Earlier this month we wrote a post outlining that gift card purchases from Southwest & Delta were not crediting the American Express Airline incidental credits, we’d previously posted that this stopped working for American Airlines as well (there was hope that was working again, but I very much doubt that now). I’m officially calling this work around dead for two reasons:
- There are a number of data points showing people that made non gift card purchases on the same day as a gift card purchase being credited for the non gift card purchase, but not the gift card (for example: here)
- Even if credits do stay posting again, there is nothing stopping American Express from deciding at a later date that these are no qualifying purchases and clawing back the credit. This is something that have now shown time and time again that they are willing to do, most recently with self referrals.
Personally I used to value these credits at 80-90% of face value but given that it seems likely that this open ‘secret’ is no longer working due to cost cutting measures by American Express I’ll have to reevaluate that. In addition the American Express Platinum Priority Pass will soon lose restaurant access, I think this makes keeping the Platinum long term almost impossible unless you have a home airport with a Centurion lounge but I’m sure many will disagree in the comments.
