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My Experience with the American Express Gold Card $100 Airline Fee Credit

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Good afternoon everyone.  As part of my March App-O-Rama, I was approved for the American Express Gold Card.  A few weeks ago, I wrote How to Enroll in American Express Gold Card Benefits ($120 Dining Credit & $100 Airline Fee Credit).  In that post, I showed how to enroll in the $100 airline fee credit benefit.  The process was very easy.  I selected Southwest Airlines as my airline of choice and purchased a $100 Southwest Airlines eGC to trigger the $100 airline fee credit.  Unfortunately, my $100 purchase did not trigger the benefit.

After waiting more than a week, I decided to purchase a $50 Southwest Airlines eGC.  A few days after that, I received a $50 statement credit titled “AMEX Airline Fee Reimbursement.”

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Here are the details of the $50 Southwest Airlines eGC (top) and the $50 AMEX Airline Fee Reimbursement (bottom).  As far as I can tell, the $50 Southwest Airlines eGC and the $100 Southwest Airlines eGC purchases coded the same, so I am not sure why the $100 Southwest Airlines eGC did not trigger the benefit, maybe it was too large and outside the range that American Express looks at for reimbursement.

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I went to the benefits section and saw that I was halfway done with the $100 airline fee credit.

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I then repeated the process and bought another $50 Southwest Airlines eGC.  Just like before, a few days later, I received another $50 statement credit.

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One more quick check at the benefits tab showed that I maxed out the $100 airline fee credit for 2019.  I will have another $100 airline fee credit again on January 1, 2020.

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Do you have any other data points on what types of purchase will trigger the $100 airline fee credit?  Please share them in the comments section.  If you have any questions about the $100 airline fee credit on the American Express Gold Card, please leave a comment below.  Have a great day everyone!


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16 thoughts on “My Experience with the American Express Gold Card $100 Airline Fee Credit

  1. The Points Pundit

    Just used my credit on the Aspire card. 5 Delta eGCs of $50 each. Got the credit in 2 business days.

    Reply
  2. John

    Everyone in the points and miles game knows that $50 is the sweet spot for Airline gift cards and that American Airlines doesn’t trigger any reimbursements

    Reply
  3. Mike Saint

    Hi Grant,

    I got the Gold AMEX for both me and my wife and I charged $100 to each of our accounts doing the same thing you did buying Southwest Airlines e-giftcard. For data point, I charged on March 13 and got credited back March 16 the entire $100 for each of our accounts.

    Reply
      1. Mike Saint

        Yes, it sounds like judging by the dates for data point something changed from when I did mine and you tried yours for $100. I actually had the card last year right when it came out so I already got the credit from last year. Except last year I got the credit for American Express and then at the FTU Seattle I heard from others that AA didn’t work anymore.

        I actually found out that Southwest works for the credit at FTU so changed it that weekend and then charged the following weekend. Hopefully they don’t get of the ability to buy a gift card for the AMEX cards as I never usually have extra charges.

        Reply
  4. Rick

    I purchased a SW E-GiftCardMall about 4 months ago in the amount of $100. Fully credited back to my AmEx Gold account

    Reply

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