robertablake

It would be interesting to hear other flyers' opinions, but I think it would be hard to justify the annual cost of the card if you don't value the AC membership.

LovePrunes

Additionally if you just did a PC to this product from an existing card, does that mean you didn't get any kind of sign-on bonus?

robertablake

I believe that is correct, at least that is the way it ways several years ago. That's what I did years ago, and didn't receive the sign-up bonus. I realized the error of my ways back then.

notquiteaff

With the current 100k RDM Signup Bonus, I kind of wonder why you chose to PC instead of opening a new account. I have the MileUp card, and Citi had no problems approving me for an additional Exec card a few months ago. Perhaps you didn’t want a new account for Chase 5/24 purposes? Still, 100k is a big bonus…

I have the Aspire and use it for Hilton bookings, but I don’t actively pursue status with any chain through stays, so when I don’t stay at a Hilton brand, I usually use AA Hotels and the Exec Mastercard for LPs and piles of RDM. Basically, AA Hotels has replaced my Hotels.com “free agent” loyalty program for hotel stays.

Yes, and in my first year of card membership I will, thanks to fortunate timing, actually get 40k LP. I got the card in late February when I already had > 100k LP, so I got 20k LP for the 2023 qualification period. And I already received the first 10k for this qualifying year and fully expect to pass 90k LP to get another 10k before the next annual fee.

Yes, I don’t book all my hotel stays with AA Hotels. Hilton I book direct and with Aspire Amex. My Hyatt stays I usually book with points. But 10x + whatever the AA Hotels portal pays is a good return on some of my non-chain stays.

I certainly assign some value to the lounge benefit. Many of my trips are on AS, flying through one of their hubs, so I actually expect to use AS lounges more often than AA lounges. And I am considering whether to cancel my Amex Plat next year now that I can get my wife for free into the AS lounges with this card, instead of paying for an AU Plat card.

EZTraveler

Yes, I have the EXEC and would not give it up. We usually bring 6 into AC's and reap the benefits of MCE seating so the benefits work and brings good value too. The financials in the AA program are really useful because the card helps boost in so many areas. 10X loyalty is really nice on AAhotels because we usually score cheap rooms with 15K base points. Combined with spend, three bookings usually put us beyond Platinum status (Plat Pro this year). But you also get 10X additional bonus miles on the price of these hotel stays as well. This brings the price of those booking to peanuts. Many people think the two 10K loyalty bonus is based on spend but it is based on your loyalty point balance at AA. So for Plat, you get a 10K loyalty boost along the way to earning that 75K.

snare5117

Has anyone had recent success adding this card to Google Pay (now Google Wallet) for tap to pay? There are posts about this going back years in here, and I've reached out to American to complain about it multiple times (since Citi keeps telling me it's an American policy). Well, I finally got a call from someone at American who seems legitimately interested in trying to track this down, but she says multiple of her colleagues have been able to add this exact card to Google Pay. I find that hard to believe since I still can't add mine (tried again today) and the Citi website still explicitly says that none of the Aadvantage cards are eligible for Google Pay.

Would be nice to verify that this is still not just a "me" problem - maybe a chorus of "me toos" would help finally get this sorted. I'm really appreciative that this woman is trying to hunt it down.

USFlyerUS

I've had my Citi AA Exec card in my Google Pay profile for at least a year. No problems using it.

snare5117

To be 100% clear: you use it to tap your phone to pay at NFC terminals?
I'm not just talking about having it in your Google Pay profile for payments online. I'm specifically talking about being able to use it to tap with your phone to pay.

TWA884

A few seconds ago.

snare5117

THANK YOU. Jeez, I was starting to feel like I was going insane. Even the Citi rep I first spoke to when I ran into this started with "You should absolutely be able to do it" and spent five minutes on technical stuff before realizing there's a policy limitation on Aadvantage cards. Although Citi still says it's an American policy and American is still claiming it's Citi's decision.

TWA884

Why would American permit tap to pay with Barclays AAdvantage Aviator MasterCard but not with the Citi AAdvantage MasterCards?

snare5117

No idea. Why would Citi allow the card to work with Apple Pay and Samsung Pay but not Google Wallet?
Nothing about it makes any sense.

notquiteaff

It’s annoying, but none of the Citi AA cards can apparently be added. I have tried with the MileUp and the Exec card. I think when I originally got the Exec card and I added it from the Citi site to my Amazon account (before the actual card arrived), there was some fine print somewhere indicating that AA cards can’t be added to the Google Wallet). The Aviator card from Barclays works fine, however.

Google Payments is different. I don’t think you have it in your wallet for mobile payments with your phone.

snare5117

Yep. The fine print is still there on Citi's sites (though confusingly, since they haven't updated it since Google switched from Pay to Wallet for tap to pay, it still says you can't add Aadvantage cards to Google Pay. But you can add the Aadvantage cards to Apple Pay or Samsung Pay; and as you pointed out, AA's Barclay cards work fine. Nobody can explain what this ridiculous limitation is about and it's really, really maddening.

notquiteaff

The “workaround”, if you want or need to put mobile spend on your Exec MC (say, for the signup bonus) is to buy eGift Visa giftcards via the AA shopping portal on giftcards.com and add those to your Android wallet. The extra benefit is that you also earn more miles and LP for everyday spend.