Woot: American AAdvantage Added As Citi ThankYou Transfer Partner!

Bummer they aren't keeping Accor @ 1:1 !

Is it possible to transfer Aadvantage miles to Citi thank you points ?

@ D3SWI33 -- Unfortunately not, transfers only work in one direction.

@ vic -- Heh, yep, sadly I think that would be too good to be true.

I just tried but got an error message.

With the increased fees for Chase Sapphire Reserve (new numbers just don't work for me anymore) planned to move a great deal of my credit card activity from Chase to Citi and Wells Fargo (3X on cruise fare). This change - CITI Thank You to AAdvantage makes the path much more clear!

I fly economy when the Premium Econ and Business awards are dynamically not worth it. American regularly has solid availability from US east coast to Europe in Economy under 30K with fees often less than $10.

Thanks for reporting on this Ben.

@ CDKing -- Since this appears to be brand new, maybe give it a few hours or a day, and it will likely work. Like I said, I had luck just making a transfer, but it's possible that some maintenance is still being performed.

I used to consider Citi ThankYou points less valuable than either Chase or AmEx points. This changes everything. I now consider ThankYou points to be the most valuable, at least for the time being. Until AA devalues its program, that is.

Be ready to have your 57,500 miles to Europe be starting at 97,500 now.

Devaluation incoming.

Selfishly, it is not good news for us who have sizable AA miles from having a Bask AA mile earning account. Now we have to compete with a lot more people for the same number of award seats.

Some people said the same thing about you.

Selfishly, it is not good news for us who have sizable AA miles from flying. Now we have to compete with a lot more people with Bask AA mile earning account for the same number of award seats.

Hi Ben - Does this only apply to Citi in the US, or will it likely roll out to other countries where Citi has a retail credit card offering?

@ RA -- So far it only applies to the US market, and frankly, I'd be surprised if extends to other markets.

Big changes for Citi Double cash too- Qantas, Cathy, Eva, etc all transfer partners. not AA though.

This is not a good day. The end of the walled garden has made me completely rethink whether or not to keep the Citi Exec card and play in the AA loyalty system. This is a very big devaluation.

The cheapest I see for this year JFK-LHR in business is 70k in August, then generally 100k and up until February, when you start to see 65k dates. Pretty brutal. I suppose there are still a number of BA 57.5k if you are willing to pay the even more brutal surcharges. LHR-JFK one way pricing out at $846! OMG.

I built a small bank (~300k) of TY points in anticipation of this, but I guess I didn't build enough of one based on the values I'm seeing.

For those of us who a) read your blog and b) saw this coming over the last few months, we knew where this was going. But the values that I was able to book with AA even earlier this year have now completely evaporated. Hopefully this lands at something that looks more like United's program versus Delta's, but the value is gone, and AA is certainly not "premium enough" yet to justify the loss in value.

And that is the end of the AA partner chart.

You don't make sense.

If you already see "Pretty brutal" or "even earlier this year have now completely evaporated" before this transfer opportunity then the devaluation has nothing to do with Citi.

i love the cries of "deval!!!!!" so that ordinary people can transfer 100k points or whatever but when gary leff psychotically bought 30M AA miles there was no devaluation? make it make sense please

If you do a flight to mainland Europe through LHR, a lot of them are 57.5k. I think it’s because there is an added BA flight so it codes as a partner award. It doesn’t have the crazy taxes and fees though.

Sure and firing Colbert had nothing to do with a merger getting approved one week later. It’s not that hard to link two things that happen at slightly different times.

It has some taxes and fees (just did this exact thing for a flight I took last week - $70 or so in fees versus $5.60) but much more reasonable. You may have to transfer airports over to LCY (although I think this is a feature not a bug if you can build in a 24 hour stopover in London). But agree still value to be had there versus to and from LHR. Doesn’t help, however, when you actually want to go to London.

If the prices which Citi purchases miles from AA is high enough, there is no reason for AA to kill the cash cow by devaluing AAdvantage, especially AA desperate for cash now.

It's interesting how Ben basically whispers the message in the room, devaluation, which we know is now coming. In fact, it confirms the viability of this to AA. So AA will become a program like any other and with a subpar product offering to boot.

Rest In Peace
AAdvantage
1981-2025

I mean… if you just have carry on, you can get off. Just don’t do it frequently.

Not my style. Especially not traveling with the family.

That said I actually enjoy the BA city flyer business service. The food is hot and good, there is champagne, and if you sit in the first row on the right side (row 2) you get unlimited legroom.

I hope the devaluation won't be too bad. None of my friends who are into cc points have significant citi ty balances. We all have way more amex and chase points due to spend and sub churn.

Oneworld is my preferred alliance, but I shifted from AAdvantage to QR Privilege Club when AA modified their loyalty program. The path to PP had become too costly. I was fortunate to burn those miles on a few JL J flights, and an F flight from JFK. There has been a dearth of JL award flights with AA since. The transferability within the Avios sub-alliance has me thinking I made the right move.

Bye bye saaver tpac JL awards, I never got to know ye.

I love the folks who think these gigantic corporations just have no savvy or foresight when it comes to their own loyalty programs. Y'all think AA is going to get blindsided by a flurry of JL F cabin redemptions and decide to deval? They know exactly what they're doing and they've had a long-term strategy since before you gave it a second thought. It's not 2007 anymore. Earn and burn. Be flexible. Adapt or die. If the hobby doesn't work for you like it used to, well that's life, kids.

It would be interesting to see the total outstanding points in each program. I think your intuition that Citi is way less than the other two is correct, but who knows.

AA was due for an inevitable devaluation. This will only accelerate it

As a long-time Citi Prestige cardholder with a bunch o' Thank You points, I welcome this transfer option as AAdvantage points have been by far my most valuable redemptions this year. But if everybody is somebody, nobody is anybody, and I fear our goose is cooked.

Totally understood now why the .10 Rewards+ transfer bonus was nerfed

We see now a split in the transfer ratio for cards like custom/double cash versus the Strata cards (with a fee). This sounds strange compared to the ability to convert cashback from custom/double cash to Thank You Points with a Strata card and then transfer with the better ratio?!
Please check/explain.

nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo. Why why why why why???

Glad I used up all the miles bought years ago during a promotion that gave 240 aadvantage miles per dollar donated to some charity. Bought over a million miles for something like 5k

And goodbye beloved redemption for qatar or etihad for one way us/india business class awards at 70k miles (110 for first if unicorn available)

Transfer and burn burn burn. Devaluation incoming