American Credit Card Loyalty Points Cutoff For Spending In February

American AAdvantage awards elite status based on the Loyalty Points system, meaning it’s possible to earn elite status with credit card spending. American doesn’t follow the calendar year for its elite status program, or for earning Loyalty Point Rewards.

With the end of the elite year coming up soon, I know some people get confused about how spending counts toward Loyalty Points during that transition period between elite years, so I’d like to cover those details in this post.

How February credit card spending accrues Loyalty Points

The AAdvantage elite status qualification year doesn’t follow the traditional calendar year, but rather runs from the beginning of March of one year until the end of February of the following year (in this year’s case, from March 1, 2025, until February 28, 2026).

Understandably, one important question is when the cutoff is for credit card spending counting toward earning Loyalty Points for a particular elite year. Does all credit card spending through the end of February count toward status for the 2025-2026 program year? Or is it based on your credit card statement closing date?

It’s a good question, because typically Loyalty Points post based on when your credit card statement closes, rather than based on when you actually complete spending. However, for the period around when the program transitions between years, there’s an exception, which is worth being aware of.

All credit card spending that posts to your account before the end of February counts toward the current elite qualification year, so credit card statement closing dates don’t factor into this. Just make sure that the charge has fully posted to your account (and isn’t just “pending”) prior to the end of the month.

Meanwhile as you’d expect, credit card spending that posts to your account starting in March will count toward the following elite qualification year. It’s worth noting that Loyalty Points earned for billing cycles closing in March may take longer to post than usual, because of the unique ways that rewards are broken up during that period.

This same policy applies across American’s co-branded credit cards, whether you’re using a personal card like the Citi® / AAdvantage® Executive World Elite Mastercard® (review) or Citi® / AAdvantage® Globe™ Mastercard® (review), or a business card like the Citi® / AAdvantage Business™ World Elite Mastercard® (review).

Loyalty Points bonuses are also per membership year

Just as a reminder, two co-branded Citi AAdvantage cards also offer annual Loyalty Points bonuses, unrelated to card spending:

• For the Citi® / AAdvantage® Executive World Elite Mastercard®, you can earn up to 20,000 bonus Loyalty Points per year without any spending requirement — earn 10,000 bonus Loyalty Points after reaching 50,000 Loyalty Points in a status qualification year, and earn another 10,000 bonus Loyalty Points after reaching 90,000 Loyalty Points in the same status qualification year
• For the Citi® / AAdvantage® Globe™ Mastercard®, you can earn up to 15,000 bonus Loyalty Points per year without any spending requirement — earn 5,000 bonus Loyalty Points after every four qualifying American flights, and you can take advantage of that up to three times per year

These rewards are based on the elite membership year as well, meaning eligibility for these resets on March 1 of every year.

Bottom line

With spending on American’s co-branded credit cards counting toward elite status, I know many people are trying to do the math on how many Loyalty Points they need to rack up before the end of the current status year.

Unlike other months, American counts all spending that hits the account before the end of February toward status for the current year, and all spending as of March 1 toward the following year. So for this of the year, it’s not the account close date that matters, but just when the spending hits the account.

How’s your American credit card spending looking for February? 😉