Frequent Miler on the Air - Barclays AA cards: planning the transition to Citi | Coffee Break Ep91 | 2-3-26

Episode Date: February 3, 2026

If you have an American Airlines card issued by Barclays, it won't be a Barclays card for much longer, as AA cards will transition to Citi instead. So what does that mean for you? We'll answer some common questions about this transition in today's podcast episode.Barclays AA cards: planning the transition to CitiRead more about the Barclays to Citi transition here.(01:03) - April 24, 2026, the bank that issues your AAdvantage® credit card is changing from Barclays Bank Delaware to Citibank, N.A. (Citi)(02:15) - $99 cards(02:45) - Silver to GlobeSee our episode about the Globe card here.(03:24) - Barclays vs Citi Companion Certs(11:45) - Should we cancel our Barclays cards before the changeover?(16:38) - Disadvantages to cancelling BEFORE(23:07) - Should we apply for Citi AA cards before the changeover?(24:25) - What are Nick and Greg going to do?Visit https://frequentmiler.com/subscribe to get updated on in-depth points and miles content like this, and don’t forget to like and follow us on social media.Music Credit – Beach Walk by Unicorn HeadsMentioned in this episode:Check out this month's sponsor and support our showJoin the loyalty program for renters at joinbilt.com/mileshttps://joinbilt.com/miles

This is a Voyescape podcast. You can find all of our travel podcasts from around the world atvoyescape.com. Welcome to Freakimilers Coffee Break, where we focus on a single topic related to miles and points. And each coffee break is limited to 20 minutes or less for your money back. Barclays American Airlines Cards planning the transition to Citibank. If you have an American Airlines card issued by Barclays, it's not going to be. be a Barclays card much longer. They're planning to transition all of those cards to Citibank so that AA will only have one card issuer in the United States, and that is City. And in today's coffee break, we're going to talk about the ins and outs of what's happening and how you should

maybe play that transition. Should you be looking to cancel your card now? Should you be looking to pick up in American Airlines card from City now before the transition? These are questions we're getting and we're hoping the answer is best we can. Yeah, and if you're listening to this, you're making the right move because I think that the wrong move would be to have a knee-jerk reaction to the announcement because there's a lot of complexity. It's not simple, so you really need to sit and think through it a little bit. But let's cover the basics first. On April 24th of 26, Barkley's American Airlines cards will become city American Airlines cards. So you can keep using your existing card after April 24th, but it's going to become a city card and they're going

to send you a city version of the card beginning on April 27th and sometime within the next six to eight weeks after that. So expect to see a city AAA card in the mail. And some basics that we know include that your anniversary date's going to stay the same. If your account has an annual fee, your annual fee will be assessed on or after your next anniversary date, though we don't know exactly what that's going to look like more on that in a few minutes. Your existing credit line is expected to stay the same, although, of course, it may go up or down over time with City, as City does what City does. And, and more importantly, than anything else, you can keep enjoying some of the legacy benefits of the Barclays cards. You're going to maintain some of the legacy Barclays

benefits for some limited period of time. And we don't know exactly how long that's going to be yet, but that's going to create the opportunity to potentially stack and double up on some benefits. Yeah, yep. And let's talk a few specifics now. We think that most of our listeners, if they have Barclays, American Airlines card at all, most likely either have the Aviator Red or the Aviator Silver card. And so we'll talk mostly about those. The Aviator Red card from Barclays is a $99 annual fee card, it's going to transition to the Advantage Platinum Select card, which is also a $99 card. So that's no surprise there at all. If you asked us beforehand, what's the transition path going to be? It was really obvious. Maybe a little bit less obvious. The Aviator Silver, which is a $199 card, is going to transition to the Advantage Globe card, which is a $350 card. Now, we did do a show about the Globe card where we pointed out that even though the benefits are not the same, if you look at them at a very high level,

they do match benefits, sort of one for one, from the silver to the globe. So it makes sense. I'm not surprised that that's the transition path. But there you go. We now know that for sure. Very good. All right. So let's talk about what's going to change as you make this transition or what's going to get added. So the Advantage Aviator Red card already earns 2x on American Airlines and you'll continue that. but you're going to gain a couple of bonus categories. You'll get 2x gas and dining when the transition happens. So that's a nice little addition there. You're also going to gain a $125 American Airlines flight discount after you spend $20,000 in a membership year.

