Citi® / AAdvantage® Executive World Elite Mastercard® Review (2023.7 Update: 100k Offer)

2023.7 Update: The new offer is 100k. There are also a lot of changes:

• Annual fee is increased from $450 to $595.
• Earn 4x AA Miles on AA (2x before). Earn 5x on AA after spending $150,000 in a calendar year. Earn 10 AA miles for every $1 spent on eligible hotels booked through aa.com/hotels and on eligible car rentals booked through aa.com/cars.
• Earn 1 Loyalty Point for every 1 eligible AAdvantage® mile earned from purchases.
• Loyalty Points Bonuses: Earn a 10,000 Loyalty Points bonus after reaching 50,000 Loyalty Points in a status qualification year. Earn another 10,000 Loyalty Points bonus after reaching 90,000 Loyalty Points in the same status qualification year.
• Coupon Book:
  • $120 Avis/Budget credit per calendar year
  • $120 Grubhub credit: $10 per monthly billing statement
  • $120 Lyft credit: $10 Lyft credit after 3 taking 3 eligible rides in a calendar month
• Added Trip Cancellation/Interruption, Trip Delay, Lost Baggage, Car Rental Insurance.

The coupon book sucks, especially those small credit paid by month. What’s especially annoying and ridiculous is some are issued per calendar month and some are per billing statement!

2022.10 Update: The new offer is 85k.

Application Link

Benefits

1. 100k Offer: earn 100,000 AA Miles after spending $10,000 in first 3 months. This is the best offer on this card.
2. We value AA Miles at 1.5 cents/point (Airline Miles Value), so the 100k sign-up bonus is worth about $1,500! See A Beginner’s Guide to AA Miles to check for details about AA Miles.
3. Earn 4 AA miles per $1 spent on American Airlines, 1 AA mile per $1 on other purchases. Earn 5x on AA after spending $150,000 in a calendar year. Earn 10 AA miles for every $1 spent on eligible hotels booked through aa.com/hotels and on eligible car rentals booked through aa.com/cars.
4. Complimentary Admirals Club membership ($500/year for purchase), which allows cardholder and two guests to enter Admirals Club for free.
5. [New] Coupon Book:
   • $120 Avis/Budget credit per calendar year
   • $120 Grubhub credit: $10 per monthly billing statement
   • $120 Lyft credit: $10 Lyft credit after 3 taking 3 eligible rides in a calendar month
6. [New] Earn 1 Loyalty Point for every 1 eligible AAdvantage® mile earned from purchases.
7. [New] Loyalty Points Bonuses: Earn a 10,000 Loyalty Points bonus after reaching 50,000 Loyalty Points in a status qualification year. Earn another 10,000 Loyalty Points bonus after reaching 90,000 Loyalty Points in the same status qualification year.
8. First checked bag free on domestic American Airlines flights for cardholder and up to eight companions.
9. Priority check-in, screening and boarding when traveling on domestic American Airlines flights.
10. 25% savings on eligible in–flight AA purchases using this card.
11. Earn 10,000 Elite Qualifying Miles (EQM) after spending $40,000 in each calendar year.
12. No foreign transaction fee.
13. 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

1. $595 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

1. [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.
2. [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.
3. 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.
4. 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 high annual fee is not waived. So we recommend Citi AA Platinum instead of this card.

Related Credit Cards

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.

Historical Offers Chart

Application Link

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