It seems like every business is trying to tag onto the Amazon Prime Day bandwagon. At first, it was other retailers that needed to match Amazon’s discounts by offering sales at the same time period. But now it’s the credit card issuers who are getting into the mix. Both American Express and Capital One are having special sales for cardholders this week.
When I received the email from AMEX letting me know about the Member Week promotion, I was interested. We have travel plans I need to finalize and it’s always nice to save some money.
AMEX was promoting discounts on flights booked through AmexTravel.com between October 9-13.
It’s Member Week, and we’re celebrating your love for jetsetting with savings on select airlines when booking select flights between Oct. 9-13, only through AmexTravel.com.
Destinations and travel dates vary by airline. Excludes Delta SkyMiles® American Express Card Members.*
It appears that American Express is partnering with many of their Membership Rewards airlines for this promotion. There are also some additional airlines, like Alaska and Air New Zealand, which are not AMEX transfer partners.
My first look was on upcoming travel with Delta. I logged into my Platinum account and started searching for discounted Member Week flights. There’s no filter for specially priced flights as the discount is supposed to show up when doing a search.
I dug into the terms and conditions of the offer and noticed a notable exclusion.
Card Members must hold a US issued American Express Card (other than the Delta SkyMiles American Express Card, which is not eligible for this offer). Card Members that hold both a US issued American Express Card and a Delta SkyMiles American Express Card are also not eligible for this offer.
I thought the offer meant that just having a Delta SkyMiles card was not enough to trigger the discount and that you needed a different US-issued AMEX card. This sounds like cardholders who are Delta SkyMiles AMEX co-brand cardholders are not eligible for Member Week discounts regardless if they have another AMEX card. But that’s not the case.
When searching for a flight with Alaska Airlines, I was able to apply the Member Week discount to both my and Sharon’s accounts and I have a Delta Gold AMEX Business card.
A few more searches and I found that I could even grab a discounted Member Week flight on Delta from JFK to Amsterdam.
So what routes can you get a discount on and for which airlines? And what discount can you expect to see?
Who knows? There’s no listing of the eligible routes, dates or discounts. You have to search for each flight to see if there is a Member Week discount available and how much you’ll save.
Lets review. AMEX is offering an unknown discount to members for a limited time for booking through its travel portal. The rules for who is eligible for the offer are confusing and the only way to find out if a flight is discounted is to complete a search for each flight.
This seems about right for AMEX. There are other offers for Member Week listed on the website including exclusive offers for business cardholders, limited-time AMEX offers, early access to tickets for special events like Coachella and others. For me, this does feel like Amazon’s Prime Day sale where most of the things offered at a discount are things I don’t want. But it doesn’t hurt to look.
Just don’t get too excited about the airfare discounts.
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