So that, again, could add something to it because importantly, you're going to keep, at least for the time being, for some amount of time, the $99 plus tax companion certificate after $20,000 in membership year. spend. So we think you're going to be able to stack those two things, right? Yeah. I mean, theoretically, it should be possible to spend $20,000 within your membership year. That part's important and get both the $125 flight discount and the companion certificate. But, you know, we don't know exactly how that's going to be implemented. Like, we'll spend that happened before the changeover count towards the, it'll certainly count. It'll certainly count. towards the companion certificate because that was a Barclays, you know, thing. But will it count towards the $125 AA flight discount? Or will you have to spend $20,000 while it's a city card in order

to get that? We just don't know at this point. But theoretically, it should be possible to time everything and get both from that 20K spend. Very good. And so that, I mean, that's potentially anyway, you're getting a little bit more. A couple of extra bonus categories and potentially the opportunity to get both of those two things. And moving forward, we don't know when the Barclays cards are going to lose legacy benefits like that companion certificate. It says that you're going to keep that until they announce that you won't keep that. And so they haven't announced that yet. And in fact, they announced that they're going to announce it, but haven't announced it. So very city of them. Yeah. They'll probably announce it once you've spent. that $19,995. Oh, but our assumption is they'll give some head. They'll probably give card holders a good amount of lead time. So I don't think they're going to pull the rug out on that. If you've already spent the $20,000, you should get that.

It's just a question of whether the $20,000 you've already spent will also count towards the flight discount. Now, if you haven't spent $20 yet, then maybe wait until after the transition and spend your 20 if you can, if you have the ability to do that and spend your 20 all at once. And then I think that probably you will get both at next anniversary. Yeah. But do pay attention to when your anniversary date is because, let's say it's soon after the transition, then that means you don't have much time to spend the $20,000 before your next anniversary.

Of course, you could do the $20,000 after your anniversary. But then we don't know if the, again, if the overlapping benefits will last until you're done with that spend. But we'll see. All right, let's get into now. So that was the $100-ish cards. Let's get into the more expensive cards, the silver and the globe. So if you have the silver card, you have some benefits that the globe card doesn't have. Like you get 2x earnings for hotel and car rentals.

You get a $25 per day in-flight food and beverage credit. There's a companion certificate and a 15K loyalty bonus. up to 15K loyalty bonus, that the Globe card has things that sound the same as this, but the details are different. So with the Silver Card, the $99 companion certificate is good for two guests, and that's different from what the Globe offers. But the Silver Card requires spending $20,000 in your membership year to get that. The Globe Card, their $99 Companion Certificate, which is only for one guest, is upon account renewal.

We think that after the transition, you should get, we think that if your card, we think that when your card renews after the transition, you'll get the city version of the companion's certificate with just the one companion. But you'll get that automatically without spend. But we think you'll also be able to get the two companion one with the $20,000 spend. Okay. Now the loyalty bonus points with the Aviator Silver card, the Barclays version, you get loyalty points based on how much spend you've done within the elite qualifying year, which is like March 1st to end of February. And you can get up to $15,000 bonus points with $50,000 spend because you're getting increments of that as you make your way up. That's very different from how the Globe card does it. The Globe card requires, flying to get the bonus loyalty points. So the Globe card, you earn 5,000 bonus loyalty points after every four qualifying American Airlines flights for up to 15,000 total each status qualifying year. So theoretically, not even theory, from what they've said in the emails, it should

be possible to earn both sets of loyalty points, and that way, you know, you can accelerate your elite earnings. Okay. Now, the other thing that you get is the benefits of the globe card that are unique to the globe card that the silver card doesn't have at all. So things like you'll get 6x for spend at American Airlines hotels. So if you're booking hotels through American Airlines, not only do you earn loyalty points and loyalty points based on whatever the offer is for that hotel, but you also get six points per dollar. for that spend, which is very good. You get 2x earnings at restaurants.

You get four Admirals Club passes each year, and you get $100 statement credit for in-flight purchases. Now, the silver card also has as a $25 per day in-flight food and beverage credit, so there should be maybe a possibility if you spend a lot in flight. I'm not sure how you'd spend that much, but you might be able to stack those things. And you get the new up to $100 splurge credit per calendar year with the globe card. And you can choose from up to two splurge credit deals. One is Advantage hotels bookings.

First dibs is another one. Future personal training is another. And Live Nation is another one. So let me just mention the Advantage hotels, first of all. So if you're going to book hotels, the Globe card becomes very rewarding. if you're going to book them through American Airlines, because you're getting whatever American Airlines is offering in terms of points right off the bat.

