Reports |
|---|---|
| Award fees under $200 |
|
| Lounge guest pass | 5/2022: $39 (Jeff) |
| Companion Ticket Taxes | 8/9/20: $20.20 (Greg) |
| Mileage Booster | 10/2019: $59 (Patrick) |
| Change Fee | |
| Split Airfare Purchase |
|
| In-flight WiFi** | 8/2022: Viasat charge triggered the credit (fold on flyertalk), but reports are that GoGo Internet charges will not trigger credit |
| Airfare | 1/20/22: $120 (Mel), but note that Greg has what appears to be a negative data point in 12/2022 |
| Upgrade to Comfort Plus (YMMV) | Note that we have failure points on Comfort+ upgrades below. A potential workaround:
|
What fails on Delta?
| Purchase type | Recent Reports |
|---|---|
| Cheap airfare | 12/6/22: $78.60. Note that the cost to change to a more expensive ticket type did get reimbursed. (Greg) |
| Airfare over $250 split with gift card | 10/6/24: Gift card + $410 on Platinum card did not trigger (Greg) |
| Split airfare with pay with miles |
|
| Award fees over $200 | |
| eGift cards | As per many reports at Flyertalk, this likely died around 6/22/19 |
| Economy Plus Upgrade |
|
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?
| Purchase type | Recent Reports |
|---|---|
| Airfare under $50 |
|
| Extra comfort upgrade |
|
| Food & beverage on board | Success reported 10/18 (via Flyertalk) |
| Seat upgrade | |
| Seat selection | 12/11/23: $97 and $88 (via Flyertalk) |
| Split payment for airfare w/ less than $50 charged to the card | $29.80 & $44 11/18 (via Flyertalk) |
| Award taxes |
|
What fails on Hawaiian?
| Purchase type | Recent Reports |
|---|---|
| Gift cards |
|
| Airfare over $50 | $53 10/17 (via Flyertalk) |
| Premium Airport Experience | 1/2025: $200-$375 per passenger (via Flyertalk) |
JetBlue
What works to trigger Amex airline incidental credits on JetBlue?
| Purchase type | Recent Reports |
|---|---|
| Airfare under $150? |
|
| Award taxes/fees |
|
| Seat selection |
|
| Upgrade from Mint to Mint Studio |
|
| Even More Space upgrade |
|
What fails on JetBlue?
| Purchase type | Recent Reports |
|---|---|
| Award fees over $300 |
|
| Airfare over $150 | • $151.10 9/20 (Earthgoeshard) • $250 1/11/17 (via Flyertalk) |
| Gift cards | They don’t sell them |
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?
| Purchase type | Recent Reports |
|---|---|
| Airfare under $109 |
|
| Early bird check-in |
• 1/2022: $20 (Chris) |
| Award Fees |
|
| Split payment for airfare with under $100 charged to the card |
|
| In-flight beverage | 11/19 (veeRobb) |
| Itinerary change | 5/13/22: $5 & $3.02 (Nick) 5/17/20: $66.50 (Greg) |
What fails on Southwest?
| Purchase type | Recent Reports |
|---|---|
| On-board Wi-Fi | $8 charge posted, but was not credited (2/18) |
| $185 e-Gift card | Charge posted 6/22/18, no reimbursement as of 7/9/18 (Katie) |
| All e-Gift cards | Stopped working in June 2019 (via Flyertalk). A recent data point suggests that they may have worked since then for manual credit. |
| Split payment for airfare with $100 or more charged to the card | $155 (7/19) via Flyertalk |
| Airfare over $109 | $117.14 (via Flyertalk) |
Spirit
What works to trigger Amex airline incidental credits on Spirit Airlines?
| Purchase type | Recent Reports |
|---|---|
| Savers Club |
|
| Big Front Seat |
|
| Cheap Airfare |
|
| Partial Airfare |
|
| Checked bag & seat selection | 8/3/24: $104 Added checked back & seat selection direct with Spirit *after* booking. (Nick) |
What fails on Spirit?
| Purchase type | Recent Reports |
|---|---|
| Ticket purchase | $52.80 1/20 (optimilez2016) |
| Bags bundled with ticket purchase | 1/20 (and a couple previous DPs) (s.k.d) |
| Big Front Seat via Upgrade Bid |
|
| Onboard food & drinks |
|
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?
