Citi Adds American Airlines as a Limited Time Transfer Partner

As the economy recovers, the banks are trying hard to retain their existing customers and capture new clients. Recently, we’ve seen almost all card issuers offer elevated bonuses on their already popular cards. Not to be left behind, Citi has recently bumped up the bonus on their popular Citi Premier card to 60,000 ThankYou points. And to everyone’s surprise, Citi has also announced a new, albeit temporary, transfer partner – American Airlines.

Between now and Nov. 13, 2021, you can transfer Citi ThankYou points to AA at a 1 to 1 ratio. We hope that the temporary transfer partner becomes a permanent transfer partner, since Citi already has an established relationship with AA by being one of the American Airlines’ co-branded credit card issuers, but that remains to be seen.

AA miles are hard to earn because among the three U.S. legacy carriers, American Airlines is the only airline that doesn’t have a bank transfer partner. You can transfer Marriott Bonvoy points to American Airlines at a 3:1 ratio, but it isn’t always the best idea to convert your hard-earned Marriott points into AAdvantage miles.

Citi ThankYou points aren’t as popular as Chase Ultimate Rewards or as American Express Membership Rewards points and are almost an afterthought for many people. However, these underappreciated points definitely should be on everyone’s radar, especially now that AA has been added as a temporary transfer partner.

Citi Premier ThankYou Points Welcome Bonus

Typically the welcome bonus will fluctuate between 60,000 and 80,000 ThankYou points. The 10X team loves ThankYou points even before AA was added as a transfer partner. There are so many great ways to use these valuable points for everything from cheap domestic economy flights to amazing international business class redemptions.

Here are just a few examples of how you can use Citi ThankYou points for the maximum value:

• Transfer to Turkish Airlines Miles & Smiles to book domestic flights on United, including Hawaii, for 7,500 in economy and 12,500 miles in domestic first class one-way
• Transfer to Flying Blue and book one-way in economy to Europe for 29,000 miles
• Transfer to American Airlines to fly in Qsuites to or from the Maldives on Qatar Airways for 70,000 AAdvantage miles one-way
• Transfer to American Airlines to book round-trip flights from the United States to the Caribbean for 25,000 to 30,000 miles

The Citi Premier card is a well-rounded card that has generous bonus spending categories. The card earns 3X on supermarket, gas stations, restaurants, air travel and hotel purchases. All other purchases earn 1X. The card has a very reasonable $95 annual fee.

There are a couple of other credit cards from other issuers that have similar earning rates on the supermarket and restaurant purchases made in the U.S. But what really sets this card apart is the ability to earn 3X on restaurant, gas and supermarket purchases even outside the U.S. So if you are traveling abroad, don’t forget to take this card with you.

So between now and November 13, 2021, if you’re a Citi Premier cardholder, you can earn an equivalent of three AAdvantage miles per $1 on all of your dining, gas, grocery, airfare and hotel purchases. None of the AA co-branded American Airlines cards have the same earning rates. If you see American award redemptions in your future, now’s the time to act.

What Can You Do with ThankYou Points or AAdvantage Miles?

You might be thinking, “but I never fly on American Airlines, and I don’t live in an AA hub, why would I be interested in AA miles?” You won’t be alone, many people fail to recognize how extremely valuable AA miles are.

You don’t have to fly AA to extract the best value. AA is part of the OneWorld alliance and you can redeem AAdvantage miles on OneWorld partner airlines for some amazing premium cabin experiences. American’s best partners include Cathay Pacific, Etihad Airways, Japan Airlines, and Qatar Airways.

So what can you do with AAdvantage miles? Here are just a couple of examples of how you can spend your newly accumulated stash of AA miles. These are one-way premium cabin award rates on American, as well as its partner airlines:

• 57,500 miles between the U.S. and Europe in business class on American Airlines
• 60,000 miles between the U.S. and Asia in business class on Cathay Pacific
• 70,000 miles in business class to the Middle East and India, including Qsuites on Qatar Airways to the Maldives
• 75,000 miles in business class between the U.S. and Africa
• 80,000 miles from the U.S. to Japan in first class on Japan Airlines

If you don’t want to travel too far or want to stretch your miles further, there are plenty of options to redeem AA miles to fantastic places in the Caribbean, such as the beautiful island of Bonaire.

And since AA moved to dynamic pricing, you can book domestic economy flights for as little as 5,000 AAdvantage miles. Or you can fly from the U.S. to parts of South America for 15,000 miles. So you can book a whole trip for two people and have some miles left over with just one welcome bonus!

Final Thoughts

Citi’s newest temporary transfer partner is American Airlines. We hope it becomes a permanent partnership because it’s fairly hard to earn AAdvantage miles. The points transfer 1:1 and this limited-time offer is slated to end on Nov. 13, 2021.