RIP Airline Giftcards for Amex Card Airline Incidentals Credit: As reported on Doctor of Credit, it appears that airline giftcards no longer trigger the airline incidentals credit on Amex cards like the Amex Gold and Amex Platinum. The terms and conditions always stated this, but in practice, buying giftcards used to trigger the credit. This change was reported earlier, then giftcards appeared to work again, but now it appears the workaround is gone for good.
With the Amex Platinum’s $550 annual fee, using the $200 airline incidentals credit for giftcards was a way to justify the high fee. Now, that annual fee is even harder to swallow. Readers, does this change affect your decision to apply for or keep your Amex card?
New Hyatt Place in Las Vegas Opens: Via Miles to Memories, a new Hyatt Place is opening in Las Vegas in a few weeks. Hyatt Place Las Vegas at Silverton Village is adjacent to Bass Pro Shops and Silverton Casino. At only 8000 points a night, it’s a great value for families to use as a home base to explore the city. The hotel has a free shuttle to/from the airport and the Aria hotel on the strip. My family stayed at the other “old” Hyatt Place in Las Vegas near the airport for one night after returning from a trip to Hawaii. This may sound odd, but one of these years I’d like to return to Las Vegas with my kids to see the sites. It’s not all about drinking and gambling!
Southwest Expanding Service to Hawaii and Mexico: This post from The Points Guy reveals information about Southwest Airline’s expansion into more Hawaii airports from the West Coast as well as into Cozumel, Mexico from Houston. The more competition, the better!
$125 for Equifax Breach: The website for the Equifax data breach settlement is now live. See this post from Points With a Crew. Are you eligible for $125? I think it will be a while before anyone sees that settlement money.
Priority Pass Lounges Your Kids Will Love: Check out this post by The Points Guy. My kids loved the Gameway lounge (see my review). We went there twice. Later this year, I plan to use Priority Pass at MCO for an extended afternoon after a cruise. The comments in the post made me giggle.
Have a great weekend!
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Author: Nancy
Nancy lives near Dallas, Texas, with her husband and three kids. Her favorite vacations include the beach, cruising and everything Disney.
I have an Amex platinum and a gold and will definitely cancel at least one as a result of this. Definitely don’t spend $300 a year on food/baggage/WiFi. The math no longer works out for us to carry both of these cards.
@Robert I understand! You won’t be the only one canceling at least one of these cards.
We will downgrade/cancel the Amex Aspire. The airline gift cards made this card a great deal, but we don’t stay at Hilton enough to need it anymore.
I may do that also, but will use the free night and $250 credit first, then downgrade after 8 months to a no fee card to get prorated fee back. That way, I hope to stay on their good side! I haven’t done the card for hubby yet, so will wait on that until I see a good reason to be diamond again. Really wish I’d done his the same time I did mine because of all the gift cards I was able to take advantage of. Things are changing rapidly!!
@Lynn That’s smart to try to stay on Amex’s good side. Things are always changing in this hobby.
@Kacie I have the feeling a lot of others will do the same.