100K American Airlines Credit Card Offer

HT: The Points Guy

Disclaimer: I do not receive a commission for this card.

American Airlines is in the midst of their merger with US Airways. You can now book flights on both airlines with each other’s miles. American Airlines still has some of the best available premium awards (especially with the United and Delta devaluations). There are some great things that you can do with a bunch of AA miles. Thanks to an offer that is floating around now, you can get 100,000 American Airline miles!

Application Link – Citi Executive AAdvantage Mastercard 100,000 American Airline miles after spending $10,000 in 3 months

Now, this application does have entries for a referral code that you may have received from an AA employee and an airport code where you received the referral code. You can still apply for this card without having that – these codes just enable the AA employee that may have told you about it to receive a referral bonus of some type.

This card does have one big negative – a $450 annual fee upfront. That is a large fee to swallow to be sure, but it does come with access to the American Airline Admiral lounges. Since the American Express Platinum will be stripped of AA lounge access come March, this may be a big benefit to those who fly AA from time to time. Another negative is the amount of spending that is required for the bonus. $10,000 in 3 months is a lot of money to spend, but if you have a Bluebird card, you will be able to meet it without a problem (you can load $5,000 of Vanilla reload cards on your Bluebird card per month).

Here are some of the points about the card:

• Admirals Club® Membership Privileges
  (a value of up to $500)
• Earn up to 10,000 Elite Qualifying Miles per calendar year (after spending $40,000)
• No Foreign Purchase Fees
• Enhanced Airport Experience with dedicated check-in and priority screening and boarding
• First Checked Bag Free
• $450 Annual Fee (not waived)
• $200 in statement credits
• Issued by Citi

Summary

Is this a good deal? Yes! It really is an awesome deal for people to get before the merger is complete since it will almost certainly bring a new award chart that will gut many of the great redemptions currently available. After meeting the spending, you will receive a total of 110,000 American Airline miles. If you get just 10,000 more miles, you will have enough for 3 round-trip tickets to Europe from the US from October – May. That is astounding for one credit card bonus!

However, I will not be applying for this. While the bonus is great, I cannot currently stomach the $450 annual fee. I have been willing to do it in the past with the Amex Platinum because the points are so flexible and I received $500 back in exchange for the $450 fee ($200 for each calendar year for airline incidentals and $100 for Global Entry). Because I would basically be purchasing these miles without a definite purpose in mind at this time, I am not willing to eat that fee and sit on the miles for a while.

If you are in the same boat, a different card to consider may be the regular 50,000 American Airline mile card from Citi. It only requires $3,000 in the first 3 months to receive the bonus and there is no annual fee for the first year. When compared to the 100K offer, it basically works out to you purchasing 50,000 AA miles for $450 (the card’s annual fee). That is less than 1 cent per mile but may not be for everyone. Either way, here are two great chances to get some serious miles for great award redemptions!