peregrin

Please forgive my ignorance- I have a very basic question. I would like to begin building status with American Airlines and as part of beginning to travel exclusively on AA would like to get a Citi AA credit card to accrue miles and am considering the Citi Executive card. If I join and spend $40,000 between now and, say, November, and the 10,000 EQM are awarded- this only helps me if I am 10,000 miles short of qualifying for gold status in 2013, correct? According to the T&Cs it appears status is based on a year's accrual, so if this 10,000 bonus is credited for 2013 and won't help me in 2014. I ask because my 2 future flights this year are both on United and I only plan to fly one short flight to Central America on AA which won't build any miles for 2013. I want the 10,000 EQM awarded for $40,000 to count toward 2014 when I plan on flying AA at least 15,000 miles to gain gold status. We flew to South American on AA in December and participated in a special offer: Double Miles, Double Thanks promotion. This was supposed to award double elite status qualifying miles/points. The points showed up on our February 2013 mileage statement and then disappeared. Usless. Thanks for any help.

ckpeter

Essentially you have it.

Your flight from last December would not have counted for either this year or next year. You can get the card this year, if the sign up bonus works for you, but if you want the credit card elite qualifying miles to count for in 2014 (for elite status until early 2016), you will have to do your spending for the full $40K in 2014 calendar year.

metallo

I've had the World Elite card since late 2011 as well. Initially, I used to present the card itself when entering the AC and fortunately never had a problem gaining admission with it (although I remember reading many accounts of people having trouble getting into the AC in the early days of the card's existence).

A few months after I began using it, there were some occasions when the AC AAngel mentioned that she couldn't read my FF# off the card, which had begun to rub off from use. It occurred to me that, since they were just looking for my FF#, my AC membership was actually noted in the system, and they really didn't need the credit card itself, just my AAdvantage account info.

After that, I stopped presenting my CC and started giving them my AA elite card instead. My FF# is clearly visible on that, and it turns out that they don't actually need to try read the number that way... they can just swipe my EXP card. I've never had a problem with this method.

The only caveat for new cardholders is that I don't know how significant the delay is between applying for and receiving the World Elite card and the subsequent updating of AC club membership status on one's AAdvantage account.

supergrandslam

I believe only BP is enough to recognize our AC membership as far as AA# on BP.
I was allowed to enter ACs only with BP many times.
But interestingly, whenever I showed the exec cc card, almost all angels did swipe the card.
I guess doing that is easier for them for the processing.

peregrin

Thanks so much, ckpeter.

ckpeter

Sure.

Please note that I made a small mistake in my original post - If you qualify during 2014 calendar year, your elite status should be good all the way to early 2016.

supergrandslam

You need to spend $40k during below period so that the bonus 10K EQM is counted towards EQM earned in 2014.

The period is "after Dec 2013 statement date" and "before Dec 2014 statement date"

peregrin

Thank you again, ckpeter. Many thanks, also, to supergrandslam.

This information is very helpful.

grompf

The entire 10000 EQM has been a pain for me. Citi wont give me any straight answers and direct me to AA. AA directs me to ask Citi.

I crossed the spend last month, how long will my miles take to post? No one knows!

supergrandslam

There are some data points, mine included, in this thread but they are not consistent.
Mine was posted at the same time the usual RDM posted, i.e. 2 days after CC statement.
Some(but very few) even got 10K EQM before the statement close.
Majority of people got 2-8 weeks after the statement as far as I checked the data points sometime ago.

As the bonus 10K EQM doesn't show in the mileage activity as a separate line item, we need to check year-to-date EQM manually.
We receive the congrats email but it is usually sent after the 10K EQM posted.

abk

My card is up for renewal and I am having a hard time digesting the $450 fee ( I also have amex platinum). Anybody have any experience getting a fee reduction at renewal?

nkedel

My renewal is in Oct.

Given the move to qualifying spend on the other two majors, I am holding onto my card for one more year rather than going to a paid AC membership, in case the same tradeoff of spend on the card for EQD happens on AA.

saint

Nope. I don't think they are waiving the fee for anyone. I have been a CitiGold customer for a while and they said they aren't waiving/reducing the annual fee on the card.

I'm also AMEX Platinum so I don't need it to enter the Admiral's Clubs but I never cancelled it. I still spend enough abroad in places that don't take AMEX that it's still worth the annual fee. I save more than that in Forex fees. The rebate for redeemed miles is nice as well as the 7,500 reduced mileage awards.

I know there are cheaper options out there to avoid the forex fees but I spend a lot abroad and I'd rather earn AA miles vs. other types of loyalty points.

abk

I started using the southwest chase visa to get a companion pass by charging and for $85 or so it also has no foreign transaction fees.

wutlol

Does it have Chip and Pin? Last I saw it didn't, which makes it a non-starter for very frequent visits outside the US. There are quite a few stores in Europe that will either refuse to take a standard swipe card or make a huge deal out of it. Having an EMV card makes the process much smoother.