Update: This post references an American Express Business Platinum benefit that has changed. As of June 1, 2017, the pay-with-points rebate has changed to 35% for your chosen airline or any airline in business or first class. Additionally, there is a cap of 500,000 rebated points annually.
Last year, Amex introduced an awesome new benefit for Amex Business Platinum cardholders: Get a 50% rebate when you pay with points for airfare with your selected airline, and when you pay with points for business or first class with any airline. The 50% rebate means that points are worth 2 cents each when used this way (the old 30% points rebate led to ~1.43 cents per point value). All you have to do to take advantage of this benefit is to book through Amex Travel.
Sometimes, though, booking through Amex Travel isn’t an option. For example, I recently used my Delta Reserve card’s annual companion certificate to book two first class tickets for the price of one. The price for the first ticket was $609.40. The second passenger was charged just $28.40 in fees. To use the companion certificate, I had to book through Delta. I paid with my Business Platinum card.
I didn’t know if it would work, but I waited until the charge was no longer pending then called Amex to ask if I could retroactively pay with points and get the 50% point rebate. I was told “probably not”, but was transferred to the Membership Rewards department. The very nice woman who took the call told me that you generally must book through Amex Travel, but that they offer a one time exception.
She looked at my account and saw not only the $609.40 charge, but also a $260.26 Delta charge (which happens to be an award booking fee). She offered to offset both of those charges with points at 1 cent per point, and she promised that I would receive the 50% point rebate. Sure enough, I did:
The point rebate showed up immediately, but (despite the date listed below), the statement credits took two days to appear. Not surprisingly, the $28.40 in fees for the companion were reimbursed by the Platinum card’s $200 per year airline fee reimbursement:
I love that Amex is so accommodating with things like this! Not counting the airline fee reimbursement, I just paid a net total of 43,483 points for $869.66 worth of travel. That’s a great deal.
Economy flights on a non-preferred airline
I bet that it is common for people to use points to book economy flights through Amex travel with the expectation that they’ll get the 50% rebate even when they book a non-preferred airline. After all, it’s easy to forget the somewhat complicated details of this point rebate benefit: you can get the rebate with any airline as long as you book business or first class, but only for your preferred airline when you book economy.
So, my guess is that this one time exception was created for the scenario where a person books economy with an airline other than their selected preferred airline.
Reader experiences
I’m interested in hearing from readers about this. Have you tried to get an exception for the 50% rebate rule? If so, how did it go? Please comment below. (hey, that rhymes!)
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[…] these tickets. If you want to take a swing at the Business Platinum “1 time exception”, see this post — though I have not read any recent reports about whether or not this is currently […]
[…] later and they would apply my points and give me the 35% rebate. This sounded an awful lot like The Amex Business Platinum awesome 1 time exception that Greg wrote about last year. Interestingly, the first agent with whom I spoke seemed to be […]
Just tried to do this and was denied, they said I could redeem at 1cent/MR but that I wouldnt get the 35% back and also coded it differently than the above – using “Consumer Travel Adj” and not “Point for Amex Trvl” Any recent luck?
Did you make sure you were speaking with the Membership Rewards people and not just the regular Platinum call people?
Yes, tried on 3 occasions. Got MR specialists twice and an Amex travel person once. No dice either way, but if anyone has other luck would love to be able to use the benefit.
Points had not posted for exception received on 8/29. Called today and asked about it. She posted the 50% points manually, but said it was one time exception for the life of the card. Hopefully, others have had different results.
[…] account), meaning that you are not going to be able to use the pay-with-points rebate (unless you get a 1-time exception, but I would doubt that at this point). If you’re looking at flights towards the end of the […]
Well I guess this one-time benefit is now over too. I just called to have them retroactively apply MR points to a reservation that I made through Delta with the expectation of receiving the one-time exception of having the 35% points rebate. My situation was identical to Greg’s (companion ticket, put the charge on my AMEX Biz Platinum). They rep confirmed twice with membership rewards that he could apply my MR points to cover the cost, but I would NOT receive the 35% rebated points back.
Did they ever transfer the call over to a Membership Rewards specialist? I’m asking because I got similar answers when talking with customer service, but completely different answers when directly talking to a MR person
Tried tonight…..got automated system and asked to speak to someone in rewards…when rep came on I verified he was in Membership Rewards and he stated yes so I asked if I could apply. He said no I can’t since it didn’t buy on Amex Travel. I said I was hoping to get the 50% rebate and he seemed clueless as to what that was. I don’t go down that easy and since I wasn’t confident that guy was truly in MR Dept I made another call and just asked to speak to someone regarding billing. When that rep picked up I asked to be transferred to MR and was. Asked the agent to apply points and if I would get the 50% rebate and he said no problem and took about 3min. Didn’t get the 50% rebate instantly, but he said I would in 6-8 weeks. I’ll report back
Glad to hear that it’s still working! Thanks!
Same situation. Called on 8/29 and was able to pay with points. Just called today about the 50% rebate and she said it would be 10-12 weeks! I will report back if they post. For me, the first class companion fare for 2 was cheaper than the regular price for one, so I am already ahead. I have never seen the companion fares cheaper.
