Which credit cards can be used to cover award ticket taxes, fees and surcharges?

If you live in the Calgary area you may have seen Global Calgary run a piece on their Sunday morning news about Fuel Surcharges on Aeroplan award tickets.

I mention in the piece that there are some travel rewards credit cards you can use to cover the taxes, fees and the fuel surcharges levied on frequent flyer award tickets. In Canada, the big three are Aeroplan, Air Miles and WestJet Rewards. All of these programs do not allow you to use miles, points or in the case of WestJet, dollars, towards the additional fees on these tickets. Those miles can only be used towards the base fare. So one question asked is how can you get those tickets totally free? The answer is to use a ‘travel anywhere’ card. Now some cards claim ‘travel anywhere’ like the RBC Avion or BMO World Elite cards but those cards work differently than what I consider a true ‘travel anywhere’ card. I consider cards that allow you to book travel with whomever you want and once that charge is on your statement you use that credit card’s points or miles to pay for the charge as ‘travel anywhere’ cards. In fact most of these ‘travel anywhere’ cards even give you anywhere from 90 days to 12 months after the charge is posted to redeem against it.

The only cards in Canada that offer this and therefore allow you to cover the taxes, fees, and fuel surcharges on award tickets are as follows:

American Express Gold Rewards Card (minimum redemption amount is 1,000 points for $10 credit)

The Platinum Card from American Express (minimum redemption amount is 1,000 points for $10 credit)

Diners Club Club Rewards MasterCard (minimum redemption amount is 10,000 points for $150 credit)

National Bank of Canada World Elite MasterCard (minimum redemption amount is 11,000 points for $100 credit)

National Bank of Canada Platinum MasterCard (minimum redemption amount is 11,000 points for $100 credit)

Scotiabank Gold American Express Card (minimum redemption amount is 5,000 points for $50 credit)

Scotiabank Platinum American Express Card (minimum redemption amount is 5,000 points for $50 credit)

Scotiabank American Express Card (minimum redemption amount is 5,000 points for $50 credit)

To recap, if you have enough Aeroplan Miles, Air Miles Reward Miles, WestJet Dollars or any other frequent flyer program miles for a redemption, go ahead and redeem them then use one of the above the cards to pay for the taxes, fees and surcharges. Once the charge for those amounts show up on your statement go online or call up your credit card issuer and redeem your credit card points or miles against that charge. This is the only way you will get that award ticket absolutely FREE. To see how all those credit cards compare please visit Rewards Canada’s Travel Rewards Credit Card comparison chart.

* Disclaimer: Rewards Canada receives a approval fee for several of the credit cards listed above. I thank you for your continued support if you do select and apply for one those cards.