And so they tend to have deals. Like you're going to book a hotel, and it'll say you'll earn 2,000 American Airlines miles or whatever, 4,000 for this stay. That's on top of 6x you'll get from spending with this card and the $100 back if you pick that as one of your splurge options. So that can be a really really. good deal. And then you also get up to $240 in annual Turo credits, which is limited, though, to $30 per

per Turo rental. So not super excited about that one, but if you are a Turo fan, that's definitely better than nothing. Regular listeners know that we love transferable points. And Bilt has a terrific set of transfer partners, Hyatt, United Airlines, Alaska Airlines, Air Canada, Air France, and many more. You can earn Bilt points paying rent and at restaurants, fitness studios, pharmacies, online shopping, and more. And now, starting in February, built members can earn points on mortgage payments too. Join the loyalty program for renters at joinbuilt.com slash miles. That's j-o-in-b-l-t.com slash miles. Make sure to use our URL so they know that we sent you. And if you're not familiar, Turro is like the Airbnb of

cars. People put their personal vehicles up for rental. There are many people probably. know it, but I bet there's probably a few folks out there who have not heard of Dura yet. So there you have that too. So potentially you're going to get, not even potentially, they're pretty clear that you're going to get the legacy benefits for some period of time and also get the globe benefits right off the bat after the transition. So that sounds like a pretty decent set of benefits between the two. So then I guess like we really have to ask. So what do we do now? Like, I mean, do we keep this and hang on and wait for the transition? Do we cancel?

What are the advantages or disadvantages? How do we play this? Yeah, yeah. First, I mean, for people who are really into American Airlines status and, you know, look at the overlap of the globe and the silver as like, wow, that's going to get me a lot more status points than great. Just keep it and keep using. I think most people, though, are going to be looking at these things saying, yeah, you know, there's a big. it here, but it's not super exciting. And so we're getting a lot of questions from people like, should I cancel my card before the changeover? And so let's talk about that a little bit.

First, let's talk about are there advantages to canceling before the changeover? And are there disadvantages to canceling before the changeover? Yeah. So are there advantages? I mean, I think that it seems like there are some perceived advantages anyway to canceling before the changeover, Probably the biggest advantage, I guess, would be avoiding having too much credit, avoiding having too much credit extended with city because this is going to become a city card. Maybe you already have a few city cards. And you're concerned that if you get another big credit, maybe you have a big aviator silver credit line. And you're concerned that getting that moved over to city might prevent you from getting

another city card in the future. Maybe that would be a reason to consider canceling. But I think a lot of people might be looking at this and saying, well, but if I keep this card, isn't that going to prevent me from getting another city AA card? And that is not necessarily the case. Right. So most of the city American Airlines cards, I think all of the City American Airlines cards have terms that basically say you can't get the bonus for this if you have earned a bonus on this exact same card in the last 48 months. So changing your your silver card to a globe card, for example, should not prevent you from getting a new globe card and a new bonus.

Now, there is another restriction in the terms, which is, it says you're not eligible if you've converted another city credit card account to the globe card, for example, in the past four months, well, I'm sorry, if you've received a new account bonus for a converted city card. So there's a couple things here. One, if you've earned your bonus on your Barclays card more than 48 months ago, then this is irrelevant. Second, the terms don't say if you've converted from a Barclays card. It just says if you've converted a city card in which you've earned a bonus, then it's a problem. So by the strict interpretation of the terms, I don't think the conversion will stop you from being able to get a new account bonus.

That being said, who knows how they actually implement that restriction. And so it's possible that they could implement it such that having earned a bonus from Barclays in the last 48 months would matter. My guess is it won't. I mean, I doubt they'd even, you know, bother to pull in that old data. Right. So while you may initially think that the advantage of canceling now would be to make sure you can get a city AAA card later, our best educated gas is, is that that won't actually matter. You won't actually need to have canceled before the changeover.

