Get Full Value from Your Airline Incidental Credits
"Airline Incidental Credits" are a potentially valuable feature of several credit cards. But, you may not naturally generate enough qualifying "incidental" charges to fully take advantage of your available credits, especially if you only have a short period of time, such as with a calendar-year credit that you receive towards the end of the year.
If you can't use your Airline Incidental Credits naturally, there are some tricks that can allow you to take advantage of the full credit amount, maximizing the value of getting or holding onto the credit card.
Even if you'll eventually generate enough natural expenses which qualify, you may find it easier to "take care of the credit" using one of these approaches, and not need to worry about making sure to use the appropriate card for your airline incidental purchases over the course of the year.
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What should always work
By the official terms, the following types of purchases are considered "incidental purchases":
- Ticket change/cancellation/redeposit fees. Sometimes these are unavoidable and they are quite expensive. When you can't avoid them, these are the most likely fees that will use up your credits.
- Onboard food and beverage purchases. Many people buy the occasional snack, meal, or drink.
- Checked bag fees. Assuming you don't have a credit card or elite status to waive these fees.
- Seat selection fees. But, not the higher fees to upgrade to a better class of seats.
- Lounge passes and memberships. If you decide to pay the high prices for access.
- Pet and phone reservation fees. If they apply.
- WiFi bought from the airline. But, in most cases you are paying a 3rd party like GoGo, and these payments won't count.
Checking for up to date information
What works and what doesn't work (outside of the officially approved "incidentals") can change at any time.
FlyerTalk has a set of forums dedicated to discussing what other types of charges work with various airlines.
Flyertalk has a good set of threads dedicated to this issue:
Other credit card companies are sometimes more lenient about what works on their cards, but there are less people reporting information on the web. Flyertalk has threads for the Bank of America Premium Reward card, the the CNB Crystal Infinite card. Frequent mile has a good article about what may work with the no-longer-available-for-new-signups Ritz Carlton card.
Gift cards
Up until recently, the most common way to "hack" airline incidental credits was via gift cards.
Even though gift card purchases are explicitly excluded in the terms and conditions, in practice, credit was often issued for purchases of low denomination airline gift cards (from some airlines). It was easy to spend the entire amount of the credit on gift cards and then either use the gift cards to purchase airline tickets (right away or at some later date) or sell the gift cards on the web. This trick allowed the entire value of the credit to be used on airplane tickets or a high percentage of the credit to be received in cash.
Over time, the set of airline where this would work got smaller and smaller, so that it was only working on American Airlines, Delta Airlines, and Southwest. There were different rules for each airline on exactly how the gift cards needed to be purchased.
In mid-2019, this stopped working for Amex cards (Platinum and Hilton Aspire). It may still work for airline incidental credits from credit cards from other banks.
Some other potential ways of getting value from your credits
There are some other tricks that can help get full value from your airline incidental credits. These can be particularly valuable for Amex cards because it is harder to naturally use your credits when you are limited to only a single airline (and because gift cards no longer work).
Depending on the credit card, it may not be hard to use the credit on actual incidental purchases.
- In many cases, seat selection and upgrade fees are included. Some airlines charge a small fee to select any seat ahead-of-time. Other airlines let you upgrade to a nicer seat for a reasonable charge. If you find yourself wanting to pick or upgrade your seats, you'll wind up with expenses that you can offset with your credit.
- Your credits can take part of the sting out of ticket change and cancellation fees. These are covered with most of the cards. Of course, it is better to avoid these in the first place.
- The fees and taxes to book award ticket often qualify. And these fees are unavoidable when you book frequent flyer tickets.
- In flight wireless purchases typically DON'T count. That's because you are usually buying them from the internet service provider, such as GoGo, and not directly from the airline.
- Lounge memberships are typically included. While not everyone is interested in spending hundreds of dollars on a lounge membership, if you are, you can use up an entire credit with a single purchase.
Buying airline gift cards
The typical way to get full value from your Airline Incidental Credits is by purchasing gift cards directly from the airline.
- Gift cards purchases are explicitly excluded in the terms-of-use for every Airline Incidental Credit. However in practice, the credit winds up getting applied against many small-value credit card charges with the airline, regardless of what they are actually for.
