 Here we are in "Happy New Year 2021" and thus ready to use/redeem the airline fee credits associated with certain credit card's where the counter reset's at the end of calendar year. Lot of American Express premium credit card's as well as few other cards (Expedia Voyager, BofA Premium Rewards) have their "airline fee credit" counter reset on 01/01.
American Express describes these airline fee credits which comes as part of Amex Gold and other premium cards as incidentals for reimbursing fees such as baggage, seat upgrade etc. But based on what gets reimbursed there are certain charges which although not exactly incidentals still work for reimbursement. For American Express you need to select One airline of the Major U.S. Carriers for given calendar year before you make the charge for incidental (which can be done online). There are certain purchases with United Airlines, Delta Airlines and Southwest Airlines which still get reimburse as of this writing, but what works today may not be working today and your best resource is this flyertalk thread for Southwest. Other airlines flyertalk thread can be found on that page! Here are the amounts of airlines incidentals for few of the popular cards per calendar year:
So, get going on these use/re-imbursement's for something other than the actual airline incidentals if you have any of the above card's in your wallet. Disclaimer: Some of the links used in the post may be referral links and earn referral to this site. We appreciate you supporting the website.
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 COVID-19 has disrupted many travel plans and a side effect of struggling airline industry is the airlines credit or discount codes issued in lieu of direct refund wherever the airlines could offer it. But due to on and off lock downs and travel restrictions even folks who were issued those airline credit or discount code would find difficult in using it.
So, if you have expiring airlines credits or discount codes here are few things you can do: Contact airline's to see if they can courtesy extend your credit: Lot of airlines realize that it still might not be possible for folks to use the credit or discount code's and given the ramping COVID-19 they might be willing to extend it or re-issue a new code with future expiration date. Convert the credits to airlines miles (YMMV, but keep an eye for any special run by airlines): Few airlines have been innovative and have provided members with option to convert their available credits due to cancellation to airline miles. Southwest Airlines already have active promotion for the same (So check if your credit qualifies) and Alaska Air has run the promotion couple of times in the past, so keep any eye if you have Alaska Airlines credit. Use the credit or discount code to book future trip: While your credit may expire it generally can be used for booking future flights before expiration. Although how far in future you can book depends on airlines, usually you should be able to book 330 days out on major U.S. airlines (Except Southwest Airlines). So as a last resort you can book something way out with hope of taking that flight and hoping if there are schedule changes you can use it to your advantage to change your ticket for free without any additional cost. So, do not sit and let that airline credit/ discount code expire but rather act upon it with whichever options works out for you before the expiration date. Disclaimer: Some of the links used in the post may be referral links and earn referral to this site. We appreciate you supporting the website.  Happy New Year to all the folks! It is a start of new year which means if you have credit cards which gives airline incidental credit on calendar year are available again to take advantage of. American Express Issued credit cards such as American Express Gold Card which provide incidental credits reset based on calendar year and are available for New Year from 01/01/2019. Also specifically for American Express, you do need to select the preferred airline and you get incidental reimbursement for only that airline.
Also not all credit card's give credit based on calendar year. Also some of the airline e-gift cards or award ticket taxes and fees might trigger the incidental credit. So do check this flyertalk thread for latest data points if you are looking to purchase gift cards. Below are the credit cards which provides airline incidental credit based on calendar year (Do note the list might not be complete).
There are other cards such as Chase Sapphire Reserve, U.S. Bank Altitude Reserve, Citi Prestige which provides credit for any charge made directly with airlines and other travel categories as defined by their terms and are per "card membership year". Since these are not limited to incidentals you can use them for airfare as well as incidentals. So, get going and redeem these incidental credits before your annual fees come due. Disclaimer: Some of the links used in the post may be referral links and earn referral to this site. We appreciate you supporting the website. One of the task in mileage award redemption is to figure out which airlines serve the source and destination. Sometimes the routing may not be direct and would involve one or more connections. Paid tools like ExpertFlyer can provide you seat availability for given airlines but before you get there you need to know which airlines serves your source and destination which will also allow you to figure out which particular mileage currency might be useful. FlightConnections: FlightConnections is a useful website to find out what airlines services your source and destination airport. It has below set of features as of now:
 Sample search from SFO to NBO airport There are few con's though of using the website.
So, next time you are looking to get that mileage redemption award going you might want to check this website. Disclaimer: Some of the links used in the post may be referral links and earn referral to this site. We appreciate you supporting the website.  Let me state this outright that I am averse to any interaction which would make private information public. Although social media is all about sharing it is also a boon to getting your issues resolved without picking up the phone or hunting for that email or chat option. So why twitter among all the social media? Twitter has nice feature called "Messages" which you can use to send Direct Messages to anyone on twitter. The way it works is below:
 You will see "Messages" on the top bar of twitter.  View after following each other
You can resolve all kinds of issues relating to flight change, compensation for any service issue, miles not credited etc. For other merchants you can also resolve your account or order issues. The reason it works so effectively is you can make comments publicly with their twitter "handle" and no brand likes a bad publicity/comments and would work to resolve it immediately. So, next time you have issue with your flights, hotels do use this option as an effective way of getting your issues resolved. Disclaimer: Some of the links used in the post may be referral links and earn referral to this site. We appreciate you supporting the website. |
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