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This is a very compelling offer on one of Citi’s most benefit rich cards. The Citi® / AAdvantage® Executive World Elite Mastercard® is offering 100k bonus points after $10k spend in 3 months AND it’ll give you Admirals Club access, worth $650/year, every time you fly. The access to Admirals Club doesn’t stop with the primary account holder either. Whenver you fly you can bring in 2 guests, or your immediate family. You can also add up to 3 authorized users for $175 who will also get access, which is a great way to guarantee your family has a comfy place to work, snack, and wait for their flight when they’re traveling without you. Let’s take a further look
- AA lounge access
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Citi® / AAdvantage® Executive World Elite Mastercard®
If you’d like Admirals Club® access this is a way to get it cheaper than you’d pay if you bought it directly from AA.
Welcome Offer
100k AA miles after $10k spend in 3 months
Annual Fee
$595
Points Earned
American Airlines AAdvantage® Miles
The primary reason you’d add this card to your wallet is to gain access to the Admirals Club when flying AA, JetBlue or a One World Partner, at a discount.
How’s that?
The card’s annual fee is $595, but a membership bought via AA is $650 a year. So you’re getting a nice discount. The Primary cardholder also has their membership attached to their loyalty number so you don’t even need to show your card to gain entrance. Pretty nice, really!
Both primary and authorized users can bring immediate family (partner/spouse and kids under 18 ) or two guests with you.
- 100k American Airlines AAdvantage® bonus miles after $10k spend in 3 months
- Admirals Club® membership
- for you and up to two guests
- immediate family members traveling with you
- Authorized Users
- $175 for 3 authorized users
- $175 per AU after that
- Credits
- Avis or Budget car rentals every calendar year
- Up to $120 back
- Grubhub purchases
- Up to $120 a year
- up to a $10 statement credit each monthly billing statement
- Lyft Credits
- Up to $120 in Lyft credits
- $10 Lyft credit each month
- Caveat: must take 3 rides per month to get credit
- Up to $120 in Lyft credits
- Avis or Budget car rentals every calendar year
- Loyalty Points Bonuses
- 10k bonus after hitting 50k Loyalty points in same status qualification year
- 10k bonus after hitting 90k Loyalty Points in same status qualification year
- First domestic checked bag free
- up to 8 companions
- No fx fees
- Earn 1 Loyalty Point for every 1 eligible AAdvantage® mile earned from purchases
- Annual fee $595
We have seen between 80k and 100k with spend up to $10k in 3 months.
We keep an up to date spreadsheet that lists what the highest offers: You can find that spreadsheet here.
Main Cast:
Cards that earn flexible points and should be used on the bulk of your purchases.
Supporting Cast:
Cards that earn fixed points in the currency of the airline/hotel and can not be transferred at attractive rates. These cards yield benefits that make it worth keeping, but not necessarily worth putting a lot of your everyday spend on.
Card Benefits:
- 100k American Airlines AAdvantage® bonus miles after $10k spend in 3 months
- Admirals Club® membership
- for you and up to two guests
- immediate family members traveling with you
- Authorized Users
- $175 for 3 authorized users
- $175 per AU after that
- Credits
- Avis or Budget car rentals every calendar year
- Up to $120 back
- Grubhub purchases
- Up to $120 a year
- up to a $10 statement credit each monthly billing statement
- Lyft Credits
- Up to $120 in Lyft credits
- $10 Lyft credit each month
- Caveat: must take 3 rides per month to get credit
- Up to $120 in Lyft credits
- Avis or Budget car rentals every calendar year
- Loyalty Points Bonuses
- 10k bonus after hitting 50k Loyalty points in same status qualification year
- 10k bonus after hitting 90k Loyalty Points in same status qualification year
- First domestic checked bag free
- up to 8 companions
- No fx fees
- Earn 1 Loyalty Point for every 1 eligible AAdvantage® mile earned from purchases
- Annual Fee $595
100,000 points are worth at least $1500
This is assuming you value AA miles at 1.5 cents which is the cheapest AA has ever sold them. That’s worth 2 years of annual fees without taking into account a single other benefit.
3 Authorized Users gets Admirals Club® Access as well.
This is one of the greatest perks of the card. For $175 you can add up to 3 authorized users who will get Admirals Club® access whenever they fly.
