Update 6/17/20: American Express is now waiving the excise tax fee for domestic airlines through December 31st, 2020 and also providing refunds for those who paid this fee. Hat tip to Travel With Grant
Original post 3/30/20: As part of H.R.748 – CARES Act there is no airline tax on domestic airline tickets until 01/01/2021 (7.5%). This doesn’t apply to tickets that have already been purchased but even if your travel is after 01/01/2021 then this fee will not be charged as long as the purchase is made before that date. Interestingly this has also meant that:
American Express is no longer charging the excise tax offset fee for domestic airline transfersThis is still showing, but should disappear at some stage- American Airlines normally charges this tax on airline miles purchased, this is no longer being charged
Personally I won’t be doing any transfers or purchasing miles until we have a bit more clarity on what is going on, but we still have until 01/01/2021 until this excise tax kicks in so I’m hopeful by that stage we have that clarity.
Hat tip to US Credit Cards 101
