Let's look at this analogy:

You get a free bag with an AA Visa card.

You get a free bag with an AA Amex card.

You do not get 2 free bags if you have both cards.

You get up to 10k back in 10% rebates on award redemptions with an AA Visa card.

You get up to 10k back in 10% rebates on award redemptions with an AA Amex card.

You do not get up to 20k back in those 10% rebates if you have both cards.

Even more on point: Since Citi allows you to have 2 normal AA cards, it's quite possible that Citi allows you to have 2 Executive cards (for those who like to spend $900 on annual fees!), but I assure you, you don't get 20k EQM in that case.

IOTW, there are lots of precedents at AA (as well as elsewhere) for 2 things to say they give you this, but for it not to be additive. There are extremely few precedents I can think of where things to the slightest degree analogous to this are additive.


... And in any case, there's no guarantee that in 2015 or 2016 (by the time the US card is an AA card) that EQM alone will get you to any status. AA's 2 main competitors, DL and UA, have already added EQD (elite qualifying dollars) requirements for elite status, meaning at those airlines you can no longer get to status simply by doing cheap mileage run flights or by doing a few cheap flights on top of getting EQMs from a credit card. Are you sure AA won't follow? Would it matter to you if they did?

For comparison, the requirement "over there" is something like 25000 EQMs + $2500 spend on that airline's tickets. So even if you get 20000 EQMs from a credit card, you still have to spend $2500 even though you only have to fly 5K more. (And no one has figured out how to do "Manufactured EQD Spending", last I heard. The EQD requirement is for spending on flights actually flown, so buying refundable and later cancelling without flying doesn't work.)