| | Supercharge your miles with this card | | by Ben Smithson, Senior writer | |  | When Citi ThankYou Rewards announced American Airlines AAdvantage program as its newest 1:1 transfer partner last year, it completely changed my credit card strategy.
Why? AAdvantage miles are my favorite airline miles to earn and redeem.
Redemptions on American Airlines start from just 6,000 miles plus $5.60 in taxes and fees and American partners with genuinely premium airlines like Japan Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Finnair and Qantas.
Even better, the AAdvantage partner award chart has remained surprisingly affordable in an age of other programs raising rates. Just how good are these partner prices?
How about: - 57,500 miles to Europe in business class
- 60,000 miles to Japan in business class
- 80,000 miles to Australia in business class
Naturally, I want a card that earns a lot of AAdvantage miles, and you might feel the same way after seeing these award prices. Sure, you could get an AAdvantage cobranded card, but that might only earn one mile per dollar spent on non-AA purchases.
Instead, I recommend the Citi Strata Elite℠ Card. New cardholders can earn 75,000 bonus points after spending $6,000 on purchases within the first three months from account opening.
But this card is so much more than a huge welcome bonus. It racks up so many extra ThankYou Rewards points with its generous earnings structure and offers hundreds of dollars of statement credits every year for hotel stays booked through Citi Travel, Blacklane, Global Entry/TSA PreCheck and your choice of 1stDibs, American Airlines, Best Buy, Future Personal Training and Live Nation (exclusions apply).
When you travel, there are four Admirals Club airport lounge passes each calendar year and complimentary Priority Pass access for primary cardmembers and authorized users, and up to two guests.
While I send most of my Citi points to AAdvantage, earning this transferable rewards currency gives me the flexibility to transfer them to other rewards programs, such as JetBlue TrueBlue, Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer, Choice Privileges and Wyndham Rewards.
If you want to supercharge your AAdvantage mileage earning, this is a terrific way to do so.
Want to know more? Check out these resources:
| | | Posts in this newsletter contains references to products from one or more of our advertisers. We may receive compensation when you click on links to those products, and this may impact how or where they appear. For an explanation of our Advertising Policy, visit this page. | | Photo Credit: ZACH GRIFF/THE POINTS GUY. | | | |
