There are many American Airlines cards offered by Citi (and until Oct’25, a separate line by Barclays). That makes cycling through them roughly annually quite easy and lucrative. Often there is some in-flight offer or other big bonus offer available online to take advantage of. Personally I’m a fan because: 1) Citi has a long track record of approving me, 2) Richmond & DC airports have good options on American Airlines.
While the specific offer I took advantage of isn’t available, I’m sure it will be back sometime soon.
Citi AAdvantage page link (contains other products as well)
Why I got the card
- Big signup bonus (80k miles) with waived annual fee ($0 first year, $99 after)
- Free bags (I do get some value out of this)
- Easy approval (Citi loves me)
- My existing American Airlines card annual fee is about to hit, and I wanted to avoid that
The actual card products is fine, but outside the spend bonus it not something generally worth using for much (or any) spend, with 1x miles base on all categories and 2x miles on categories (gas, restaurants, AA purchases, etc.) This particular product has nothing notable. Loyalty bonuses for status reasons mean nothing to me, while for a dedicated AA-only traveler, they may be valuable. Other AA cards offer annual bonuses with spend, companion passes, lounge access, etc., which is not to say they’re not valuable, but generally I would say they’re only worth it in specific and intentional situations.
What are AA miles worth?
The best way to answer this is look at past redemptions. In 2025 I’ve redeemed for American three times for 5 tickets. (note, the flight value is what I would have paid for tickets had I paid cash)
- Richmond to Nice (2x, one-way) – $11.20 + 54,000 miles for $1,200 flight value; net @ $1,188.8 (1200-11.20) / 54,000 = 2.2 cents/point
- Cancun to Richmond (2x, one-way) – $167.86 + 24,000 miles for $732 flight value; net @ $564.14 (732-167.86) / 24,000 = 2.35 cents/point
- Milan to Richmond (1x, one-way) – $54.23 + 19,000 miles for $601 flight value; net @ $546.77 (601-54.23) / 19,000 = 2.88 cents/point
These redemptions being international on partner airlines all presented very good value. On average over 2 cents/point (international/partners). For domestic flights I’d estimate worthwhile redemptions are on average about 1.5 cents/point (domestic/AA).
That means the sign up bonus alone is worth more than the spend I had to earn it. 80,000 x 0.02 cents/point = $1,600 in flights (!!!)
Here’s my basic plan
- Sign up (done)
- Cancel my existing AA card (not done)
- Spend as close to $1,000 for the early spend bonus as possible (done, spent $1,100.46)
- Bank those points, likely for 2027 travel (2026 flights are almost entirely already booked!)
- Sign up for a new AA card in October’25 & cancel this one before annual fee
Worth it for others? If you fly AA in the next year, absolutely.
