It’s a New Year for Airline and Travel Credits

Happy New Years to all! Along with the new year comes new airline and travel credits. We wrote up a longer review on how al of thel travel credits work, I just wanted to put out this reminder in brief form for those who aren’t interested in reading more than three lines:

  • Amex Platinum and PRG cards, Ritz, BofA Premium Rewards, FNBO, and CNB all go with calendar year. Those have reset today. [For Amex, you have to select your airline for the year now. I think it defaults to the one used last year.]
  • Grandfathered CSR cards and Citi Prestige go with December close date. Those have reset sometime in the past month.
  • New CSR, Altitude, and WF Propel go based on cardmember date.

My personal to-do list: buy reimbursables on Prestige, Bofa Premium Rewards, and two Amex Platinum cards. Already did CSR.

 
    Chuck
  • On January 1, 2018, 10:15

View Comments (25)

  • my CSR got hit with the fee less than 60 days ago... nov statement. dec statement closes jan 12th.

    will downgrade before this date to get pro-rated annual fee.

  • Citi prestige is based on calendar year and not card member year as far as I understand...I believe that also resets today.

    • It's based on the date of your December statement close date. For example, mine closed on 12/28, so I could have had charges for "2018" on 12/29/17 that counted.

  • I recently got the amex platinum and bought a $200 SW gift card in december and now just did it again for 2018. Do those two gift cards ($400 total) count toward the $5,000 limit to reach the sign up bonus or does the $200 reimbursement credit negate the $400?

    Thanks!

  • We're sorry, our gift registry page is currently unavailable for maintenance. You can still use the funds from your gift registry to book travel during this time, but you will not be able to receive contributions or update your registry details. We expect the page to be up and running again in early 2018.

    • I've used cardcash without issue though it seems like some people have problems with them. They pay about $82 per $100 on my AA giftcards. Could get more from raise and/or ebay but it's significantly more work for maybe $5 more.

  • 1. You are right that the Amex choice of airline defaults to the one of the previous year.

    2. There are some datapoints that the Amex system takes a couple of days to process the changes, so the prudent course is to allow it time after you change airlines before using the airline credit on the new airline.

    3. There have been significant changes as to which incidentals payments Amex will reimburse. Also the UA registry, a favorite, is down for now. Be sure to check the relevant flyertalk threads for up-to-date datapoints before making a purchase you expect Amex to reimburse.

    4. Regarding the Amex Biz platinum, the choice of airlines has to be the same for both reimbursement and for the amex 50% (grandfathered) or 35% points rebate. If you plan on using the points rebate, you have to set the airline choice to the airline for which you are going to get the points rebate, and use the incidentals reimbursement for the same airline.

  • I heard United travel bank is coming back online this month? I find AA gift cards cumbersome. If you get a refund for any reason they will mail you a physical voucher (takes ages to come) and when you book you gotta call in and then mail that damn thing back to some address in Pensacola FL. Quite the hassle.

    • I suggested AA to do something like travelbank.

      Got a mail back from CSR. YOU know the ones that are all nice and polite and understanding but don't really care about what you are telling them. They are the bureaucracy that maintains the status quo and think you are moron to suggest anything be changed. I see that a lot with Asian cultures, fake niceness but sadly even most American CSR pay lip service now.

    • I resell airline gcs - because they can't be used for taxes (why the H not?) - and because who still buys tickets? I haven't in 5 years.

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