Im not necessarily a fan of American Airlines or Citibank, but I’m definitely a fan of American Airlines AAdvantage program and any way to transfer credit card points to it. Well, that has now become a possibility…

1. American Airlines AAdvantage is now a Citi ThankYou transfer partner
2. Why is this exciting?
3. What Citibank credit cards earn ThankYou points?
4. Summary

American Airlines AAdvantage is now a Citi ThankYou transfer partner

This is something that was predicted a while back, following an announcement about an apparent closer integration of Citibank’s ThankYou program and credit card ecosystem with American Airlines AAdvantage, American Airlines’ loyalty program. The moment has now come where that integration has reached a new height, as you can now transfer City ThankYou points to American Airlines AAdvantage. If you navigate to Citi’s ThankYou page, you’ll see this banner displayed:

And then, if you scroll down just a little further, you’ll see AAdvantage now as an option listed as well, with a listed transfer ratio of 1000 ThankYou points for 1000 AAdvantage miles (so a 1:1 ratio with a minimum redemption of 1000 points):

To make use of this, you do need to have a Citi ThankYou account, which you will have if you have Citibank credit card that earns ThankYou points (see below). If you have that, you’ll be able to login to your account and navigate to Citibank’s ThankYou portal, to find your transfer options. In a similar way that other card issuers allow you to transfer points to partners, you can now pick AAdvantage and Citibank will then ask you how many points you want to transfer. Reportedly, the transfer occur instantly.

Why is this exciting?

For those of you less familiar with points and miles, you may wonder why this is a very exiting update. American’s AAdvantage program has many awesome redemption possibilities, typically at much lower point prices than any other program. the problem was always that AAdvtabge miles are very difficult to amass since American Airlines was not a transfer partner with anybody, since Bilt swapped out American for Alaska last year. To get AAdvtange miles, you needed to spend money using their credit cards or *gasp* fly with the airline! That situation has now changed, as you can simply transfer points from your Citibank ThankYou account straight to American Airlines AAdvantage, opening up a very lucrative program for more general use.

Keep in mind that American Airlines is part of the oneworld alliance, and that includes great airlines such as Japan Airlines, Cathay Pacific and Qatar Airways, to which American Airlines typically has the lowest cost redemption opportunities, both in terms of the actual cost in points, and very low taxes and fees. Alaska Airlines, which is also part of oneworld and that I typically describe as having a very lucrative loyalty program as well, still isn’t quite a lucrative as AAdvantage, so you bet that American Airlines becoming a transfer partner to Citibank is exciting!

Now, this may lead to an unhappy consequence in the long run: it’s not inconceivable that because award flights become more accessible through AAdvantage, they will becomes harder to book and, down the line, therefore more expensive. But for now, that is not the case so I implore you to make use of it. That will mean getting a Citibank credit card, of course, which brings me to the next point…

What Citibank credit cards earn ThankYou points?

Citibank has a nice portfolio of rewards credit cards that earn ThankYou points. Here is a list of options, in case you don’t have ThankYou point-earning cards and would like to start:

• Any Citi Strata card, including the Strata, Strata Premier and Strata Elite. I actually think the Strata Premier is an excellent competitor to the Chase Sapphire Preferred. At a $95 annual fee, it has 3x bonus points on Air Travel, Hotels, Supermarkets, Restaurants and Gas/EV Charging, making it a great card for most anybody. This is a card I’m currently considering getting! The other Strata card are the no annual fee Strata, and the $595/year Strata Elite, which was recently announced. Honestly, I don’t know about that one, but let’s see how it plays out when it’s fully released and in use by people.
• AT&T Points Plus Card from Citi earns 3x points for Gas/EV Charging, and 2x for groceries.
• Citi Custom Cash Card earns a whopping 5x points on your highest spend category of the month and 1x on everything else. This is sort of reminiscent of Chase’s Freedom credit card lineup, with the twist that Citi automatically determines what category you spent the most money on that month and grants the 5x points (up to $500 in that category). So, you’re kind of guaranteed to maximize this benefit, more so than with Chase freedom…
• Citi Double Cash card earn 2x points unlimited, with the twist that you get 1x when you purchase something, and then 1x when you pay the credit card balance. it turns out sort of like the Capital One Venture family of cards.

Summary

Today American Airlines AAdvantage has become a transfer partner in Citibank’s ThankYou point program, which is a very exciting development as we can now transfer points from a credit card issuer to AAdvantage. This will no doubt unlock a whole new world of redemptions for many people that otherwise wouldn’t have had a good way to interact with the AAdvantage program, either because they don’t have an American Airlines credit card, or because they don’t want to fly with American Airlines (or both). AAdvantage historically has terrific redemption opportunities with oneworld alliance airline partners, such as Japan Airlines, Cathay Pacific and others, and I look forward to making use of this. If yo udon’t have a Citibank card, this is a good reason to get one!