其实很简单。

我这里是参和了两个不同的信用卡。

1. AMEX， AMEX biz plat 35% points rebate, after you receive your card and activated and spent the money and got your bonus points, you then can use the points to book for travel on AMEX travel portal.

  -  first you have to pick a preferred airline with AMEX, which you can do that under member benefits.

  -  AMEX airline benefit including annual $200 statement credits for incidental charges, and 35% points rebate, most of the time you want to pick United or Southwest because they are the easiest to get this $200 credit, but if you used up all your credits early then you can not change preferred airline for rest of the year.

  -  35% points rebate only works on points spent on the airline booking thru the AMEX portal, not booking directly with airline or other OTA.  so lets say I booked AA flight, so my preferred airline need to be AA, at check out you want to use what ever points to the max, after a week or so you wil see 35% of the points deposited back to your MR account.

  -  after you got your rebate points back, you can chat to change your airline back to whatever you like, personally I use the credits to fund United travel bank, believe me it is the best option.

2. Citi AA,  usually AA miles are hardest to earn, so if you want earn AA status, you want to charge whatever you can thru the AA credit card.

  - as AA changed their reward system a year and half ago, you can earn AA executive platnum (oneworld emerald status) just strickly on credit card spending.

  -  when you hit 175k spending on AA loyalty points, you earn 2 SWU, at 250k you earn 2 more.

  -  most of the time, SWUs are hard to apply as airlines tend to offer cash upgrades first, but sometimes you do get lucky and able to find A/C upgradeable seats open up(meaning you can use your certificates) and that is when you want to call in ASAP and monetize the SWU, you can also call in to have the SWU waitlisted but chances of clearing the upgrades are less than 30%.

  -  expertflyer.com has a very unique tool that can search for A/C upgradebale seats but you still have to search each leg manually,  used to I apply the SWU mostly on flights to european flights, but last week for some reason I saw wide opens on flights DFW-PVG, so I decided to go Shanghai in fall of 2025.