American Express offers a ton of great benefits on many of their premium credit card products. However, not all benefits are created the same. The airline fee credit benefit, on the face of it, sounds like a simple credit that you’d get when you book a flight ticket. However, Amex only offers these credits on what it deems as incidental purchases on qualifying US based airlines. As usual, at the start of the new year, I took stock of which cards in my wallet have the benefit and decided to use up the credits right out of the gate.
AIRLINE FEE CREDITS FOR 2025
At the moment, I have one Platinum card from American Express, which is the Charles Schwab version. So, I only had one credit card on which I needed to take care of the airline fee credit.
Thanks to the changes made recently, I don’t have to go through this process on my Hilton Aspire card any more. I really like the new credit on the Hilton Aspire Card since it’s just a simple credit for buy airline tickets.
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.
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, buying two increments of $100 each. Here’s the timeline:
- I made two purchases of $100 each from United Travel Bank on Jan 3, adding $200 to my travel bank account
- On January 5, Amex’s benefit tracker moved, showing that I’d used my airline fee credit benefit for 2025
- on January 6, the credits posted successfully to my account
THE PUNDIT’S MANTRA
Over the last five years or so, this has been a lucrative method for using up my airline fee credit benefit. Things can always change, so I always make a point to set a reminder 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.
