Originally Posted by
USFlyerUS
I think what may be happening is AA credits the standard LPs from charges on the day those LPs are posted to your AA account, which is usually 1-2 days after the statement period ends. However, Citi must have a tracker it uses to notify AA when the annual spend reaches the threshold.
This is fairly standard, I think, and would have been my first guess about how it worked absent any data points.
The key takeaway here (and it applies to all AA cobranded CCs) is that if you are relying on CC spend to get to a certain status level at the end of the qualification period, your statement needs to close in Feb. Spend at the latter part of Feb, after your statement closes, will count towards the following year.