Stacking Amex Card Perks
Coupons here, coupons there, coupons everywhere. That is exactly what it feels like these days when it comes to credit cards. I'm sorry, I should be properly calling them “card perks” and not coupons. Whatever you want to call them, I know that many, myself included, are becoming mighty fatigued keeping up with all of these things. That is why I was so stoked with my flight results by stacking Amex card perks. Not only did I knock over 90% off the cost of the flights, but I also burned multiple coupons card perks in the process.
The Flights
I needed to book some flights from Detroit to Los Angeles to take my daughter to Universal Hollywood. A year or so ago I did a similar trip with my son, and she has been asking to go ever since. The VIP experience there is really out of this world, but more on that in a future article maybe. Anyway, I was looking for some flights and Delta had the best times and availability for our needs. The problem was the flights were close to $500 a person. Yikes!
Looking at Skymiles bookings was no better, and the flights were not showing as bookable on partner airlines. That is when I started thinking about stacking Amex card perks to dwindle the cost of these flights down to under $100 out of pocket. Yes, you read that right – I took $1,000 in flights all the way to $66. Take that extreme couponers!
The Card Perks I Was Working With
I had a few different card perks in my tool kit to work with here. Mainly I planned on using the following:
- Delta companion certificate from my Delta Reserve card
- I had since downgraded from the Reserve to the Delta Blue card (with a bonus), then upgraded to a Delta Gold (with a bonus) and am now back to Reserve after an upgrade (with a bonus). Pure insanity, especially since that all happened in a 3 month period.
- One of the nice things about the Delta companion certificates is that they stay in your account even if you close the card after earning them. That is true even if you don't pay that next annual fee.
- Amex Business Platinum airline incidental credit
- This is essentially like $200 in Delta credit to me thanks to this guide.
- Amex Business Platinum 35% rebate
- Delta was my selected airline for the airline incidental credit, which is important here.
With these Amex card perks I was able to stack a massive discount. Let's go through how I looped them all together to get maximum value.
Step 1: Book A Flight I Didn't Need
First things first, I needed to find a flight for around $300. The flight also had to be regular main cabin or better so I could make changes. I needed it to be specifically around a $300 flight because I wanted to build a $500 flight credit to pair up with my Delta companion certificate. Knowing that I was working with a $200 Amex airline incidental credit on the backend, that left me with a $300 hole. I searched a few flights until I found one that was right around $300 on Delta. Once I found a suitable flight, I booked it with the Amex Business Platinum card in the Amex travel portal. I paid mostly with Membership Rewards to use the card's 35% rebate perk. If you need more information on the program then check out our complete guide on the rebate.
I should also mention that the card was a new one attached to a no lifetime language welcome offer. Since it was new, I wasn't able to use the rebate promo until after the first statement cut. That is why I always pay a small amount in cash, as you can see with the 49 cents above. That allows me to pick which card the initial charge goes on. This is a big deal if you have multiple Platinum cards, since Amex may default to another card – even a personal card without the rebate attached. I noticed that my new Business Platinum wasn't an option when I first tried to do this. I assumed I needed to wait until a statement cut for the card to be fully enrolled in the Membership Rewards program (or something like that), and an Amex chat rep confirmed that.
Final reminder is that where this flight went, or the date of the flight, did not matter in any way. All that mattered was that the flight cost right around $300 and it was in a class that I could make changes to the flight.
Step 2: Immediately Change Flight From Step 1 To Another Flight
Once I had that flight booked I immediately went back in my account to change the step 1 flight to a different flight. Once again, what I changed it to did not matter. The two things that mattered were
- It had to be $200 more than the first flight, but less than $250 more than the first flight
- That is the trigger point for the Amex airline incidental credit with Delta (full guide on incidental credits)
- The flight had to be far enough in the future to cancel it a few days later
This worked because the flight change would turn the first flight into a quasi flight credit, but I wouldn't need to wait 48 hours to cancel the flight to make this happen. Speed was important to me here, so I went this route versus the cancel and rebook option most take.
I had searched and found a flight that cost $210 more to LAX on dates I didn't want. Once again, the flight time, day and route did not matter here. I just searched hub to hub flights via a monthly calendar until I found what I needed. Finding one for $210 was close enough to my $200 target to pull the trigger. I put the charge for the $210 on my Business Platinum card and that triggered my $200 Amex airline incidental credit.
At this point I spent 45 cents in step 1 and $10 in step 2. For that cost of $10.45 I now had a $500 flight credit. That is what I needed in order to maximize my Delta companion certificate in step 3.
Step 3: Cancel Step 2 Flight After 48 Hours & Book Flight I Needed With Companion Pass
After booking the now $500 flight in step 2 I let it breath a little bit so I could cancel it without getting a refund to my original form of payment. After 48 hours I went back into Delta and cancelled the flight and received my Delta flight credit for around $500. From there I selected my Delta companion certificate to book the flights I actually needed. I had finally made it to my end game.
Once on the payment screen for the flight I needed, including the companion certificate, I selected to use Delta eCredits for part of the payment. This was a positive change that Delta made a few years ago, allowing credits to be used with companion certificates.
That left me with just $66.09 in remaining charges for the taxes and fees for my daughter's flight plus some left over for mine I think. If you pair that up with the cost from step 1 and step 2, you get a total out of pocket cost of around $77. Not too bad for around $1000 in flights! That doesn't account for the points used in step 1, or the annual fee of my Business Platinum card, but all of that would be covered by the welcome offer attached to this card.
Stacking Amex Card Perks: ToP Thoughts
While these endless credit card coupons card perks can be mighty annoying, they can also be mighty powerful. That is especially true if you can do some stacking like I did with these Amex card perks. It makes it a more efficient process, but also ensures you are maximizing more things than you might of otherwise. Share some of your best stacking Amex card perks stories over in the ToP Facebook Group with me.
