Citi AAdvantage Executive Card: Earning Loyalty Points Toward Elite Status

The Citi® / AAdvantage® Executive World Legend Mastercard® (learn more) is American Airlines’ most premium credit card. While the card has a $695 annual fee, it offers all kinds of perks, including an Admirals Club membership, and it even has a huge welcome bonus. For those looking to qualify for elite status with American AAdvantage, one of the most interesting aspects of the card is the ability to earn Loyalty Points. While most co-branded American AAdvantage credit cards let you earn Loyalty Points, this card offers the ability to earn 40,000 bonus Loyalty Point per year unrelated to spending, which is a perk that’s unique to this card. In this post, I’d like to take a closer look at how that works, especially since the card’s recent refresh potentially doubled the number of Loyalty Points cardmembers can earn just for holding onto the card. Link: Learn more about the Citi® / AAdvantage® Executive World Legend Mastercard® Earning Loyalty Points with the Citi AAdvantage Executive CardEarn one Loyalty Point per dollar spentEarn 40,000 bonus Loyalty Points per yearStack with 15,000 additional Loyalty Points per yearHow valuable is this Loyalty Points perk?Citi AAdvantage Executive Card Loyalty Points FAQsBottom line Loyalty Points is the name of the system by which you can earn elite status with American AAdvantage. Status with the airline no longer has anything to do with how much you fly, but rather has to do with how many Loyalty Points you rack up, regardless of whether it’s from flying or non-flying activities, like credit card spending. As a reminder, here are the AAdvantage elite status requirements: AAdvantage Gold status requires 40,000 Loyalty Points AAdvantage Platinum status requires 75,000 Loyalty Points AAdvantage Platinum Pro status requires 125,000 Loyalty Points AAdvantage Executive Platinum status requires 200,000 Loyalty Points Also keep in mind that American has the Loyalty Point Rewards program, allowing you to earn extra perks, like systemwide upgrades, for passing certain thresholds. So, how does the Citi AAdvantage Executive Card factor into all of this? Let’s talk about how you can use the card to earn Loyalty Points for spending, and also how you can earn Loyalty Points just for having the card. Receive first class upgrades with AAdvantage elite status Earn one Loyalty Point per dollar spent Like most American Airlines credit cards, the Citi AAdvantage Executive Card offers one Loyalty Point per eligible dollar spent on the card. In other words, spending $200,000 on the card would earn you 200,000 Loyalty Points (and in turn, Executive Platinum). Note that miles earned from the welcome bonus, as well as miles earned from spending multipliers, don’t earn you additional Loyalty Points. For example, the card earns 4x AAdvantage miles on American Airlines purchases. So while you’d get four redeemable miles per dollar spent on those purchases, you’d only earn one Loyalty Point per dollar spent. Access Flagship Lounges with AAdvantage elite status Earn 40,000 bonus Loyalty Points per year This is where the Citi AAdvantage Executive Card gets interesting, and offers something that’s unique to this card. Those who have the Citi AAdvantage Executive Card can earn up to 40,000 bonus Loyalty Points per year, without actually needing to spend a dime on the card: Earn 10,000 bonus Loyalty Points when you earn 50,000 Loyalty Points in a status qualification year Earn 10,000 bonus Loyalty Points when you earn 90,000 Loyalty Points in a status qualification year Earn 10,000 bonus Loyalty Points when you earn 165,000 Loyalty Points in a status qualification year Earn 10,000 bonus Loyalty Points when you earn 240,000 Loyalty Points in a status qualification year In other words, if you’d ordinarily earn 240,000 Loyalty Points in a year, having this card would earn you 40,000 bonus Loyalty Points (and it’s actually even better than that, because each bonus of 10,000 Loyalty Points counts toward the next threshold). There’s no other American credit card that offers bonus Loyalty Points just for passing certain thresholds in the program, unrelated to card spending or flying. For example, below is a look at how 20,000 bonus Loyalty Points posted to my AAdvantage account in the past. This was based purely on having the card, and not based on any credit card spending. Earn bonus Loyalty Points for having the card Earn bonus Loyalty Points for having the card Just to cover some of the basic questions people may have about this perk: Bonus Loyalty Points will officially post within 8-10 weeks of meeting the Loyalty Points requirement; however, in practice, they seem to post much faster than that You can earn at most 40,000 bonus Loyalty Points from this card per status qualifying year, not accounting for the Loyalty Points you earn for spending (the status qualifying year goes from the beginning of March until the end of February of the following year) You’re still eligible for this benefit if you open your card during the status qualifying year; so you don’t need to have the card open at the start of the membership year to qualify for this, but rather the bonus Loyalty Points will post retroactively Each bonus of 10,000 Loyalty Points counts toward the next threshold; in other words, if you earned 80,000 Loyalty Points outside of this benefit, you’d earn 20,000 bonus Loyalty Points, since the first bonus of 10,000 Loyalty Points would trigger the second bonus (by getting you to 90,000 bonus Loyalty Points) — the same holds true for the 3rd and 4th thresholds Stack with 15,000 additional