citi aadvantage american express card review

If you apply for citi aadvantage card from American Airlines, you may have noticed that there is a non Visa-version. It’s officially called the Citi Select AAdvantage American Express.
Now most people generally think of AmEx as being cream of the crop. I’m not here to say my opinion one way or another on that, but the fact is this card is not issued by American Express. It merely operates over their payment network, that’s all.
The issuer of this card is still Citibank, who is also the issuer of the other AAdvantage cards.
So that brings us to the question… which one should you choose? Well compare and review them side-by-side… I think the choice is obvious.

	Citi® / AAdvantage® American Express® Card	Citi® Gold / AAdvantage® Visa Signature® Card	Citi® Platinum Select® / AAdvantage® Visa Signature® Card
Type	AmEx	Visa Signature	Visa Signature
Annual Fee	$50	$50	$95
Get no blackout dates on award travel	Yes	Yes	Yes
25% savings on eligible in-flight purchases	Yes	Yes	Yes
Chip and PIN (Signature) technology	No	Yes	Yes
Free First Checked Bag	No	No	Yes
Priority Boarding	No	No	Yes
Earn 10% of your redeemed miles back (up to 10k annually)	No	No	Yes

So basically, the AAdvantage American Express card is on par with the Gold Visa Signature. Both have a $50 annual fee and most of their benefits are the same.
The most noticeable difference between the two is that the Visa version has EMV chip and signature technology. Meanwhile the AmEx does not.
If Visa & AmEx are almost the same, why do they have both?
This is a question I get asked a lot about credit cards. You will often see banks with a card that’s available as both a Visa and MasterCard, or in this instance, a Visa and American Express.
While I don’t know specifically why Citibank offers an American Airlines AmEx, my guess is that it stems from the various antitrust settlements over the past few years.
You see previously, the major banks would only issue one type of card. To make a long story short, after various lawsuits and settlements, they agreed to each offer cards for the 3 biggest payment networks (Visa/MC/AmEx).
This is why you see Bank of America offering AmEx on a couple cards, which is quite ironic because BofA was actually the inventor of Visa!
The Winner of the 3 versions is…
… definitely the Platinum Visa. There are 3 major reasons why it’s the obvious choice:
1. First checked bag is free
You get this for yourself as well as up to four other passengers if they’re traveling under your same reservation. The AmEx and Visa Gold versions do not include this perk.
Given that just one checked bag normally costs $25 one way – $50 round trip – even if you just use this benefit once per year, it makes the extra $45 for the annual fee worth it.
2. Priority boarding privileges
You only get this on the Platinum. It allows you (and up to 4 people traveling under your same reservation) priority boarding with group 1 privileges on all American Airlines flights.
3. Better rewards
There are several aspects of the AAdvantage Platinum that are superior to the other two versions:
Double AAdvantage miles on American Airlines purchases.
Get 10% of your redeemed miles back – up to 10,000 miles per calendar year.
$100 flight discount awarded each year you make at least $30k in purchases and renew your card.