You should still be eligible for a city AAA card bonus. Again, that's our best educated guess. Right. And that the bigger deal is what Nick already mentioned, which is that, like, if you had a big credit line with the Barclays card, let's say $30,000 credit line, for example, now after the transition, that $30,000 credit line is with City. and now if you go to apply for a new card, they might look at how much credit they have extended to you and say, no, we're not going to approve you for a new card. I mean, that's always a risk. It's just that this transition is exasperating that by putting more credit into your city accounts. Yeah, and we don't know for sure whether this is going to add to your 524 account. The transition to

city, there's, we suppose some risk that that'll get reported as a new account and add to your 524 account if you're concerned about having more than five new accounts on your credit report that have been open within the last 24 months. That's a potential advantage to canceling now. Now, again, we're not sure. It may very well maintain the account history because of the way this is all going down with City buying the backbook from Barclays. So we don't know that it's going to show up as a new account, but there's some risk that it could. Yeah, there's a possibility. But there are disadvantages to canceling before. For one, you'll lose out on the possibility of stacking the benefits. We talked about how different benefits will stack for some amount of time, and so you'll lose out on that. I think

probably more meaningful to a lot of people is you'll lose out on the opportunity to get more city cards through product changes. So, for example, we've talked sometimes about how the city custom cash is a really nice add-on to your city thank-you points, portfolio. Like if you have the city Premier card, which earns 3x in a number of categories, then having multiple custom cash cards is a nice thing because each one can earn 5x on up to $500 spend in a broad array of categories, as long as you spend only in one of those categories for the month. And so having more expands your 5x earning power nicely. And this is a way what you do is wait until, you know, your next annual fee comes due, ask to product change. And if custom

cash is a possibility, change to that. If it's not changed to something else. And then from that, something else, it might be possible to change to the custom cash. Yeah, every now and then you have to add an extra step and nobody really knows why. But that happens from time to time with different banks, not only with city. Yeah, I mean, I think, I think that is absolutely a play that'll make sense for a lot of people. I think even within my household, I look at the possibility of a double cash. Now, my wife has a double cash, but she didn't get a great credit line on her double cash card, not as good as she has on most of her other cards. And so her aviator silver card after that converts over, maybe I would consider downgrading that to a double cash in order to have a better credit line,

a more usable credit line on the double cash, and then take her existing double cash and maybe convert that to a custom cash. So I think... smart. The exciting thing here is that city does usually allow you to product change amongst all of their things. Whereas other issuers often restrict you to just product changing within a one card family. City allows you usually to product change across their lines. Yeah. Yeah. I really like what Nick just said. Because if you product change to a custom cash, there's not much value in having more than $500 credit limit with the custom cash. Whereas with, with, With double cash, of course, you want big enough for whatever you need.

And so that's a great idea because I think, at least in my examples, it looks like Barclays has historically been more generous in giving me a bigger credit line than City has. And so you should think about what card you want a big credit limit on when you're ready to product change this, assuming you are ever. Finally, another reason that another potential big disadvantage to canceling before the transition has to do with the silver card, which is, you know, the $195 card from Barclays, which is transitioning to the Advantage Globe card, which is a $350 annual fee card. We don't know that city is going to charge you $350 at the next renewal or any future renewal. There was nothing in the transition documents that suggested your annual fee might change. So, I mean, my best guess is that city will actually keep your current annual fee for a while. Yeah. And yeah.

I'm sorry. Yeah. And so anyway, so, you know, we weren't super excited about the Globe card when it came out. But if we were to reevaluate it at 195, I mean, it's much more compelling at that. level, especially while the two cards have, while you have benefits from both cards, then it's especially compelling. Yeah, I mean, even without benefits from both cards, I would be happier with a $195 globe card between the $99 campaign certificate and the $100 splurge credit.

I would probably feel like that's a, a trade I could consider making, particularly if I valued the other stuff, you know, like the, you know, like the, yeah, be able to earn the loyalty points and whatnot with the various other benefits or the 6XA hotels. So, but yeah, I mean, I think that it's, this is such a key point. You know, they provided these documents that showed the new benefits of the new cards and the legacy benefits that you're going to hold on to. And the fact that they didn't mention the annual fee at all. I mean, they mentioned the legacy benefits and they said you're going to hold on to those

until next renewal. But they didn't mention either your old annual fee or your new annual fee or the fact that your annual fee will change. that's a pretty interesting choice. And it's obviously an intentional choice that they made because they produced a bunch of these documents and they left it out on all of them. So it wasn't like they made a mistake somewhere. So, obviously, we don't know because they didn't say that you're going to keep the old annual fee. But boy, it would, it would seem to me, I feel pretty confident. I bet that my next renewal will be at the old annual fee. That's if if I were a betting then, that's where my money would be that at least for the next renewal is probably going to be at the old annual. fee. After that, I mean, all bets are off. Who knows, at some point, I would imagine that they're going to tell us all that our annual fee will go up, but we don't know. So the disadvantage of canceling now is that you won't have the chance for that to be the case. Now, again, we don't know that it'll happen. Maybe everybody's going to renew at 350 and you'll be happy that you got out

sooner rather than later. But I think that it might be worth keeping the card just to see if that's what happens, particularly, obviously, if that's appealing to you. If it's not appealing to you at 195, then maybe it doesn't matter at all. Maybe none of this matters if you're like, ah, I just don't need an American Airlines card anymore. But I know for me, I say, oh, 195, I might keep that. So I might, you know, see what happens. Yeah. You know, it seems like there's so little downside to keeping until the next annual fee is charged to find out what it is, that why not, why not keep it? I think that's for the best advice for most people who are transitioning from the silver card. All right. Another question.

