Best American Airlines Credit Card (for Earning AA Miles)
Oct 8, 2017, 10:14 am
#31
Original Poster
Join Date: Sep 2017
Location: San Diego, CA
Programs: Delta SkyMiles & Marriott Bonvoy
Posts: 32
https://home.barclaycardus.com/cards...astercard.html
I don't know why that is -- I found too that through aa.com it only points to the citicards (but in-flight, it seems that the aviator cards are often the ones they pass out applications for). I think the link above from Barclays gets you to the application (through apply now).
I don't know why that is -- I found too that through aa.com it only points to the citicards (but in-flight, it seems that the aviator cards are often the ones they pass out applications for). I think the link above from Barclays gets you to the application (through apply now).
Maybe I'm missing something here. Looking at aa.com, the various Citi cards show an APPLY NOW button to take you to an application page. None of the Aviator cards have such a link. In fact, I can access info about them under a heading that reads: Already a cardholder? Learn more about your card’s benefits. It's almost as if you can't apply for the Aviator cards?
to goto barclaycard’s website. From there search for the Aviator
Card. You can only apply for the Aviator Red Card and upgrade
silver or downgrade to the lower types.
Oct 8, 2017, 5:00 pm
#33
Join Date: Sep 2002
Location: Thousand Oaks, Ca., USA
Programs: AA Lifetime Plat; Bonvoy Titanium Lifetime Elite;Hyatt Globalist; HHonors Diamond; United Silver
Posts: 8,315
With recent Aadvantage devaluations, you are better off going with a Private label bank card (Citi Premier / Prestige, one of the Chase Sapphire offerings), use their points as cash to buy tickets on their system, typically at a ~25% discount.
Citi Executive card makes sense for Admiral's Club access, but not for earning worthless miles.
Citi Executive card makes sense for Admiral's Club access, but not for earning worthless miles.
Oct 8, 2017, 6:46 pm
#34
Join Date: Jun 2014
Location: TPA
Programs: BA Silver; Hilton Gold; IHG Diamond Ambassador; Marriott Gold
Posts: 2,811
I think the best option for a coach flyer is to get a double cash back card from Citi (2% rebate) and buy the tickets for cash. With the Citi TYPs being worth 1.25 cents, even if the tickets were 25% less than aa.com (which is news to me), that doesn't make it worth as much as a flat 2 oercent rebate.
Non-travel spend is a different matter, of course.
By the way, Citi just recently bumped their AA Plat offer to 60k.
Oct 9, 2017, 4:39 am
#35
Join Date: Mar 2015
Location: RBK
Programs: AA EXP
Posts: 128
Maybe I'm missing something here. Looking at aa.com, the various Citi cards show an APPLY NOW button to take you to an application page. None of the Aviator cards have such a link. In fact, I can access info about them under a heading that reads: Already a cardholder? Learn more about your card’s benefits. It's almost as if you can't apply for the Aviator cards?
Oct 9, 2017, 8:45 am
#36
Join Date: Jun 2015
Location: DAY
Programs: Rapid Rewards, Skymiles, Hilton HHonors, SPG/Marriott Rewards
Posts: 4,948
It's extremely likely that whether it disappears or not as a card, the ability to earn the equivalent of 1 AA mile through it will disappear. That's a function of the Starwood program, not of the card itself. And that feature of the Starwood program is not likely to survive the merger, because Marriott doesn't have anything remotely like that, and it's not likely that the merged program would become just like Starwood and nothing at all like Marriott, given that Marriott's by far the bigger program (and bigger company).
Oct 9, 2017, 8:46 am
#37
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: home = LAX
Posts: 25,933
They also can (and do) put ads in the AA in-flight magazines.
Per the agreement, they're also allowed to promote in-airport (n AA areas), but I'm not sure how often that happens (I presume it' might be just "pop-up" tables here and there, rather than any constant airport promotion).
Oct 9, 2017, 10:56 am
#38
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: San Diego, Ca
Programs: AA 2MM LT PLT; AS MVP Gold75k; HHonors Diamond; IHG PLT
Posts: 3,502
I think you are forgetting that cards such as Citi TYP and Chase UR earn 3x points on travel spend, so you really need to compare 3 * 1.25 for TYP and 3 * 1.5 for UR against the 2% cash rebate or the miles earned on AA cards.
Non-travel spend is a different matter, of course.
By the way, Citi just recently bumped their AA Plat offer to 60k.
Non-travel spend is a different matter, of course.
By the way, Citi just recently bumped their AA Plat offer to 60k.
Oct 9, 2017, 11:44 am
#40
Join Date: Jun 2015
Location: New York
Programs: AA, CX, Hyatt, Marriott
Posts: 1,484
Citi Prestige enjoys the same delay/cancellation policy as well. Prior to July this year, it also had AC access. I think the Exe card started to become useful/not useless after this July.
Oct 9, 2017, 11:53 am
#42
Join Date: Jun 2015
Location: New York
Programs: AA, CX, Hyatt, Marriott
Posts: 1,484
Even with bonus and promotion, I still don't think it's a good deal to transfer MAR/SPG points to AA, which is generally way easier to obtain than SPG points.
Last edited by andersonCooper; Oct 9, 2017 at 11:58 am
Oct 9, 2017, 12:00 pm
#43
Join Date: Feb 2007
Programs: Marriott Platinum, Hilton Gold
Posts: 503
If you do international travel in coach, then the new preferred international boarding benefit of the Citi card may be valuable to you. See https://thepointsguy.com/2017/10/cit...international/ for details on this.
Oct 9, 2017, 12:10 pm
#44
Join Date: Jun 2015
Location: New York
Programs: AA, CX, Hyatt, Marriott
Posts: 1,484
If you do international travel in coach, then the new preferred international boarding benefit of the Citi card may be valuable to you. See https://thepointsguy.com/2017/10/cit...international/ for details on this.
At the same time I feel really bad for Gold/Ruby...
Oct 9, 2017, 12:41 pm
#45
Join Date: Jun 2015
Location: DAY
Programs: Rapid Rewards, Skymiles, Hilton HHonors, SPG/Marriott Rewards
Posts: 4,948
Sort of. You could transfer between MAR and SPG at a 3:1 ratio, and then SPG to AA at 1:1. There is a 5k AA miles bonus for each 20k SPG points (so 20k SPG to 25k AA miles). Also current promotional bonus is 30% (until Oct 15).
Even with bonus and promotion, I still don't think it's a good deal to transfer MAR/SPG points to AA, which is generally way easier to obtain than SPG points.
Even with bonus and promotion, I still don't think it's a good deal to transfer MAR/SPG points to AA, which is generally way easier to obtain than SPG points.
That said, you are better off transferring to SPG and then AA as said above. I also wouldn't transfer MR/SPG points to AA in most cases, but YMMV.