I just accidentally found a little loophole with obtaining and using the free Delta companion ticket offered on Delta’s Platinum American Express Credit Cards.
In July 2016 I applied and was approved for the Delta Personal Platinum Card. At the time it had and offer for 60k bonus miles with 10k MQMs and a $100 Delta credit after meeting the $3k min spend with a $195 annual fee. (The current offer is only about 35k miles, they increase every few months though). One of the perks is a free companion certificate each year upon renewal of the card.
Who likes annual fees? I sure don’t! Even though a companion certificate for $195 isn’t bad, there are some restrictions on it so I was not planning on obtaining it.
When my annual fee hit I had planned on calling and cancelling my credit card. I had automatic payments setup though for like the 15th of the month even though my payment wasn’t due till like the 25. I had already paid the annual fee from the automatic payment and then called a few days later to cancel the card and get the annual fee refunded. I got my refund and everything was good. Off to the next credit card as usual for spending.
Well then a few weeks later I noticed I have a companion certificate in the Delta Wallet. I guess my paying the annual fee triggered the certificate, yet I still got the fee refunded. I have been wanting to use it but there are some restrictions, specifically it can only be used on L,U,T,X, and V fares and you cant use it with any other discounts or vouchers. (So I cant use it with my large Voucher I received from here.) It was expiring at the end of August so I finally decided to use it. Found some okay flights on those fare codes ((not my ideal ones but they work) to LA when my favorite baseball team will be in town (STL Cardinals) and decided to book for myself and a friend.
Now I still get luckier. I get to the payment field and I am trying to pay with my Citi Prestige card as they have the best trip protection benefit. That payment wouldn’t go through. It shows only AMEX cards are accepted. Well I have a few so I tried my AMEX Platinum card that gives me 5x points on airfare. Well that card won’t work either and that’s when I realize it has to be a Delta Platinum card that’s used for payment when using the companion certificate. Well I look at my credit card spreadsheet and my safe that has all my credit cards and realize in March of 2018 I obtained a Delta AMEX Business Platinum Card when they had an offer for 70k miles, 10k MQMs, $100 credit for $195 annual fee. (and I do have a small business since 2010) I hadn’t used that card for a while but it was still active so I was able to use that and it worked!
Now I anticipated that the only fees I would have to pay would be the $5.60 security fees. However i had about another $40 in taxes I had to pay for. Not too bad though!
TrupTravels 