question we get is should we apply for City American Airlines cards before the changeover? And I think the main reason to do that is because you do want to keep the card through the changeover and you think you have a better chance of getting approved if you do the application now, which I think makes sense. So the good news is that at least as we're recording this, Three out of the four city AAC cards have really good offers. Like the $99 platinum card, I mean, it's no annual fee first year and then $99, and it has an 80K offer available after 1K spend in three months. The Globe card has a 90K offer after 5K spend in three months.

The executive card, that's the $595 card that includes lounge membership. That has 100K offer after 10K spend in three months. It's only the business card that doesn't have a particularly exciting offer. What we have right now listed is 65,000 points after 4K spend. I mean, it's not a terrible offer, but we've seen better. Yeah, yeah. So they are some pretty decent offers for the first year, like you said, in three out of four of them. So what are you going to do?

I mean, it sounds to me like you're going to keep the aviator silver. Do you have one in your house? Do you have two? You're going to keep both of them? And what are you going to do about American Airlines? Are you going to apply for a new American Airlines card now? Do you already have them? What's your plan of attack?

Yeah. I have the biz card right now. And I recently had the executive card. So I definitely can't get the welcome bonus because it's been less than 48 months on that one. But I am considering, you know, getting the probably the platinum. I think it's been long enough since I've had that. And since the first year annual fee is zero, you know, there's very little downside to going after that 80,000 points. So that seems that seems great.

And I think if I wasn't eligible for that going after the globe card makes sense as well, I mean, I guess theoretically I could do go after both. But I'll probably just do the one. And yeah, I'm definitely as seemed pretty clear before. I have one silver card in the family and I'm going to keep it and see what happens. if it transitions and the annual fee doesn't go up, I'll call that a win. It's not to me, because I'm not a big AA flyer, it's not a huge win, but it's still a win.

I can get value from it, I think. Very good. Yeah. So I'm definitely going to keep at least one of these. I don't think I'm going to cancel either than proactively. I don't see any advantage, any meaningful advantage for me in canceling either. And like I said, I think my wife's, we will look to downgrade to a double cash. And I may see how soon I can do that. I don't even know whether I'll wait for

a next renewal because I don't know that I need two of these cards in the house really long term. I kept them just to see what happens when it transitions over. So I mean, obviously I will first use the $100 splurge credit after it transitions over. I'll take advantage of those overlapping benefits to get some more money back after the transition on both of them. And then probably downgrade hers. If it renews at 195, I'll probably keep it and do the 20K spend and get the loyalty points and both companion's certificates. I think I can probably get good value out of that. So I intend to probably be keeping it at next renewal unless it becomes 350. If they renew at 350, then I will definitely look to downgrade that to something else. I don't know if I want to downgrade it to a custom

cash because like Greg said, I don't really want to take a good credit line and downgrade that to the custom cash. But we'll see. We'll see where that happens. And by the way, I'm considering trying for a credit limit increase with Barclays on my wife's Aviator Silver card now because I don't know that she'll get one from City later. And so if I could make that line even bigger, I think that that seems desirable. So I think that's what I'm going to do there. Great idea. Do that now. In terms of City, I think I'm going to get a Strata Elite card right now. And I think I'm going to look at a Strata Elite card right now. And I think I'm going to look. look to get the AA platinum select also before the transition. So city application rules allow you to get, what is it, one card, and then you need to wait, I think, eight days before you can get another one, no more than two within 65 days, if I'm remembering the application rolls correctly.

So I think I'm going to go for Strata Elite as we record this and then go for a platinum select sometime before the cards transition, because like you said, it's a good bonus. It only requires a thousand dollars spend. I'm eligible for it. So why not grab one more AAA card while I can? And since the Barclays card is coming over, that may make it harder for me to get another city card down the line. So I might as well grab a couple of them now.

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