Citi AAdvantage Credit Card New Benefits
Citi has sent out an email to existing cardholders announcing some minor changes to the Citi AAdvantage Platinum Select World Elite Mastercard. The annual fee will be increasing from $95 to $99 and there are a few small positive additions to the cards benefits. Earlier this week, Nick at Frequent Miler wrote that new cardholders would be able to utilize the new benefits beginning May 3rd, but existing cardholders have to wait until July 22 to take advantage of them.
Existing Benefits
- First checked bag free on domestic itineraries
- No foreign transaction fees No foreign transaction fees
- Preferred boarding Preferred boarding on flights
- 2X miles 2 AAdvantage miles for every $1 you spend on American Airlines purchases
- 10% of your redeemed AAdvantage miles back, up to 10,000 per year
- Reduced Mileage Award scissors Reduced Mileage Awards
- Inflight discount 25% savings on inflight food and beverage purchases
2x Miles on Restaurants and Gas
Currently the card earns 1 miles on every purchase other than American Airlines purchases, which earn 2 miles per dollar. With the increase, both purchases on gas and restaurants will earn 2 miles per dollar as well.
$100 American Airlines flight discount
You will receive a $100 AA flight discount after you spend $20,000 or more during your card membership year and you renew your card. Even if you spend the 20k, you’ll still need to wait until one month after you renew your card to get the discount. Also, the discount is only valid for flights originating in the US, Puerto Rico and US Virgin Islands.
Conclusion
If I was going to spend $20,000 on a card in order to receive a big spend bonus, I would want a whole lot more than a $100 flight discount with a bunch of restrictions. I also don’t see the additional 1 miles per dollar on gas and restaurants as that great of a benefit since there are so many cards that offer much better earnings in those categories. On the other hand, the $4 fee increase is nothing major so if this is a card you already hold for other benefits, the changes are a nice little perk. Check out our Best Offers page to see our picks for airline cards.
Lower Spend - Chase Ink Business Preferred® 100K!
Chase Ink Business Preferred® is a powerful card that earns 3X Ultimate Rewards points in a broad range of business categories on the first $150K in spend per year. Right now earn 100K Chase Ultimate Rewards points after Learn more about this card and its features!
Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.
I think the AA MasterCard could include 2x on groceries as well. I will continue to use my Disney Visa card for all my groceries.
I wonder if the Barclay Aviator Red card is also going to have new benefits. For me, the biggest downside to the Barclay Aviator Red card and the Citi A advantage Platinum card is that the free bag benefit only applies to domestic flights.
In January AA citi sent out 3x bonus categories of: gas, restaurants, groceries, drug stores etc. for Jan, Feb & Mar. I’m guessing that most people used the 3x bonuses on restaurants and gas which is how I spent mine. I might not use the new 2x AA bonus on gas since I get over 3% from BofA cash card and 3% with citi premier. But for restaurants I could use it since 2x is what some of my other credit cards have. I am glad to see airline credit cards starting to evolve and add other bonus categories other than their own airline.
Biggest deal is the loss of first year free IMHO. This card is mainly beneficial for churning and the first year annual fee free is money. Hopefully they bring it back periodically.