Loyalty Points per year In the interest of being thorough, let me mention that you can stack this perk with the extra Loyalty Points benefit offered by the Citi® / AAdvantage® Globe™ Mastercard® (learn more). That card offers up to 15,000 bonus Loyalty Points as part of the Flight Streak bonus perk. The way this works, you earn 5,000 bonus Loyalty Points after every four qualifying American flights, and you can take advantage of this up to three times per year. In other words, if you take at least 12 eligible American flights per year (each segment counts as a flight), you’d earn 15,000 bonus Loyalty Points. There’s no need to pay for the flight with your card, as long as you’re the primary cardmember on an account, and have your accounts linked. These two perks can stack, so that means if you have both the Citi AAdvantage Executive Card and Citi AAdvantage Globe Card, you could earn 55,000 bonus Loyalty Points per year. Stack perks to earn 55,000 bonus Loyalty Points per year Oh, and before anyone calls me out, that’s not a really old picture, it’s just a 737 in a retro livery, which I kind of dig. 😉 How valuable is this Loyalty Points perk? If you’re going for elite status with American AAdvantage, how valuable is the opportunity to earn Loyalty Points with the Citi AAdvantage Executive Card? When it comes to earning one Loyalty Point per dollar spent, I’ve written in the past about my thoughts on the value proposition of that: I don’t think it’s worth spending your way all the way to elite status, though at the margins I think it could be worthwhile (say you’d earn 125K Loyalty Points through flying, and then earn 75K Loyalty Points with a credit card, to earn Executive Platinum) There’s just such an opportunity cost to spending on an American credit card. vs. another card that might be more rewarding in terms of everyday spending, bonus categories, etc. I think it’s worth emphasizing that the last threshold at 240,000 Loyalty Points is above and beyond qualifying for any elite status tier, and would just be about unlocking additional Loyalty Point Rewards. The bigger point is that: If you’re pursuing AAdvantage Platinum Pro status, this card will get you 20,000 Loyalty Points toward that status If you’re pursuing AAdvantage Executive Platinum status, this card will get you 30,000 Loyalty Points toward the status Loyalty Points have no intrinsic value, in the sense that they’re only valuable if they help you pass a specific threshold. I do think that if you’re going for a higher tier AAdvantage status and don’t easily earn it already, having the Citi AAdvantage Executive Card, as the bonus Loyalty Points will go a long way to helping you qualify for status. For some people, the card could be worth getting exclusively for the bonus Loyalty Points, if that helps push you over the edge for earning elite status. But for most people, I’d view this as being part of a larger suite of benefits. Personally I find the annual fee justifiable based on the Admirals Club membership, the up to 40,000 Loyalty Points, and all of the other perks, including potentially hundreds of dollars of annual statement credits. I also value the Admirals Club access offered by the card Citi AAdvantage Executive Card Loyalty Points FAQs How many Loyalty Points can you earn with the Citi AAdvantage Executive Card? The Citi AAdvantage Executive Card earns one Loyalty Point per dollar spent, and additionally offers up to 40,000 bonus Loyalty Points per program year for passing certain Loyalty Points thresholds. How many Loyalty Points do you earn per dollar with the Citi AAdvantage Executive Card? You earn one Loyalty Point per dollar spent on the Citi AAdvantage Executive Card. That applies regardless of how many AAdvantage miles per dollar you earn in a particular spending category. What are the Citi AAdvantage Executive Card Loyalty Points thresholds? Beyond the Loyalty Points earned for spending, the Citi AAdvantage Executive Card offers up to 40,000 bonus Loyalty Points per year. You earn 10,000 bonus Loyalty Points for passing thresholds at 50,000, 90,000, 165,000, and 240,000 Loyalty Points. Those Loyalty Points don’t all have to be earned from card spending, but can even be earned from flying. When do Citi AAdvantage Executive Card bonus Loyalty Points post? Loyalty Points earned with the Citi AAdvantage Executive Card will officially post within 8-10 weeks, but in practice, will typically post much faster than that. Do you have to spend on the Citi AAdvantage Executive Card to earn Loyalty Points? Nope, you can earn up to 40,000 Loyalty Points per program year with the Citi AAdvantage Executive Card, unrelated to spending. It’s about earning a certain number of Loyalty Points with the program, and those can even be earned through flying. Can you earn Loyalty Points from multiple Citi AAdvantage credit cards? Absolutely, you can earn Loyalty Points through multiple Citi AAdvantage credit cards, to really boost the rate at which you earn elite status. Bottom line The Citi AAdvantage Executive Card is American’s most premium credit card. In addition to the card offering one Loyalty Point per dollar spent, you can also receive up to 40,000 bonus Loyalty Points per year just for being a cardmember, assuming you earn at least 240,000 Loyalty Points. This is the American credit card that offers the most Loyalty Points without any sort of a spending requirement. So if you’re into the AAdvantage program, that perk is a reason to seriously consider the card, in addition to all the other benefits. What do you make of the Loyalty Points perks offered by the Citi AAdvantage Executive Card?