Citi’s $600-fee card might be worth it with this offer

Tl;dr: It might be cheaper than paying for a plane ticket, and comes with some great perks.

A few weeks ago I wrote about a great offer on the Barclay’s AAdvantage Aviator Red card. By paying the $99 annual fee and making a single purchase of any price, you could get 70,000 AA miles, good for a free(ish) flight to Japan from many US airports. Picking up the card was a great alternative to paying cash for a ticket, particularly given that cash prices from most of those airports would be over $1,000—and would not be refundable like award tickets.

As I noted in that post, AA is weird in that two different banks issue co-branded credit cards on its behalf. Right now it’s Citi coming in with a big offer: 100,000 points on it’s ultra-premium Executive Club card. That’s easily enough to get you to Japan, and possibly even in business class—I’ve seen 120k tickets in the wild before, although they are rare (but between the spending requirements and things like dining programs or the Bilt card, hitting 120k should not be too hard).

But whereas the Aviator’s bonus and fee were fairly painless, this one’s is decidedly not. The annual fee is $595, and you’ll have to spend $10,000 in the first three months to get the bonus. Even if you can afford that, that probably means shifting every dime of your spending onto the card for that period and maybe even finding clever ways to inflate your spend, like paying your mortgage, rent, or even tuition (probably for a fee).

But if you can swing that, it’s still quite a bit cheaper than paying for a flight to Japan in cash. (I always talk about Japan with AA because it’s an expensive cash ticket and award availability has been consistently excellent in my experience, but they have other good uses as well). In fact, with 100k points in the bank, you could not only book a flight to Japan but probably another roundtrip flight within Japan once you arrive. Or save those points for a roundtrip domestic flight. Either way, you’re looking at maybe $7-800 in outlay (annual fee, lost points value by using the Citi instead of a better card, fee to pay your rent or mortgage with the card) for flights worth at least $1100+ in cash.

And then you get all the benefits of the card! The nicest perk of which is, of course, lounge access when flying AA. The card provides free access to AA’s lounges and those of its partner airlines (and, if I’m reading the terms right, your immediate family or up to two guests). This is worthless if you don’t fly AA, but on those flights it is a very nice perk. AA lounges are much more widespread than, say, Priority Pass lounges, and tend to be nicer and easier to access.

But the card has some great beneftis if you don’t fly AA that often, including ones that actually drive down the cost of that annual fee. Let’s start there: You get a dollar-for-dollar statement credit on car rentals with Budget and Avis, up to $120 per year. You get a $10 credit each month for GrubHub orders. And once you take 3 Lyft rides in a given month, you’ll get a $10 Lyft credit. That last one wouldn’t be worth much for me, but I’d expect to rent a car at least once a year, and the GrubHub perk is easy to take advantage of. So that $7-800 outlay I mentioned above is more like $5-600.

On top of those benefits, the perks include nice travel benefits like a statement credit toward TSA Precheck or Global Entry and various travel protections. On AA flights you’ll get a free checked bag for you and up to 8 traveling companions (domestic flights only), 25% savings on onboard food and beverage purchases, and priority check-in and boarding.

While the general earning of one mile per dollar spent is unimpressive, you can earn 10x miles on flights and rental cars booked through AA. The 4x on purchases with AA is also very good, especially in a world where most Airline credit cards can’t beat regular credit cards (e.g. Amex’s Platinum at 5x and Gold at 3x, Chases Sapphire Reserve at 3x and Preferred at 2x, Bilt at 2x. Citi Premier at 3x) when booking flights on their own airline.

There’s also a status boost toward elite status with AA (read about it here), but you’ll need to earn 50,000 Loyalty Points. This can be done without spending too much, but it’s still a pretty hefty investment. This won’t be a big factor for many people.

Overall, this card is only really a wallet mainstay for higher-income folks who fly AA regularly. But if you want to take a big international trip, it might end up cheaper to pick up this card and earn the bonus than to pay cash. Citi has a wide range of AA cobranded cards, including a no-fee card, that you could downgrade too if you didn’t want to renew at the Executive card’s high fee. And in the meantime you’d get some pretty sweet perks for your troubles.