Earlier this week, I wrote about the fantastic 125,000 points welcome bonus on the Amex Platinum card. One of the benefits that the Amex Platinum Card offers is a $200 statement credit for incidental charges on US based airlines. You need to select the airline in advance before making the purchase. I usually don’t like to procrastinate so I decided to use all my airline fee credits for 2022 right away.
Airline Fee Credit for 2022
Three of my cards carry the Airline Fee Credit benefit. The personal Platinum card, the business Platinum card and the Hilton Aspire card. Overall, I had about $650 in credits to take care of. $200 on the personal Platinum card, $200 on the business Platinum card and $250 on the Hilton Aspire card.
After looking up data points on Flyertalk, I decided to once again choose United airlines as my option for these credits. I headed over to United and started making purchases on United’s Travel Bank.
You need to select the airline before making the purchase
I selected the credits and then waited for about 24 hours. After 24 hours, I started loading my United Travel Bank in increments of $100. For the $250 airline fee credit on the Hilton Aspire card, I did three installments of $100, $100 and $50.
In less than one week, all credits had successfully posted for all the qualifying charges.
In less than a week, all credits posted on 3 of my cards
The Pundit’s Mantra
Over the last five years or so, this has been a lucrative method for using up your airline fee credit benefit, especially with the state of travel still being so uncertain. Things can always change, so I always keep a point to set a reminder for early in the year to take care of all my airline fee credits. It gives me the option to use these funds to buy flight tickets in the future.
Also, if you sign up for the personal Platinum card or the business Platinum card now, or the Hilton Aspire card, you can double dip your airline fee credit benefit. These benefits are calendar year based. Even if you opt to cancel in January 2023, you can still use your credits once for 2022 and then again in January 2023 before you cancel.
How do you plan to use your airline fee credit for 2022? Tell us in the comments section.
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Hello Ashish,
I was only able to load $100 to my United Travel Bank. Would you know why and should I call United customer service?
TIA!
Hi Praveen,
I’m not quite sure. Did you try to load in increments of more than $100 and run into an error? I’ve had success loading $100 in increments to trigger the credit.