- So, the typical way to get full value from Airline Incidental Credits is to purchase small denomination gift cards. You'll need to buy them directly from an airline, not from another gift card seller. Depending on the credit card you are using, each gift card may be limited to $50 or $100. This trick can be repeated as many times as is necessary. For example, if you have a $200 credit, you could purchase four $50 gift cards, sometimes as separate transactions.
- This doesn't work with every airline, so you'll need to check online. Whether this works depends on the specific airline and credit card combination. With any given credit card, it may work with one airline and not another. And the specifics can change. If you want to be more certain, you'll need to do a little online research to check what has been working and what has not.
- You'll need to check for the Amex cards at the beginning of the year. With the different versions of the Amex Platinum card, the Hilton Aspire card, and the Gold card, the credit only works for a single airline, which you choose when you first get the card, and can only change at the beginning of the year. You don't have the flexibility to react to what is currently working. So, you'll need to be proactive, check in January, and ideally make your purchases then, when there is little chance that a particular airline will have stopped working.
- If possible, immediately attach the gift cards to your frequent flyer account. With many airlines, you can add the gift cards to your account, so you won't have to worry about finding the information later, and you are less likely to forget about the purchase.
With many cards, you could also simply experiment. Purchase a $50 gift card from your favorite airline. Wait a week or so, and check the credit card account online to see if the credit posted. If so, purchase more cards. If not, try a different airline.
Flyertalk has a good set of forums dedicated to this issue:
Obviously, purchasing gift cards, and remembering to use them later, is a nuisance. But for many people, it is better than letting part of their airline incidental credit expire unused.
With some airline and credit card combinations, the credit will be applied even when you simply buy an inexpensive airline ticket. As long as the ticket is below some threshold, often $100, the credit card backend will treat it as an incidental expense. As with gift cards, you'll need to purchase directly from the airline.
If you have the opportunity to purchase inexpensive tickets, make sure to check the web, and see if you might get reimbursed via one of your credit card's Airline Incidental Credits. It is easier than using gift cards.
Alternatively, if you are buying a ticket that is over $100, you can use gift cards to pay for part of the cost, and use the credit card to pay for the remaining portion. If the remainder is less than $100, it is likely to trigger the credit.
The Southwest Airline trick
Travel in Points outline another approach that can work.
The trick is to purchase (and then cancel) refundable international award tickets on Southwest Airlines. You'll be charged a fees and taxes that are larger than the normal $5.60 TSA surcharge. Your Airline Incidental Credits will often get applied to these fees. However, when you cancel the award ticket, and the fees are refunded to your card, the credit you previously received is typically not affected. As a result, you just wind up with a credit on your account that will offset any other purchases you make.
If this works with Southwest, it will probably work with any airline where you can cancel your award tickets without any cancellation fee.
Taking advantage of credit card company policies
There are several ways that you can take advantage of the credit card company's policies to improve the value proposition of travel credits. We avoid these approaches, because we feel like they unfairly take advantage of consumer-friendly credit card policies. Plus, banks don't like when you cancel or convert your cards too quickly, and may decide they don't want to do business with you. But, some people may feel differently.
- If you get a new credit card in December it is typically possible to "triple-dip" any calendar-year credit. As long as you cancel most cards within a month or so of your annual fee posting, the fee will be refunded. So, you could sign up in December, take advantage of the credit before the end of the year, take advantage of another credit the following year, and then take advantage of the credit a third time in January, just before you cancel your card. All with only paying a single year's annual fee.
- After the initial year, you can often downgrade your card, once you've used your credit, to get a partial refund of your annual fee. Most cards with credits have significant annual fees. Once you've used your credit, you can often downgrade your card, and receive a partial credit against the annual fee. Then, the following year, you could conceivably upgrade the card, take advantage of the credit another time, and then downgrade again. You typically can't do this in the initial year, due to banking regulations.
- You can sometimes cancel your card, after you've used your credit, and get refunded part of the annual fee. For calendar-year based credits, you can still take advantage of two different credits, while only paying a fraction of the annual fee. Not every bank will pro-rate the annual fee for cancelled cards. You'll need to do some research online.
