[Originally posted 8/12/16. Reposting on 10/27/16 since there are just a few days left. Don’t leave it for the last day since the charge might not post in time.]
There’s currently a targeted Amex Offer to get $50 off $300 on airfare. I didn’t have it on any of my primary cards but found it on some authorized user cards.
Just about every commenter there on the original post wondered whether buying airline gift cards will work to trigger the Amex Offer credit. So I tried it out.
- Southwest – worked
- American Airlines – worked
- Delta Airlines – worked
- United Airlines – no longer sells gift cards online
- United TravelBank – works
- Alaska Airlines – works
After each purchase, I got an instant confirmation email from Amex.  Although I haven’t yet gotten the actual statement credit, I’m confident it will come through.
The terms of the Amex Offer don’t exclude gift cards, and there’s nothing surprising about these results. The only reason to think it might not work would be if gift cards are processed differently at checkout. In the case of these three airlines, it worked like a charm.
Millionmilesecrets ran similar tests to see which airline gift cards work to get Barclay Arrival redemption. He concludes the same that Southwest, Delta, and American count as a travel redemption. On the other hand, he found that Alaska and Jetblue do not work for travel redemption on the Arrival. I’d guess that for our purposes the same would hold true, and Alaska and Jetblue won’t work to trigger the Amex Offer credit.
If anyone has additional data points, please let us know in the comments.
There’s also an Amex Offer to get $200 off $1000 on Delta. If you buy $1000 in Delta gift cards, it should work to trigger the offer credit. And if you have the Delta offer and the airline offer on the same card, you should get both credits for the $1000 in gift cards for a total of $250 off.
At this time, it might not make sense to buy up gift cards since there’s still a few months until the October 31 expiration of this offer, and there’s still time to use these offers organically. Still useful to keep in mind. We’ll try to repost this information when the deadline comes closer, hopefully with some additional data points from readers as to which other airlines work and which don’t.
The gift cards themselves also came via email within a few minutes of the purchase. It’s worth noting, however, that you can’t use an American gift card for 72-hours from issuance. Also good to know that you can use up to 8 American gift cards, 3 or 4 Southwest gift cards, and 3 Delta gift cards per transaction.
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