Update: Mea culpa. I’m afraid that the post I wrote earlier was incorrect. It turns out that the email I received stating that the $25 of TravelBank cash would be expiring in a few weeks was on my wife’s account. I didn’t think that I’d ever registered her IHG Premier card for this benefit as all our TravelBank credits get loaded to my account, but apparently I must have registered her card at some point and forgot. As a result, it does look like these credits get redeemed in order of expiration date which is good news. My apologies for the error.
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I encountered a disappointing quirk recently regarding how United TravelBank cash is redeemed. It seems to be redeemed based on the date it was loaded to your account rather than based on its expiration date.
While this won’t really matter if all you’re doing is loading your TravelBank account using airline fee credits from certain cards, it is important if you earn short-term TravelBank cash through other means, such as via the IHG Premier card and some United cards like the United Quest and Business cards.
I noticed this recently when I received an email from United with the subject line “Use your TravelBank cash before it expires.” That grabbed my attention as I have a sizeable TravelBank balance due to using that method to redeem airline fee credits, but I was also confused because TravelBank cash loaded through that method is valid for five years and so what I had loaded in there shouldn’t be expiring yet.
I was even more confused when initially opening the email as it said some of my balance would be expiring in a few weeks:
Uh-oh. When scrolling down though, my fears were assuaged because it was only $25 that was due to expire rather than a substantial sum.
After taking a moment to consider what this related to, I realized that it must be the $25 TravelBank cash that I receive having registered my IHG Premier card with my United account. As a reminder, IHG Premier cardholders are eligible to receive $25 of United TravelBank cash twice per year; once on or around January 5 which expires on July 15 and once on or around July 5 which expires on January 15.
OK, so that mystery was cleared up, but it did leave me with another question – why was it even there to begin with? Not in terms of how that $25 of TravelBank cash was loaded to my account as I knew that. What I was confused about was why it hadn’t already been redeemed.
Since that second $25 was loaded to my account this year in July, I’ve booked two flights with United, both of which were paid for entirely with TravelBank cash. I’d assumed that United would’ve automatically applied that $25 towards the first booking I’d made, but apparently not. The only reason I can come up with for why that wouldn’t have happened is because United redeems your TravelBank balance in order of when it was loaded to your account, not based on when the balance is due to expire.
If all you’re doing is loading your TravelBank account using airline fee credits, that’s not a problem because it’ll effectively be redeemed based on its expiry date because that’ll be in line with its loading date. That is a problem though if your TravelBank account consists of credits that were loaded at different times and which have expiry dates shorter than five years.
Based on my experience, that’s clearly an issue with the credits that IHG Premier (and IHG Business) cardholders receive. That’ll also presumably be an issue for anyone who has Chase United cards that will soon receive TravelBank cash rather than statement credits such as the United Quest and Business cards (see this post for more about those new changes). The IHG credits expire after ~6 months, while the United cardholder credits will expire after 12 months.
This presents a dilemma for anyone earning those short-term credits if you also want to load your TravelBank account to earn airline fee reimbursements on Amex cards. If your TravelBank account accumulates a balance faster than you can redeem it, your IHG and/or United cardholder credits will expire without being redeemed. The only solution to this will be to reduce your TravelBank balance, let the IHG and/or United cardholder credits get loaded to your account and then subsequently load your TravelBank balance using Amex cards. That should ensure that the credits with shorter expiration dates will be redeemed first, but that also runs the risk that you’ll either forget to make use of those Amex airline fee credits later in the year, or that Amex will make a change that results in TravelBank no longer being credited for reimbursement.
That rigmarole isn’t worth the hassle for me when it comes to the IHG Premier credits because a) it’s only $25 twice per year and b) the value I get from the IHG card isn’t contingent on making use of those credits. However, if I was a United Quest cardholder who pays a $250 annual fee, I’d be very disappointed that what used to be a $125 statement credit (and thus easily redeemable) will be becoming a $125 TravelBank credit that would, in my case, go entirely to waste each year due to the larger TravelBank balance that I carry.
For what it’s worth, the United TravelBank terms and conditions don’t directly address this issue. There is a section in the terms headed ‘TravelBank Cash Expiration’, but all it says is the following:
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TravelBank cash accrued in a Member’s TravelBank account shall be maintained in the account until they are redeemed or until they expire, whichever occurs first. -
As a general rule (and unless stated otherwise by United under the terms of a particular offer or the terms of certain qualifying activity as determined by United from time to time) all accrued TravelBank cash in an Account is subject to expiration and/or forfeiture for any Member who fails at any time to engage in Account Activity (as defined above) for a period of eighteen (18) consecutive months. United may, but shall have no obligation to, send a Member a notification of TravelBank cash nearing or subject to expiration.
As you can see, it addresses when the balance will expire, but it doesn’t state that it’ll prioritize expiring credits, nor does the ‘Use of TravelBank Cash’ section.
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While it doesn’t mention the order TravelBank credits are used in the T&C, it does mention it in the FAQ on the same page. There it says:
So it seems like it supposed to use the earliest expiration first. Though it is odd that it doesn’t state that in the T&C too. (Or if there are exceptions to this process.)
Those T&Cs are correct. I made an error with this post as the expiring credit related to my wife’s TravelBank account which I didn’t realize or remember existed.
Sounds like you need additional united travelbank accounts from which to draw funds as appropriate
I guess one workaround could be to book a ticket that consumes the travel credit you don’t want to use, then actually book a flight you want, then cancel the placeholder ticket within 24 hours.
Personally, I’d rather just cancel my United credit cards, but hopefully that works for people who want to keep their cards.
I came here to post the same rigmarole for Stephen.
Stephen, when were your TravelBank-paid tickets issued? I’m in a similar situation — had credit from my IHG card loaded in July and then I redeemed TravelBank on October 3 and 28. It looks like my $25 was used, as my next credits don’t expire until 2029. Like you, I’m not stressing over $50 in credits a year, but if using oldest-loaded credits first is the rule, it’s new since November.
The IHG credit was added to my TravelBank in early July. I booked one flight in late August and another in November.
I would think August would have used it up, then. Strange…
Agreed. If it hadn’t been used one time then perhaps it could’ve been a glitch, but the fact that it wasn’t redeemed with two separate bookings several months apart suggests they don’t prioritize expiring credits.
Adding my datapoint, which may conflict.
I have a similar datapoint to r2e:
Robust balance such that my IHG credit would never be used unless it used earliest expiring first.
IHG $25 credit hit my account in July.
I made travel bank redemptions in late July and October.
My earliest expiring balance now shows as 2028.
You’re right. I realized this evening that I was incorrect about this as the notification I received abut the expiring credit was on my wife’s account rather than mine. I didn’t think I’d ever registered her account for that benefit, so had assumed it related to my account.
I’ve updated the post as I made an error with this unfortunately.
Also when you cancel a United flight partially paid by travel credit, you get a bigger credit (og travel credit + paid by cash etc) but has the expiration of the old travel credit.
Oh that sucks. This is new, this definitely didn’t work like this before.
This was my error – I’ve just updated the post.
Can’t you call and pay with TravelBank and direct the agent to use the expiring tranche first?