Any update on this? Did you get the points back?
This “new” benefit probably doesn’t cost Amex anything unless they are up-charging their tickets on their website, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. I mean they will get the service charge and fee from the vendor regardless, and the incentive I guess for Amex to have offered the 50% rebate in the first place would be to start reducing their “debt” obligations in the form of MRs to their consumers, which would still happen this way. Winning all around! Just my speculation.
When you book through Amex Travel, Amex earns a sales commission, so I believe they count on that commission to help pay for a bit of the 50% rebate (a very small bit, but still…). When you book directly, they can’t earn a commission for your travel.
[…] long ago, I wrote about how Amex offers cardholders a 1 time exception to the rule that you must pay with points through Amex Travel to get this benefit. In order to […]
UPDATE: The “one time exception” worked again!
I did the same thing:
1. I booked a Delta companion ticket through Delta.com
2. I waited for the charge to appear on my account (no longer pending)
3. I called and asked to speak to Membership Rewards
4. Without hesitation they applied the points and the 50% rebate!
Hi Greg-
What exactly to do you tell Membership Rewards exactly to receive the 50% rebate?
Thank you!
Something like “I bought a flight that I couldn’t purchase through Amex Travel. Is it possible to pay with points after the fact and still get the 50% rebate?”
I was even able to call after I booked a ticket on united to apply points to pay for the ticket even my selected airline is delta and the I got the 50% rebate
Great tip. It makes sense: when you buy a flight through another channel, Amex probably can’t tell whether it was economy or business/first class.
This potentially makes amex points worth 2% when redeming on all airfare purchases
Just spoke to AMEX travel agent and she says that I could pay for a flight with my Business Plat card and retrospectively call and ask AMEX to apply points as payment, provided I did so before the billing cycle closed. She didn’t even mention it would only be a 1-time exception.
That would be awesome if it works multiple times. Let us know what happens if you try it a second time!
Last week I booked several flights directly with Delta (during the Europe fare war). I waited for the AMEX charges to clear “pending” and called in today to “apply points” retrospectively.
Called the number on the back of the AMEX Plat business card. Asked to speak to MR representative. I said I wanted to apply points to the Delta charges, and she processed my request and credited the 50% points. There was no mention of it being a one-time exception.
The other very interesting thing is that because the “pay with points” process was done manually (ie by the MR representative whilst on the phone with me), the 50% points were credited back to my account with immediate effect. And I mean immediate, as I was logged on to my AMEX account and the MR points were deducted and then 50% of those points credited back to the amount in under 1 minute. So no need to wait 4-6weeks for the 50% to be paid back into the account! That comes in very handy when you need more points to book another flight.
Awesome
hey greg, i hope you get a post talking in more detail about the Delta Reserve’s annual companion certificate to book two first class tickets for the price of one. while it was been covered, it has not been analyzed in detail as its considered a “bad deal” like the Plat companion pass. obviously there are sweet spots. would like to see a deep analysis with your skills since its a revenue fare vs pts (although you just showed us an amazing “exception loophole” which allowed you to stack DR comp pass and pay via MR pts + 50% rebate – WOW). i just hope this loophole is not exploited then closed later. then i will blame you greg. haha.
Forgot to mention 2 things:
1) How did you use the companion certificate but paid with the Business Platinum card? thought thats not allowed? i guess the cert is on the delta account and the delta CC doesnt have to be used? similar to Alaska?
2) saw your delta reserve CC analysis post but its from 2014. not sure how much has changed but maybe you can add more detail on the comp pass section
thank you greg!
That’s a good idea. I’ll put it in my to-do list for postings.
Your post was a day too late for me. I went on the amex travel website to book my trip & realized the airline wasn’t my preferred airline and I was getting coach seats. Booked it with a different credit card on the airline’s website. How clever of you to try for an exception. I look forward to meeting you at the Seattle FTU soon!
Rats, I should have published sooner!
[…] The Amex Business Platinum awesome 1 time exception by Frequent Miler. It’s always worth asking. It’s interesting that they did it for more than one flight as well, I wonder if there is a hard cash/points limit they’d go up to as well? […]
[…] Frequent Miler got a ‘one-time exception’ to retroactively ‘pay with points’ for a ticket he had purchased from Delta directly and not through Amex Travel using his Business Platinum® Card from American Express OPEN. That way he got an effective value of 2 cents a point paying for a ticket where he had already used a companion certificate from his Delta co-brand card. Generous! […]
Do you still have a personal platinum card? I’m about to call to cancel mine since the annual fee just posted and I’m good with just a Biz Plat, but I wonder if you could pay with your personal platinum card to get 5X points and use the Biz Plat to get the 50% rebate.
I don’t think that would work — I think that you have to have the charge on your business platinum card.
I luckily was targeted for 5X airfare points on my biz platinum card, so have no reason not to use it.
https://frequentmiler.com/2017/01/15/amex-business-platinum-5x/
Turns out I was wrong about this. You CAN pay with your personal Platinum and still get the 50% rebate.
https://frequentmiler.com/2017/03/11/25725/