A Real (A)Advantage: Earn Extra Loyalty Points And 75,000 Miles With Citi’s Business Card

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Citibank’s American Airlines small business card, Citi® / AAdvantage BusinessTM World Elite Mastercard®, has a limited time offer to earn 75,000 American Airlines AAdvantage bonus miles after spending $5,000 in purchases within the first 5 months of account opening. The card’s $99 annual fee is waived for first 12 months. [See rates and fees]

My wife was approved for this card. Her small business is… very small. But the interesting thing, beyond that they’d approve her, is what happens to the points.

They go into her AAdvantage Business account (that gets opened when she opens the card) instead of in her personal AAdvantage account. She can link transfers to that AAdvantage Business account, and then transfer miles to them or to herself.

Now I already have an AAdvantage Business account. I don’t know that I can be linked to hers as well (which seems to me a flaw, since a traveler might do work for several companies, each with an airline focus on American). But I can use it to top off her father’s account, since he might travel for her business.

I recently got this card again as well because I wanted to use an AAdvantage Business account – not just for the transferability, but because when I travel with that linked I earn an extra Loyalty Point per dollar towards status when attaching my AAdvantage Business account to the booking. I realized it had been a little over four years since I’d had it previously and I was approved.

I also hold a Citi Executive card, and that didn’t get in the way of being approved or earning a bonus. And I also have a Barclays Aviator Silver card – you can have a Barclays AAdvantage card and Citi AAdvantage card at the same time.

All of this is to say that the Citi® / AAdvantage BusinessTM World Elite Mastercard® is an opportunity I’ve been prioritizing.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Editorial note: any opinions, analyses, reviews or recommendations expressed in this article are those of the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any card issuer. Comments made in response to this post are not provided or commissioned nor have they been reviewed, approved, or otherwise endorsed by any bank. It is not the responsibility of advertisers Citibank, Chase, American Express, Barclays, Capital One or any other advertiser to ensure that questions are answered, either. Terms and limitations apply to all offers.

Comments

  1. You can be linked to multiple AA Business accounts at once! They send you an invite as usual, and once you accept it will appear in your selector when you’re booking flights

  2. So miles in a AA Biz account can be transferred to any other AA account (assuming the owner of the other account is not already linked to a AA Biz account).
    Is this correct ?

  3. @ Gary. One more question . . . Loyalty Points. I read above but just checking, I open the card, spend $5k (which I would with my Barclay’s card since I’m about 4,000 LP short for next AA level), do the LP’s and miles transfer to my personal AAvantage account in hours, days, weeks or months from when I initiate the request to transfer?
    And thanks for the prompt reply on my last question regarding miles on this.

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