Why not pay for your siblings / friends Global Entry fee? And get paid for earning points? Yep, I did that too!

In a little over a month it will be time for me to re-up my GOES or Global Entry for another 5 years. The $100 fee also includes TSA PRE Check as well for domestic travel. My current GOES does not expire for a year but, as you should know, you can pay for the fee once you have less than a year to go before expiration. Why so fast and not wait? I have a card that pays the fee back that I will cancel before the next annual fee hits and I want to get the credit before I close that card.

That brings me to another good point, that is, why not share the wealth if you will and help pay for other’s GOES fee if you happen to have a bunch of cards that offer this credit. Like what cards?

• (non-Delta) The Platinum Card® from American Express (learn more)

• (non-Delta) The Business Platinum Card® from American Express OPEN (learn more)

• Citi BANK Prestige Card (learn about travel cards)

• City National Bank Crystal Infinity card

• Citi BANK AAdvantage Executive World Elite™ MasterCard (learn about travel cards)

…and a few I may be missing

The point is, you may be holding any number of cards that offer the perk ONCE every 5 years of card membership. Well did you know that during the application process, when it comes to paying the fee, you can pay for your siblings / friends Global Entry fee with your card? I did just that for a golf buddy and as you can see from the screen shot a few days later I got the credit for the fee. Now if you only have ONE card that offers this, perhaps you should be paying for your own fee instead! 😉

Also keep in mind some cards do offer the GOES fee credit for adding an authorized user to the account. Some may come with a fee for this while others may not or have one fee for adding a number of cards. Bottom line, this perk could offset the fee and the user could enjoy other perks from holding the card (at least for a year or so)!

Another one is tiny but again it makes the point of this post I want to bring up over and over here on the blog, that is, with AMEX SYNC offers you can little by little pay yourself back for so many AMEX card fees.

There is currently an offer for $5.00 back if you spend at least $100 on an AMEX gift card. OK nice and TopCashBack also pays you 1.5% on AMEX gift cards as long as they are under $200. That works. If you have never used TopCashBack you can get a $10 bonus for joining and making a purchase. Now I have my remaining no extra fee AMEX gift card shipping from last year but you can sign up for the shipping and cancel inside 90 days and get it back (set a reminder in your phone to alert if you don’t plan to keep it).

Now is this really worth it? Well I have a number of AMEX cards and was able to SYNC via Twitter all of them. So for EACH card I got

• 104 points (net free)
• earned $1.05 from AMEX
• earned $1.50 from TopCashBack

All it took was a few clicks to complete and I even knocked out another $104 of my Delta AMEX Reserve card (learn more) spending for the year to get my bonus MQMs once I hit $60,000 in spending. Every little bit helps and especially so when I am paid to do it. Then for these little cards I will just spend them rather than bother liquidating them some way.

Sure the bulk of my points come from every 91+ days looking at what cards I can go for and add large chunks of points quickly but all these little bonus deals and offers do add up over time. When I talk to folks who only have a few travel cards and say it is too much work to do the things I do, I just smile and know they will be over paying for their next vacation or trip and I will be reaping the rewards of my efforts (in 1st class)! – René

Editorial Note: This content is not provided by American Express. Any opinions, analyses, reviews or recommendations expressed in this article are those of the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by American Express.