Update 1/8/22: When United TravelBank returned on January 3, I made a $100 purchase with one of our Amex Platinum cards which had United selected for the airline fee reimbursements.
When checking my account yesterday, the statement credit wasn’t showing in the transactions list yet, although when clicking through to the card benefits the tracking bar at the top of the page showed that I’d used $100 of my airline fee credits.
That made me confident that United TravelBank was still working, but I wanted to wait until the actual statement credit hit my account and sure enough – the $100 credit appeared in my transaction list today. Other readers have reported the same thing in the comments below. There’s no knowing how long this opportunity will last, so it could be worth taking advantage of it sooner rather than later.
Update 1/3/21: United TravelBank is back up! We don’t know whether this is a permanent return or not, so it might make sense to take advantage sooner rather than later if you were looking for this option. Keep in mind that we don’t know whether anything has changed in terms of how charges code since the outage, so it might make sense to start with a $50 load to confirm that it works as expected before loading more. Keep in mind that this avenue briefly stopped working early last year.
The original post about TravelBank going down follows for reference.
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If you procrastinated with topping up your United TravelBank at the end of 2021, you were out of luck as United turned off the ability to do that on New Year’s Eve.
That was frustrating if you were wanting to use up your Amex airline fee credits at the last minute because TravelBank was a great way to lock in value from those credits if you had United selected as your airline choice.
It seemed strange that they’d turn off the ability to reload your TravelBank balance on what’s presumably one of their busiest days of the year for people taking advantage of the feature, but there wasn’t anything you could do at that point and so sadly people had those 2021 credits go to waste.
As you might expect, a number of people reached out to United to find out if and when TravelBank will be back and, as you also might expect, the replies provided by their reps have been all over the place.
One person was assured by a rep that it was a known issue and that it would only be down for a couple of days. Another was advised that United TravelBank would be down for about a week, but that it would be back.
More ominously – especially seeing as the United TravelBank landing page says ‘This offer has ended. This special offer is no longer available’ – a FlyerTalk member reports that they were told the following:
I sent a DM to United on Twitter and got a response that going forward Travel Bank had been discontinued but a new and exciting program will be launching soon to replace it. So that’s what I got but we will see what happens next
Three reps, three different answers.
United TravelBank went down mid-January last year before returning a few weeks later, so hopefully the same thing will happen again this year. For now it’s just going to be a case of having to wait and see if it does return, if a new program takes its place or if TravelBank is gone forever with nothing replacing it. If a new program is introduced to replace TravelBank, it’ll then take a few days for data points to start rolling in as to whether or not Amex airline fee credits get triggered.
If you applied for an Amex Platinum card in December 2020 with the intention of triple-dipping airline fee credits before cancelling in January, that doesn’t leave you much time to take advantage of the credits. American Express allows you to change your airline selection each year, so if you only have a week or two before you need to cancel your card in order to not be charged an annual fee, it could be worth changing your selection to a different airline and using a different method that does still work. Check Amex Airline Fee Reimbursements. What still works? for details about your other options.
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Data point: Purchased $100 travel bank credit Jan 7, 2023; credit posted Jan 12, 2023
Data Point: United Travel Bank
Total credit received: $100 (purchasing another $100 soon)
Transactions posted: January 4, 2023
Credits received: January 9, 2023
Confirming this dp .. United Travel bank worked for me too.
2x $100 posted Jan 2, 2023, credited Jan 7, 2023
FYI – My annual airline credit is for UA and Today they told me that my charge for $100 a few days ago (for UA Travel Bank) is coded as a “Special Service Ticket ” and will NOT be covered by this card benefit. We pretty much only fly DL, AA and UA. Any ideas??
Did it post yet? I see reports that it is working for others.
Finally did! Taking longer now
That’s great news! But remember the #1 rule about fight club… we don’t want to get the loopholes closed if we chat with Amex haha… but happy for you! I just selected my primary airline as United and will put through the purchase today and on my Fiance’s account too.
Did it work? I just made my first UA Travel Bank purchase today, hoping it works
did it work for you? got your credits from AMEX?
Can I use MY P2’s Amex Plat to puchase 2 $100 from MY United Travel Bank and still get the credit?
