Originally Posted by sdsearch

Be aware of a few things:

1. The Chase UA 70k offer is more likely to show for you after you log in to UA, especially if you have status there (either through flying, or through staying at Marriott or SPG hotels a lot). As UA Silver (through Marriott Plat), I see 50k before logging in, 70k after logging in.

You might want to see whether you can get a 70k offer or only a 50k offer before making this decision. If you can get 70k UA but only 50k (or at most 60k) AA then the weighing might chnage for you.

2. Chase counts 5/24 by looking at your credit report and counting cards that show up there with an "opened on" date in the past 24 months. But a new card (from Citi or anyone else) takes time to show up on your credit report. Until it does, Chase can't see that. But of course, that only helps if Chase processes your application quickly (in terms of pulling your credit report).

3. If you haven't had a Citi AA business card before (or at least not for 24+ months), you could apply for that at any time, for the same 50k. The business AA card 24-month clock is totally separate from the personal AA card 24-month clock.

4. There's also a personal AA card from Barclay for 40k now, and indications that a business AA card is coming from Barclay.

So it seems to me that even if this no-language AA link goes away before you can use it, you still may have way more opportunities to get AA miles from two banks than to get UA miles from your last Chase card before you cross 5/24. So perhaps you should get the UA card now, and then after that figure out which of the several AA cards you can get at that point?