It’s a World Elite Mastercard.
World Elite Mastercards get you a bevy of benefits
- Rental car discounts and status ( Platinum with Sixt as an example )
- Discount, credits, and upgrades at Luxury hotels around the world
- Free ShopRunner ( 2 day shipping )
- Many more
What are the rules for Citi welcome offers?
In case you’re unfamiliar, Citi now restricts welcome offer eligibility to those who have not opened or closed any card in the family of the welcome offer in the past 24 months. What does this mean? If you have had any personal branded Citi AA card in the last 24 months that you newly opened, or decided to close, you are ineligible for this welcome offer. BUT, if you had a business version…you’re ok.
This means if you recently signed up for the Citi 70k welcome offer on their AA business card, you would be eligible for this one as well. Not a bad way to pick up nearly 150k bonus points and an Admirals Club membership.
If you’d like to read more about Citi’s sign up rules…read here. We have a MonkeyMiles Monday Memo on it.
Remember…taxes are a great way to hit higher minimum spends.
You can read our article about it here, but if you estimate a 2% processing fee, the $7500 minimum spend with cost you roughly $150. Add that to your annual fee and you’re spending $600 to gain a bevy of benefits and 82,500 AA miles. This is a strategy I’m likely to employ if I end up getting this card.
What could you do with 110,000 AA?
One thing that would would be super fun to do again… Fly Japan Airlines First Class to Tokyo for 80k. It’s pretty baller.
You can redeem 70k AA miles for Qatar Qsuites.
I’ve been lucky enough to fly QSuites a few times, including once in a quad and another time for my honeymoon!
You could fly from the US to Japan for 60k on AA’s outstanding 772 fitted with Super Diamond Seats.
Or the US to anywhere in Asia on Cathay’s Biz for 70k – here’s their A350
Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.
Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
Welcome Offer
60k Points after $4k spend in 3 months
Annual Fee
$95
Points Earned
Transferrable Chase Ultimate Rewards
- 60k points after $4k spend in 3 months
- Worth $750 in Chase Travel℠ and way more if you maximize transfer partners
- 5x on all travel purchased through Chase Travel℠
- 3x on dining, including eligible delivery services for takeout & dining out
- 3x on select streaming services
- 3x on online grocery purchases
- (excluding Target, Walmart and wholesale clubs)
- $50 Annual Chase Travel Hotel Credit via Chase Travel℠
- The begins immediately for new cardmembers and after your account anniversary for existing cardmembers
- 2x on all other travel
- 10% Anniversary Bonus
- Every year you keep the card, your total spend will yield a 10% points bonus. If you spend $10k in a year, you’ll get 1k bonus points
- Chase Sapphire Preferred continues to redeem at 1.25c in the Chase Travel℠ and the slew of other benefits remain in tact including Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver ( primary ), purchase protections, etc.
- Points are transferrable to 14 Ultimate Rewards partners
- Redeem in Chase Travel℠ for 1.25 cents per point
- No foreign transaction fees
- Suite of Travel and Purchase Coverage
- Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver is my favorite
- Get complimentary access to DashPass which unlocks $0 delivery fees and lower service fees for a minimum of one year when you activate by December 31, 2024
- $95 Annual Fee
We keep an up to date spreadsheet that lists the best ever offers: You can find that spreadsheet here.
Historically 80k is a very, very good offer and hit in both 2022 and 2023. In 2021, we saw the offer hit an all time high of 100k. Who knows if that will ever come back.
Main Cast:
Cards that earn flexible points and should be used on the bulk of your purchases.
Supporting Cast:
Cards that earn fixed points in the currency of the airline/hotel and can not be transferred at attractive rates. These cards yield benefits that make it worth keeping, but not necessarily worth putting a lot of your everyday spend on.
The Chase Sapphire Preferred® is exceptional starter card and offers transferrable Ultimate Rewards, and pairs well with other Chase cards.
If you carry this card alongside Chase’s cashback cards like the Chase Freedom Flex℠and Chase Freedom Unlimited® or the business versions: Ink Business Cash® , Ink Business Unlimited® you can combine the points into Preferred account and transfer into hotel and airline partners
Annual fee is quite low at $95 a year + you get a 10% anniversary bonus on points + $50 hotel credit in Chase travel.
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