Data Point: United Travel Bank.
Total credit received: $400 (2 platinums)
Transactions posted: Feb 5th
Credits received: Feb 10th
After reading about using the AmEx airline travel credit for the United TravelBank I switched my airline preference on my Aspire card to United Airlines. I attempted to make a $50 test purchase to make sure the purchase was credited prior to purchasing a higher amount. At first I got the “purchase failed” message as others here received. I was attempting to add my credit card info for the individual purchase and each time the purchase failed. I went to my the “My United” account after logging on to the United website. There I added and saved my AmEx Aspire card as one of my payment methods. I went back to my United TravelBank account, selected $50 , then selected my Aspire card from the saved payment methods and my purchase was approved. I made the $50 purchase on January 28 and by January 31 my payment had posted and was credited with $50 from my $250 airline credit. Seeing that it worked without any further glitches, today, February 1, I made two more purchases of $100 each with no issues.
United Travel Bank website is not working…again!!! I’ve tried several time yesterday, 01/25, with saved credit card in the United Wallet (work around) and still received “failed payment” error message in both IE and FireFox.
Would be a good idea to check my earlier comment to see if that works around the issue for you
The Payment is keeps declining when trying to pay with my Amex Aspire .. I tried different browsers not sure what the problem is …
Look at work around by @Mikey below which works
I keep having my card declined. Amex said it’s UA
Me too – on 2 of my 4 cards, it consistently gets declined without even hitting Amex (the other two have no problems). In fact the ‘declined” message appears so quickly for one of them, I’m not even sure it goes out to the network to process it. Very weird. I have used those cards for other stuff and for TravelBank also in late December.
Hi @dizzy,
I think I just found a workaround and verified it on not just the 2 cards that were getting declined, but a third separate one also started to fail. So I think this is a pretty solid workaround.
As someone with a software background, I think I have an inkling of what bug on UA’s side is causing this and it has to have been introduced very recently since the same cards worked for me even after Jan 1st based on my records. But my “guess” needs some more tests to confirm, which I am too lazy/busy to do right now. However, net result is that saving the payment method in your United account and then using it to purchase TravelBank funds seems to work for the cards it was declining.
And by the way, the cards that were NOT getting declined, still continue to work fine without the above workaround.
Thank you! This worked right away!
Thanks for the tip!
Look at work around by @Mikey below which works
Sorry meant that for @T Real above
100% it works, just seems to be taking longer than normal (purchased $50 on Jan 3, received credit on Jan 10).
BLUE TEAM GO, BLUE TEAM GO.
What am I doing wrong? it seems like I have go through your link to get to the travel bank site. I tried incognito and going through my account and can’t seem to get to the site where I can add funds.
Yes, its been like this since they relaunched Travel Bank as different from a gift registry. You can view Travel bank activity etc in your MileagePlus account (under MyUnited, in the Dashboard under the TraveBank amount, click “View details”) For some odd reason, there is no way to get to the purchase page from there which would be the normal thing to do. But if you (a) go directly to the link as you have done (https://www.united.com/offers/travelcash) or (b) from MyUnited, click on Wallet->TravelBank, it will give you that purchase page after having you sign in one more time.
I suspect its still an integration-in-progress to tie in to the single sign on that the rest of the United website uses.
Cool…thanks!
Stephen, can you please update the title? It makes it seem like The travel bank is still down, and I freak out a little bit every time I see it!
Just purchased $100 (first time using this) and the amex charge comes up as “United electronic ticketing” not “United Airlines Houston TX” as your screenshot shows. I would guess that this is not going to reimburse.
That’s what it shows as when pending, but changes when the charge actually posts.
Thank goodness! Thanks for the fast reply!
Like many others, purchased on 1/3 with credit today 1/8. I did $50×2.
My credits posted as of today as well for a 1/3 purchase. On related note: anyone else finding it difficult to book UA flights with travel bank? I press purple purchase button and it just spins around and around for minutes.
Were you able to book a flight? I’m encountering the same issue.
I’m corn-fused does it work (United Travel Bank) currently?
Thanks Stephen for all you do, love GCGalore.
Greg please give us our PEPPER more often, he saves me real money and seems like a great guy.
