Citi® / AAdvantage® Executive World Elite Mastercard® (Citi AA Exe) Review
2022.10 Update: The new offer is 85k.
Contents
Application Link
Benefits
- 85k Offer: earn 85,000 AA Miles after spending $6,500 in first 3 months. The highest offer in the past few years was 100k, but we don’t know if that offer will be available in the near future.
- We value AA Miles at 1.5 cents/point (Airline Miles Value), so the 85k sign-up bonus is worth about $1,275! See A Beginner’s Guide to AA Miles to check for details about AA Miles.
- Earn 2 AA miles per $1 spent on American Airlines, 1 AA mile per $1 on other purchases.
- Complimentary Admirals Club membership ($500/year for purchase), which allows cardholder and two guests to enter Admirals Club for free.
- First checked bag free on domestic American Airlines flights for cardholder and up to eight companions.
- Priority check-in, screening and boarding when traveling on domestic American Airlines flights.
- 25% savings on eligible in–flight AA purchases using this card.
- Earn 10,000 Elite Qualifying Miles (EQM) after spending $40,000 in each calendar year.
- No foreign transaction fee.
- Free to add authorized users, up to 10. Authorized users have complimentary access to Admirals Club, and can also bring two guests for free!
Disadvantages
- $450 annual fee, NOT waived for the first year. Note that annual fee does not count towards the minimum spending requirement (and this is true for all credit cards)!
Recommended Application Time
- [8/65 Rule] You can apply for at most 1 Citi cards every 8 days, and at most 2 Citi cards every 65 days, no matter approved or not.
- [Updated] [1/48 Rule] The welcome bonus is not available if you have received a new account bonus for this card in the past 48 months.
- Citi values the number of recent hard pulls a lot, we recommend you apply when there’s less than 6 hard pulls in the past 6 months.
- We recommend you apply for this card after you have a credit history of at least one year.
Summary
Note that you can only get ONE sign-up bonus among the Citi AA cards in 24 months. Although the sign-up bonus is the highest among the Citi AA cards, its first year annual fee $450 is not waived. So we recommend Citi AA Platinum instead of this card.
Related Credit Cards
- Citi AAdvantage MileUp
- Citi AAdvantage Platinum
- Citi AAdvantage Executive (this post)
- CitiBusiness AAdvantage Platinum
- Barclaycard AAdvantage Aviator Red
- Barclaycard AAdvantage Aviator Business
Recommended Downgrade Options
After Applying
- Call 888-201-4523 to check Citi application status.
- Citi reconsideration backdoor number: 605-331-1698. This is a so called “Citi EO” (Executive Office) phone number. This phone number is not designed to make reconsiderations, but the representatives are really helpful.