Citi Executive AAdvantage Mastercard 50,000 Mile Bonus Through Admirals Club
Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here.
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During my recent credit card app-o-rama, I applied for both the CitiBusiness AAdvantage card and the Citi Executive AAdvantage World Mastercard through Citi's main 30,000 mile link (but later found this Flyertalk thread which promoted a 50,000-mile sign-up bonus, but apparently does not work). Well, I learned my lesson because though I got approved for the 50,000 miles on the CitiBusiness card, the offer I was giving on the Citi Executive card was only 30,000 miles. So I had Citi delete the application in the hopes that I could find another offer for 50,000 miles and apply down the road (the phone rep suggested at least 60 days).
Little did I know that I'd find one so soon! On my recent trip down to Brazil aboard American Airlines' new 777-300ER, when I stopped by the American Airlines Admirals Club Lounge, I found a stack of these little pamphlets sitting on the reception desk:
So the 50,000-mile offer is still out there! To score the bonus, you've just got to spend $5,000 in 3 months. The pamplet says to mail in or call 1-800-505-1648, though I'm sure they'll ask for a code, but it never hurts to ask if you can apply without one. However since it's at the front desk of most lounges, you can probably snag one even if you don't enter the lounge.
This offer is even better than the 50,000-mile Citi AAdvantage card offers from December where you'd earn 40,000 miles on each by spending $3,000 in 3 months but then had to spend a total of $10,000 in 12 months to earn the final 10,000 points.
I'm particularly interested in this card you can get 10,000 Elite Qualifying Miles (EQMs) as a calendar year spending bonus when you spend $40,000 or more on the card, and can be the extra little push you need to requalify for elite status. As a reminder, the other terms and benefits of this card. I have lounge access through my Amex Platinum, but the card also comes with Admirals Club membership, which will raise its prices to $500 for general members come May 1! That's more than the $450 annual fee of this card, which also has the following benefits:
- Your first eligible checked bag is free
- Priority Boarding and 25% savings on eligible in-flight purchases
- Earn 2 AAdvantage miles per $1 spent on eligible American Airlines purchases
- No foreign transaction fees
- SmartChip technology
- $450 annual fee
The best current public offer out there is for 30,000 miles when you spend $1,000 within 3 months, so though you have to spend more money to meet the requirement on this offer, the 20,000-point premium is worth it to me, not to mention the fact that I can pretty much put the whole spending requirement of $5,000 on Vanilla Reloads that I can load onto my Amex Bluebird card ($5,000 is the monthly max) and put that toward my future expenses if I need to.
Unfortunately, there's no public link I can list here (unless someone has a working one) with the 50,000-mile offer, so your best bet to get it if you are in the market for a new credit card and some American Airlines miles is to stop by your local Admirals Club and pick up the pamphlet for yourself and apply using the hard copy (how 20th century!). This one was sitting right at the initial reception desk, so you don't actually even need to set foot inside the club itself to get it, just drop by on some pretext and grab the pamphlet while chatting with the desk staff.