Delta 764

Yes, I know Barclays has its Aviator Silver card, but it isn't issued to new customers, only to customers who upgrade from the Aviator Red.

However, do you think Citi could introduce a true competitor to the Delta SkyMiles Platinum Amex and the United Quest Visa, with a $199-$250 annual fee? The Aviator Silver's benefits don't even come close to matching the Delta Platinum or United Quest. Could Citi come up with a card that is more competitive, either with free annual companion certificates or flight credits (without minimum spending requirements)?

jtav559

Could they? Sure! Anything is possible.
Will they? Doubtful.
AA card market is pretty saturated.

AA cards:
$450 AF AA Exec
$95 AF AA Plat
$95 AF AA Biz
$0 AF AA green card

Barclays:
$195 AF Silver
$95 AF Red
$0 AF Blue/White

7 co-branded cards in their pocket. That is alot!!!!

How about they just improve the Exec card to have some better bonus categories?
I know a large portion of the AF goes to offset the AC membership cost, but this card is the KING of crappy un-bonused spending.
Would love to see 2x @ restaurants or grocery or gas stations (like the lower $95 AF AA platinum card? what a backwards deal that is). Especially since you need to spend big $$$ to get the annual LP bonus. Some bonus RDM sprinkled in along the way to that would be nice.

I think improving existing cards is a more likely route than issuing a whole new product, given the current saturation.

VFR

I've always found the mid-tier cards kind of weird... usually the consumer cards are positioned as:

$0 AF card that just earns miles (target market: people that will not pay for a credit card annual fee)
$100 AF card that also gets you a checked bag and earlier boarding (target market: incidental fliers)
$250 AF card that also gets you a faster path to elite status and an economy companion certificate (Delta) or a travel bank credit, milage rebate, and additional free bag (United) (target market: enfranchised / elite flyers)
$450-550 AF card that also gets you lounge access (target market: very enfranchised / elite flyers)

However, I've never found the incremental cost of the $250 per year card to make sense, due to how I value the companion certificate and credit/rebates. Given AA provides loyalty points for every card... what would people want out of a mid-tier card that the Aviator Silver is not providing? An easier to achieve companion certificate and/or mileage rebate?

PHL

I'm surprised they kept Barclay following the USAirways merger. Clearly it's making them a ton of money, and Citi probably wasn't too happy they kept it.

enviroian

Bring back all the travel benefits they stripped.

The sole value of this card is only reduced Admirals Club membership. That's it.

bchandler02

This. It's downright offensive that a card with a high annual fee provides no benefits such as travel insurance, car rental insurance, or purchase protection (all of which it used to have). The ONLY thing it does is provide an AC membership at a lower rate than you can buy it as a standalone membership. The UA and DL equivalents both provide these additional benefits. .

If Barclay would come out with a card that included AC membership, I'd switch in a heartbeat. Then again, I've been on the fence about just dumping the AA card in favor of a generic rewards card such as AMEX or Sapphire or something along those lines.

scubadu

You can say it's "offensive" but in fairness, both the UA and DL club cards charge higher annual fees ($525/$550 respectively) and neither of those cards provide no-fee authorized user cards that provide club access (and some care about that)

Regards

bchandler02

I suppose that's true, but at this point I would pay $100 more per year to get those benefits. A 2nd card is useless to me.
Right now the Citi AA Exec card is basically the same as their low tier card, but with AC access. That's it - the only benefit.

scubadu

Why? I mean there are just vastly, vastly better cards out there for travel protections, bonus earning categories, etc.

I mean, that is certainly fair, you've gotta watch out for you, but that benefit right there is valuable to a lot of cardholders and Citi/AA know it and they are trying to satisfy the largest population possible.

Well, honestly, that is all it's really supposed to be. As an Admiral's Club membership, its pretty darn good value, especially when considering the no fee authorized user card, and the fact that it gets you into Alaska Lounges (when flying AS).

Frankly, I can't for the life of me figure out why anyone would put any spend on this card, as stated, there are just way, way better cards for travel protections, bonus earnings on flights, etc.

From my perspective (and I think many others), the card does exactly what it needs to do. For addressing other problems, there are far better tools in the toolbox.

Regards

Ghoulish

Unlikely we'll see much movement on any new cards with the potential imminent passage of Dick Durbin's "Payoff Walmart, Target, Amazon and Chase Act", I mean the Credit Card Competition Act of 2022 that will decimate interchange revenue (what merchants are charged for accepting cards) and effectively end credit card benefits and rewards as we know them, just as the previous debit card version of this legislation decimated debit rewards cards.

We already know the savings from the same legislation applied to debit cards disappeared into merchants bottom lines, at the expense of consumers and smaller banks, and never yielded any savings at checkout as promised.

enviroian

Not for earning LP's there isn't as good as the Citi exec. I contemplated switching to amex platinum but dollar for dollar spent I wouldn't get nearly as many LP's with amex spend compared to what I would get with a Citi exec card. That's the only reason I keep it (and AC access).

LETTERBOY

IIRC, the agreement specifies that only Citi can issue cards with AA access.

Passage of this bill is most definitely not imminent, and honestly not even all that likely. There's only a month before the mid-term election, for one thing.

Ghoulish

It was just added to the Defense Authorization Act as an amendment, which is must pass legislation.

I hope you're right, but even if the house changes hands, it could easily be pushed through in mid Nov before new reps are seated.

LETTERBOY

That will then have to go the House, which will pass it's own version of the Defense bill. The Defense bill will then go to a conference committee, and I doubt it would survive that.

The House changing hands is a virtual certainty, but there's virtually no way it would pass in a lame duck session. There simply won't be enough time, and everyone will be thinking about what will happen in the next Congress.

aztimm

Barclays helped fund the HP-US merger and the merged US signed a contract to continue to use them for a set period of time (I can't remember what that was). The only way out of that would be to agree to a settlement with Barclays. Simply merging into another company doesn't absolve prior contracts.