| Purchase type | Recent Reports |
|---|---|
| Standard stuff | Economy Plus, United Club, Pet Fee, Same Day Flight Change (Note: A charge for United Club one-time passes on December 31st posted with a date of January 1st and missed using the annual credit – Nick) |
| Award Fees | 3/20/24, 3/24/24, 4/3/24, 4/6/24: $5.60 each (Megan) |
| Seat upgrade | Made through kiosk 11/18 (Ambrosio) |
| Economy+ seat |
|
| United TravelBank | Note that TravelBank has stopped working and started working again several times over the past few years, so it’s always worth checking back for any new DPs here before making a purchase. Currently, TravelBank loads to your own account work, whereas Travel Bank deposits sent as gifts are NOT triggering credits.
|
| In-flight WiFi | |
| In-flight F&B |
|
What fails on United?
| Purchase type | Recent Reports |
|---|---|
| United Travel Bank *when gifted* | Fails since 9/24. Note that it is still possible to fund someone else’s Travel Bank by paying directly in their Travel Bank account with your card, but “gifting” to someone else’s travel bank now fails. |
| Upgrade from economy to first class |
$175 charge on 12/27/2018 may have been too large to look like a fee |
| Split payment with GC and airfare under $100 | $50.19 partial ticket payment did not trigger credit 3/26/22 (Captain Greg) |
| MileagePlus X App Purchases | |
| United Gift Registry | This doesn’t really fail — it’s just no longer available |
| Award Fees | This appears to have stopped working according to a DP from JB in San Diego from October 2019. |
| Gift Card | |
| $99 Upgrade Fee | 2016 |
| In-Flight Wifi | United WiFi purchase on flight operated by SKYWEST DBA UNITED EXPRESS did not result in credit as purchase description was not “United Airlines”, but was “UAL INFLT WIFIONBOAR…” 12/2023 (Steve) |
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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Success with United Travel Bank $100 x 2 in separate transactions. Credit posted in 4 days.
[…] practice, a wide variety of activities trigger the airline fee credit beyond incidentals, so see these data points to check what has worked in the […]
Another DP on this. Switched my preferred airline to SW in mid-December via chat. Bought a one-way flight on December 17 for $88 and another one on December 20 for $98. Received credit for the first one in the 19th and the second one on the 23rd. Will cancel both flights for the credit and book a flight I will actually use.
Another success data point for Delta: Purchased a roundtrip ticket of $622 on Delta’s website comprised of $437 in Delta e-credit and $185 balance paid with AMEX Platinum on December 16th. Received $185 Delta airline fee reimbursement two days later.
[…] section here. Frequent Miler also maintains an updated list of what’s working, which you can find here. Additionally, the AMEX subreddit often has current discussions and fresh data […]
Charged three separate charges of $50, $50 and $100 on December 18th. All $200 is now in my United TravelBank. On AMEX side, seeing a $100 charge (says plan it) and a $50 charge (says pay it) and don’t see the other charge at all. Does this make any sense? Shouldn’t all charges show and credit have arrived by now?
I wouldn’t sweat it. Sometimes things like that happen.
I made $100 purchase on 12/10 and still not seeing a credit. Trying to be patient, but I see others have purchased after me and have received their credit.
$100 United travel bank worked for me. Purchased on Dec 11, received credit today.
$50 travel bank worked on United 4 times ($200) credited
11/25 and 12/25
DP $90 southwest flight worked to trigger the credit 12/8/2025. Credited in about 2 days.
How long does it usually take for Amex credits to show up?
I purchased two $100 TravelBank credits two days ago—they’ve been charged to my card, but I don’t see any credit yet. At what point should I assume they didn’t trigger the Amex credit? I need to figure out another way before end of year. The only thing I can think of is that I didn’t wait 24 hours after selecting the airline. Could that be the reason?
It can take several days, so I wouldn’t worry if it’s only been two days. It can sometimes take a couple of days for the charges to go from pending to posted, then you have to wait for the credits to be awarded, so I’d give it at least another few days.
One data point for Delta: Bought a roundtrip ticket of $266 on Delta’s site with ($50 GC + $216 on AMEXP) on 12/4/2025, received $200 credit in 2 days.
Another data point – used $200 of travel credit for an American flight and then put about $55 on AMEX Biz Platinum. Did NOT trigger the benefit.
Booked Partner booking on AS, 3 charges of 112.73 on 11/04/2025. Chatted in on 11/24/2025, told them it was for baggage and seat selection. This was their response:
Will be chatting in again in a couple weeks.
Booked SW flights on 11/16/25 for $89 and 2 x $65, flight credits posted on 11/18/25.
Another DP for United: $50 and $100 travel bank credits, credits posted a few days later. Of note: even though the above note states that if you can fund someone else’s Travel Bank when paying directly with your card, this did not work for us (and we were not using gifting function)–received an error message saying the card couldn’t be processed several times and multiple pending charges were automatically reversed. It only worked when we used the card to fund the cardholder’s own Travelbank account, and then there was no issue with processing or reimbursement.