So odd. I see the credit in my quicken transactions but when I log into amex I do not see the credits. Also odd on website charge is 1/3 and on quicken charge is 1/4 and credit is on 1/7. I have never noticed that items posted in quicken before I see it on Amex website.
made purchase on 1/3, see credit on account on 1/8 with a posted date of 1/7.
Just got my credits back on $200 Platinum and $250 Hilton Aspire yesterday.
Still no juice from Amex.
Anyone gotten credit back from AMEX yet?
I bought on 1/3, the charge has been post, but no credit yet
Same here.
Finally hit. Now to do all cards!
Same here. Charged 1/4, credited 1/8, went ahead with all 7 cards between me and P2 on 1/9. Let’s hope they didn’t change their mind on this after crediting the test charge .
So I purchased on a few PLatinum cards two days agow when this email came out. I hoped to see pending transactions go to paid and then credits this morning. Instead I do not see the Travel Bank transaction on Amex Platinum, BUT I still see purchases in Travel Bank. Anyone else seeing same or can anyone say they are seeing credits hit?
Nevermind, looked at wrong cards. See the transaction complete. Waiting for credit.
[…] HT: FM […]
Do the funds really expire in 5 years (per the ts & cs)? I thought in many states (including CA where I’m located) it’s illegal to sell an expiring credit?
I think that relates to gift cards expiring, whereas this isn’t a gift card as such.
[…] HT: FM […]
[…] Hat tip to FM […]
I purchased for $100. Will report in a couple of days.
I don’t know, maybe it’s up and down but when I go there, it “welcomes” me with the same “permanently closed” statement
That might be a caching issue – try clearing your cookies or logging in on a different browser.
I tried multiple browsers, incognito, etc.
Is this the link you’re using?
https://www.united.com/ual/en/us/fly/products/travel-options/cash-gift-registry.html
Nope, it’s https://www.united.com/offers/travelcash – I think the gift registry was the old version of TravelBank that changed a year or two ago.
Thanks for saving me, Stephen! I didn’t have the link saved and simply googled United Travel Bank and I guess google isn’t always right.
Put $100 on WF Propel – hoping to take care of the $100 incidental and get 15X from the current promo at the same time!
If I don’t get the credit form Amex I guess I would have flown United in the next 3 years anyway, so it’s only a loss of time value on the money
Maybe it’s just me but I can log-in to my United travelbank without issues and make a purchase… the only change is that now I can only select $50 or $1,000 purchase… nothing in between.
I can see all the purchase amounts. Did anyone try it yet?
I can now see all purchase amounts as well.
😉
Not sure I want to test the reimbursement with my platinum…
So for some reason I didn’t get the credit for Travel Bank when I used back in June on one of my biz cards (i know I had United selected…) but I did on personal. Forgot about it, then Dec 29 I was reminded and tried again and didn’t work. Would you recommend trying to contact Amex and say hey I never got the credit back in June? Did 2 100 dollar purchases
If you don’t receive credit for something that wasn’t (presumably) supposed to work in the first place, it’s best not to call in as that might risk the opportunity disappearing in the future.
As Nick says in bolded letters in the “what works” article, for your sake and everyone else’s, please don’t ask Amex about purchases that don’t fit the terms 100% to the letter.
I don’t understand why they would shut it down with all the sales it likely generates. Yet they sell gift cards which usually cost them commissions and/or fees to third party sellers and hosts.
Who still thinks airline credits are worth face value? At this point I value them at 20% FV max. No more Amex plat coupon books for me.
I was planning on using as have amex renewal due 1/4. What is the best backup plan?
Here is another data point. Some of us received a promotion earlier in 2021 to spend at least $100 and 10 transactions per month on a United credit card and receive $10 of United Travelbank credit each month. These $10 Travelbank credits have been added every month beginning May 31, except I have not received the November or December payment (both of which are due under the promotion). The December payment delay is understandable (it takes a little bit of time to post and December just ended), but I have also not received the November payment, which is very late by historical standards.
The United website has the exact wording from the last time they shut it down.
From April 2019
https://www.doctorofcredit.com/united-gift-registry-officially-discontinued-after-being-under-maintenance-for-over-a-year/