Time is Running Out to Double Dip on AA Cards
Tl;dr: The opportunity to earn tons of miles by getting AA-branded cards from both Barclays and City will be ending soon.
Last week, American Airlines announced that it is expanding its relationship with Citi and making the bank its exclusive credit card partner starting in 2026. For years, American has had co-branded cards with two banks–Citi and Barclays–as a lingering arrangement after AA merged with US Airways in 2015. Because travelers largely haven’t been able to convert any general credit card rewards like Amex or Citi points into AA miles (with some brief exceptions), opening up a credit card account with both Citi and Barclays was one way to quickly accumulate tons of valuable AA miles. This is now set to change. Although no specific date was provided, with the impending move to Citi, Barclays will stop accepting new applications for its Aviator Red card at some point.
Why is this a big deal?
AA miles are some of the best you can get. Some airlines’ miles are great for flash sales that offer incredible deals but are hard to plan around (e.g. Delta, KLM/Air France, Singapore, Virgin). Others offer good availability but relatively low value (e.g. United, JetBlue, Southwest, Air Canada). And some offer great values but usually only on a relatively limited set of itineraries (e.g. Alaska, Avianca).
If you have AA miles, though, with a few months’ advance planning you can usually predictably go to the AA website and find a great deal, with wide availability, from almost any major US airport. For example, in a couple minutes of searching I found these flight deals from the US East Coast to Asia.
AA miles have lost some of their value recently by passing on fuel surcharges on British Airways and Iberia, the main oneworld carriers flying to Europe. So if you want to use AA miles to get to Europe without paying hundreds of dollars in cash, you’ll mostly need to look for flights on other carriers (mostly AA itself and Finnair), but it is still definitely doable:
Perhaps because these miles have long been so valuable, they have historically been difficult to earn, with their co-branded cards offering fairly limited earning potential and, with brief exceptions, no ability to transfer points from other credit cards.
One upside was that you could always just open both a Barclays AA card and a Citi AA card, quickly amassing enough points for a couple international round-trip tickets. What’s more, the AA Aviator typically only required paying the fee and making a single purchase–no need to spend thousands to earn those miles. With this announcement, you’ll soon no longer be able to pile up these miles by opening cards with two different banks.
What if you don’t have a Barclays AA Aviator card?
Now might be the time to get one. Starting no later than 2026 (but likely much earlier) it will no longer be possible to double dip on AA credit cards. The 70,000 mile offer that’s been available on the Aviator in recent weeks appears to be gone, but the 60k currently on offer is good enough for an international vacation from dozens of US airports.
Just be careful—View from the Wing points out that once Citi takes over these Aviator accounts, it is possible that it might affect your eligibility for future bonuses with Citi.
What if you already have a Barclays AA card?
On the one hand, AA is promising that cardholders will be able to maintain their current benefits after the transition to Citi. I think Citi’s $95-fee Platinum Select AA card is better than Barclay’s $99-fee Aviator thanks to its double points on restaurants and gas, but if you wouldn’t use the card to spend on those categories, maybe you would prefer the Aviator’s $25 wifi credit.
Citi also doesn’t currently have a mid-tier card. This might change eventually, but for now Aviator Red cardholders could upgrade to the $199-fee Aviator Silver to hold onto those mid-tier benefits during the transition to Citi. The Silver offers 3x miles on AA purchases and 2x on hotels and car rentals. It comes with a $50 annual wifi credit and a $25 per day credit toward in-flight food and beverage purchases. Heavy spenders can earn a companion certificate good for two additional domestic economy tickets for $99 each plus taxes and fees, as well as 5,000 Loyalty Points after spending $20,000 in a card membership year.
Conclusion
Picking up two co-branded AA cards has long been one of the easiest ways to collect a lot of frequent flyer miles very quickly, and some of the most valuable miles in the world no less. If you’d like to take advantage of that opportunity, time is running out to do so.