Can I Use The $200 Airline Credit From The AMEX Platinum Towards Purchasing Miles?

One of the many benefits of the Platinum Card® from American Express is the lucrative $200 Airline Fee Credit. This benefit requires the selection of one airline per calendar year then you can receive up to $200 in statement credits when incidental fees, such as checked bags and airport lounge day-passes, are charged by the airline to your Platinum Card Account.

A key point here is that this benefit is “per calendar year”, which means that if you apply for the card now, when you can receive up to 100,000 bonus points after spending $3,000 in the first 3 months, you can get $200 in statement credits until December 2015 and then another $200 starting January 2016 which automatically goes towards offsetting the $450 annual fee on the card.

 American Express Benefit Terms:

“Airline tickets, upgrades, mileage points purchases, mileage points transfer fees, gift cards, duty free purchases, and award tickets are not deemed to be incidental fees. The airline must submit the charge under the appropriate merchant code, industry code, or required service or product identifier for the charge to be recognized as an incidental air travel fee. Please allow 2-4 weeks after the qualifying incidental air travel fee is charged to your Card Account for statement credit(s) to be posted to the Account. We rely on airlines to submit the correct information on airline transactions, so please call the number on the back of the Card if statement credits have not posted after 4 weeks from the date of purchase.”

 Although American Express states mileage points purchases are not reimbursable, recently, I needed to purchase some additional AAdvantage miles in order to complete a redemption towards Business class tickets on Japan Airlines to Hong Kong.

 I made the purchase on August 8th and was automatically refunded $200 on August 11th.

Bottom Line:

There is no way to guarantee that the $200 Airline Credit will apply towards miles purchases, but there is no harm in trying if you are going to buy those miles anyway.

There have also been reports that the $200 credit applies towards the purchase of airline gift cards. However, instead of buying a $200 gift card, try buying them in smaller increments like two $100 gift cards or four $50 gift cards.

If you have any questions please tweet me @pointspointers or email me at pointspointers@gmail.com