Questions and Answers

Dear Gaurav,
I have just seen your comment to another reader’s question regarding AA miles. You said:[I] “In addition consider getting the SPG card which can transfer points to the AAdvantage program at a rate of 20,000 SPG points to 25,000 AA miles when you transfer in increments of 20,000. This is also a better fit for earning AA miles for daily spend since you end up earning 1.25 AA miles instead of 1mile on the Citi AA card.”[/I]
Since I primarily collect AA points from AAdvantage and cc shopping and points buying, I am a bit hesitant to get a Citi Thank you card because of the transfer times of points (if the reservation cannot be held for several days on those other airlines.)
Is there a similar or better credit card with regards to point transfer to AAdvantage account? Also, what has been historically the best signup bonus for the SPG card?
Thanking you.

Have you exhausted all the Citi AA card options? There are several.

SPG is the only transferable points currency that can transfer to AA so the SPG cards (personal & biz) is probably the best for everyday spend if your goal is solely AA miles. Standard bonus is 25k, but once a year they up it to 30k. Most recently, they upped it to 35k but we dont know if/when that is coming back. At some point Citi might add AA as a transfer partner with their ThankYou points program but there isnt a guarantee.

Aside from that, buying points from AA is your best bet. Personally, I think the best deal is when they’re offering a 115k bonus when you buy 150k miles but that doesnt happen all that often. Make sure you buy with an AA card since purchases are processed by AA directly, earning you 2x points on the purchase.

Is there a specific airline you’d be looking to fly using AA miles? Alaska Airlines’s program is also pretty good and work with several OW partners like AA, BA, CX, QF and soon, JL. AS also allows stopovers and they frequently have purchase points promos. If you wanted to fly EY, their own program isnt [I]horrible[/I] for a redemption. Furthermore, you can transfer points from Citi TY and Amex MR. MR has a current transfer bonus as well, when transferring to EY.

Dear David,
Thank you for your quick reply. Yes, I have bought AA points before, ALWAYS with my AA card to get the double AA points. Sometimes when we have trips planned, I buy those miles not just for myself and my wife, but for our son as well. The good thing with AA that you can redeem your points for tickets for others, not just family members. I also like the max 10k award mile “refund” per year when redeeming miles. Plus up until this year, they also gave the $100 AA travel certificate.
As for your question about which airlines I tend to use: to Europe I use Airberlin, Finnair, AA/BA, to Asia I use Cathay Pacific. I have pretty much cleaned out all our AA accounts before the devaluation, so all my trips until March 2017 are ticketed. Thanks again.

In your case, a little diversity might work. If you get your hands on Chase UR, CitiTY and/or Amex MR points, those can transfer to other airline programs that lets you redeem for trips to Europe and Asia. AirFrance (SkyTeam), United, Aeroplan (both Star Alliance) come to mind for redemptions. Avianca LifeMiles also offers discount/bonus opportunities to purchase miles several times a year, which lets you access Star Alliance awards.

[USER=1592]@Daniel B[/USER] Thank You points do not transfer to AA. Instead, you can use TY points to buy revenue AA tickets. The rate is better on AA flights (each point is worth 1.6 cents on AA vs. 1.33 cents on other airlines) which is why some folks prefer to use the points in this way.

Lucky wrote a post about this almost a year ago but I think it’s still relevant:
[URL]http://onemileatatime.boardingarea.com/2015/07/06/redeeming-citi-thankyou-points-for-travel-on-american/[/URL]

Thank you to both of you for the details. I will certainly go through your recommendations in details and will figure what would be the best way to “diversify”. Thank you again.

Sorry I couldn’t get to this sooner but looks like you’re well taken care of 🙂