I wonder if the Citi card will go up in price when you look at the spread between a family membership or even a single membership versus the $450 card cost.
Keep in mind that AA makes money on AA Exec card users, beyond the annual card fee through Citi.
AA sells miles to Citi (albeit at a bulk rate), but they likely know the average card holder spends X and that will generate Y revenue by selling miles to Citi to award for purchases by cardholders.
If AA sells miles at $0.005 per mile (just a guess as to what Citi gets them for), and the cardholder spends $40k in a year (thereby maxing our card benefits by virtue of spending), AA stands to make an add'l $200 on that card user, in addition to the $450 annual fee - which I estimate AA gets $400 of after Citi takes their management cut. So, $600 in revenue from an AA exec cardholder, is more or less the same as the basic single Admirals club membership. Plus the related revenues from actual airfare purchases likely made by the same cardholder if they are an AA elite, which I would guess a fair majority of the AA exec cardholders are at one level or another.
They have guys and gals that analyze and crunch the financial data on this stuff all day long - they know what they will make on a single cardholder (+/- 1 std deviation, of course
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