Best for casual American Airlines passengers: Citi / AAdvantage Platinum Select World Elite Mastercard Review

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The Citi® / AAdvantage® Platinum Select® World Elite Mastercard® is a stable midsize credit card for anyone looking to earn American Airlines miles and enjoy elite status-like benefits. While this card won’t get you access to the Administrators Club, fans of American Airlines can still get value from the card. Tag Rating *:

* Card Ratings are based on the opinions of TPG editors and are not influenced by the card issuer.

Not all airline credit card created equally. Some have annual fee about $100 a yearso you need to be sure that a card fits your travel goals and offers maximum mileage and travel benefits.

The Citi / AAdvantage Platinum Select World Elite Mastercard makes life easier for an American Airlines passenger and gives non-AA passengers a way to diversify the mileage in their award portfolio – all for a single fee. year is $99 (was exempt for the first 12 months).

Today, we will look at the benefits of this American Airlines Credit Card And who is it best for?

Who is this card for?

You don’t have to be often American Airlines flyer to benefit from the card. The travel benefits of Citi / AAdvantage Platinum Option will improve your AA flying experience. However, frequent flyers loyal to other airlines can still take advantage of it. Whether you fly AA frequently or not, you should diversify your loyalty portfolio.

I keep a number of legacy airline miles for the best chance of making the journey I want at the lowest prize cost. I also want to reach out to many American partners (internal and external A world alliance), including Alaska Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Etihad and Japan Airlines.

Related: Choose the best credit card for American Airlines passengers

The Citi / AAdvantage Platinum Option is offering 50,000 US AAdvantage miles after you spend $2,500 in the first three months of account opening, worth $885, according to TPG’s valuation.

This bonus on personal cards is lower CitiBusiness® / AAdvantage® Platinum Select® Mastercard®, which offers 65,000 miles after you spend $4,000 in the first four months of account opening. Keep in mind that you will not be eligible for this bonus if you have earned a sign-up bonus from your Citi Platinum Select card in the past 48 months.

CitiBusiness AAdvantage Platinum card information has been independently collected by The Points Guy. The card details on this page have not been reviewed or provided by the card issuer.

The AAdvantage program has switch to dynamic prize pricingafter the same changes by Delta and United Airlines. However, if you take advantage of AA’s off-peak rates, you can book round-trip tickets between the US and Europe for as little as 45,000 miles (22,500 miles each way) according to current US awards rankings. Or, depending on special website On offer, you can even win a round-trip ticket to Europe for as low as 18,000 miles.

The card has a $99 annual fee (was waived for the first 12 months), but that cost can easily be offset by taking advantage of some of the card’s perks.

Related: Best Usage of American Airlines A

The Citi / AAdvantage Platinum Option It’s not a luxury travel card, but it does offer some perks for those flying on American Airlines. You will have priority boarding, no foreign transaction fees, one free checked baggage on domestic itineraries and Flight discount $125 when you spend $20,000 or more on your card in five memberships and card renewals.

As some of these perks are also offered to AAdvantage elite members, they may not get much added value from this card. However, those who have not achieved status can enjoy some elite-like benefits with this card.

And to qualify for the status, you will earn one Loyalty Points However, every eligible AAdvantage mile is earned signup bonus excluded from earning Loyalty Points.

Related: Credit cards that can help you win airline elite status

Unfortunately, Citi has taken away a lot of value travel and purchase protection benefits from Citi / AAdvantage Platinum Select a few years ago. This isn’t necessarily a deal breaker, but it’s something to keep in mind before applying for this card.

With Select Citi / AAdvantage Platinum, you’ll earn 2 miles per dollar on qualifying American Airlines purchases and at restaurants and gas stations. All other spends earn 1 mile for every dollar spent. There is no limit to how many miles you can earn in a year.

Earning 2 miles per dollar gets you a 3.5% return on bonus spending (based on Valuation of TPG). It’s nothing to write home about and you can definitely do better with tags like Platinum Card® from American Express or Chase Sapphire Reserve when you book flight tickets, earn 10% and 6% profit, corresponding. Once you hit the sign-up bonus on the card, you’ll probably want to use a different card for most purchases.

Related: Best airline credit cards

If you have flexibility about where and when you travel, there are some AAdvantage sweet points to redeem points. Lowest round-trip tickets in the US start at 7,500 miles one way for less than 500 miles. That means the sign-up bonus is enough for 10 one-way economy flights. On expensive regional flights, you can get a lot of value out of your AAdvantage miles.

Special sites are becoming increasingly valuable and have previously included domestic cross-country flights for 5,000 miles each way in the economy or 15,000 miles each way in first class and flights to South America from 15,000 miles each way.

AAdvantage Miles’ Most Valuable Reward for Premium cabin partner booking. For domestic flights, I would switch to programs like Southwest and JetBlue before using US miles. I want more save AA miles on business or first class above QatarEtihad, Finnair, Iberia and other carriers with highly rated international long-haul service.

Related: Maximize Redemption with American Airlines

American Airlines passengers are many credit to choose. One of the biggest competitors of this card is Citi® / AAdvantage® Executive World Elite Mastercard®. With perks like an Administrators Club membership, frequent AA travelers will likely get more out of this premium card. You just have to decide if the $450 annual fee is worth it for you.

An area where Mastercard Citi / AAdvantage Platinum outperforming the CEO is earning bonuses. You’ll get the same 2 miles/dollar on eligible American Airlines purchases on both cards, but Platinum also offers 2 miles at restaurants and gas stations. Moderators earn bonus miles only (and at an unimpressive rate) on qualifying AA expenses.

Of course, if you’re a frequent flyer, you’ll likely spend the most on cards that deliver great returns across categories while still earning transferable reward currency. In that case, it doesn’t really matter that Platinum earns 2 miles a dollar on gas and restaurant spending.

If you fly to America enough to want those elite-style benefits and Admirals Club lounge accessI will go with Citi / AAdvantage Executive World Elite Mastercard compared to its lower cost counterpart. This is especially notable because you can add up to nine authorized users to the AAdvantage Executive card, and everyone is entitled to access to the Administrators Club when flying in the US (or a partner airline).

From Barclays’ line of co-branded cards, there are AAdvantage Aviator Red World Elite Mastercard. The card offers a sign-up bonus of 50,000 miles after making your first purchase and annual fee payment within the first 90 days, and it offers the same travel benefits as Citi / AAdvantage Platinum Select . The big benefit is that you only have to buy something as cheap as a can of soft drink to earn the sign-up bonus.

It has unique benefits like annual statement credits for in-flight Wi-Fi and the ability to earn companion certificates through spending, but doesn’t allow cardholders to accumulate miles faster buy everyday. The card earns only 2 miles per dollar on qualifying American Airlines purchases and 1 mile per dollar on everything else.

Information about the AAdvantage Aviator Red World Elite Mastercard has been independently collected by The Points Guy. The card details on this page have not been reviewed or provided by the card issuer.

Related: Citi / AAdvantage Platinum Select vs. AAdvantage Aviator Red

The above travel benefits Mastercard Citi / AAdvantage Platinum Select nice but definitely not on the same level as the higher end Citi / AAdvantage Executive World Elite Mastercard. That’s to be expected as the annual fee on the Executive card is much higher at $450.

If you need Admirals Club lounge access, This card will not help you. But if you’re the casual American Airlines traveler who just wants a few of the elite-like benefits of flying with the airline, then this is definitely a card you should consider adding to your wallet. – especially with the current sign-up bonus of 50,000 miles. .

Additional reporting by Ryan Wilcox, Senitra Horbrook and Stella Shon.