For those of you that have (or are considering) an American Express Platinum card, the $200 annual airline fee reimbursement does work for purchasing $30 500-mile upgrade certificates on aa.com. 7 upgrade “stickers” is $210, so with the $200 discount you’re getting 3,500 miles of upgrades for $10.
I’ve set American Airlines as my airline of choice for the program, and I purchased the upgrades one at a time as keeping the charges under $100 seems to have the fastest reimbursement; under $50 is even “safer” in my experience. Within 48 hours I had 6 $30 credits and 1 $20 credit for the full total of $200.
As an AAdvantage Executive Platinum I get a free drink and snack in coach, so I don’t have onboard sundry charges to look for reimbursement for so using the entire $200 amount for upgrades made sense as I use them to upgrade my wife when she’s traveling as my companion (which still requires the use of 500-mile stickers for her).
So, if you have the Amex Platinum, have American Airlines as your choice but don’t know what to do with the reimbursement program, buy upgrades!
Do you need to be on a Y or B fare to use the 500 mile upgrades? If so, the cost to go from traditional “saver” economy or even regular economy seats to Y is a few hundred dollars before you shell out the upgrade certificates
can’t you just purchase AA gift cards?
Depends. If you don’t have status, yes. If you have status, they work on any fare.
You can, and it’s the same either way. I like finding the more creative things than just purchasing gift cards.