What Does & Doesn’t Trigger The PenFed Pathfinder Rewards American Express $100 Airline Credit?

PenFed recently released the PenFed Pathfinder Rewards American Express credit card. One of the benefits of the card is that it has no annual fee and also comes with an annual $100 airline fee credit (this is based on a calendar year). This makes it worth holding long term. The credit applies to the following U.S headquartered airlines:

• American Airlines, Alaska Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Frontier Airlines, JetBlue Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines, Spirit Airlines, Southwest Airlines, United Airlines, Allegiant Air, and Virgin America

They give the following examples of what does count:

•  baggage fees, flight-change fees, in-flight food and beverage purchases, airport lounge day-passes, pet-kennel fee, and phone reservation fees.

The give the following examples of what does not count:

• Airline tickets, upgrades, mileage points purchases, mileage points transfer fees, gift cards, duty free purchases, and award tickets

That being said it’s always nice to have hard datapoints on what has/hasn’t worked. Especially for those wanting to try something that shouldn’t be officially covered. We will add these below, please share your own datapoints to make this resource more useful.

Purchases That Triggered The Credit

• Alaska:
  • Flight: 1 ($24.82)
• American Airlines:
  • Award taxes: 1, 2,
  • Gift cards: 1 ($50), 2 ($100), 3, 4, 5, 6, 7,
  • Ticket: 1 ($21), 2 ($64.81), 3,
• Delta:
  • Giftcard: 1 ($50), 2 ($50 * 2), 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9,
  • Seat assignment: 1,
• Hawaiian:
  • Checked bags: 1 ($30),
  • Flights: 1 ($73.99)
• Frontier:
  • Ticket: 1 ($79)
•  Southwest:
  • Early bird: 1
  • Giftcard: 1, 2, 3,
• United:
  • Award taxes: 1
  • Change fees: 1,
  • Lounge pass: 1
  • MPX: 1, 2, 3 ($100), 4, 5 ($100), 6 ($100), 7 ($100), 8 ($100), 9 ($100), 10 ($100), 11 ($100), 12 ($100), 13 ($100), 14 ($100), 15 ($25), 16 ($100), 17 ($100), 18 ($100), 19, 20, 21 (didn’t work) 22, 23, 24, 25,

Purchases That Didn’t Trigger The Credit

• Alaska Airlines:
  • Giftcard: 1 ($50)
• American Airlines:
  • Gift cards: 1 ($100)
• Delta:
  • Gift card: 1 ($50), 2 ($50)
• Frontier:
  • Flight: 1,
• Southwest:
  • WiFi: 1,

Our Verdict

Given that American Airlines gift cards of $50 worked, but $100 didn’t I suspect they are actually just crediting anything under a certain threshold ($50 or so). We obviously need more datapoints to see if that’s the case.