The Citi AAdvantage MileUp℠ Card could be a good fit if you want to earn American Airlines miles, but don’t want to pay an annual fee. New cardmembers can earn 10,000 American Airlines miles after meeting the minimum spending requirements, but the card doesn’t offer popular benefits like free checked bags or priority boarding.

Frequent American Airlines flyers will better value with the Citi® / AAdvantage® Platinum Select® card. While it has a $99 annual fee, it offers a 75,000 mile sign-up bonus and has the perks most travelers want. Plus the annual fee is waived for the first year so you can try it out risk free. Then at the end of the first year, you can decide whether to keep it or downgrade to the MileUp card.

Who is this card for?

This card is a good fit for people who live near an American Airlines hub and are new to the miles game. It’s a simple way to dip your toes in the water without committing to an annual fee.

A Path to Elite Status

When American Airlines revamped their loyalty program in 2022, they tied earning elite status more to spending than actually flying. In fact, elite status, and the perks associated with it, can be achieved without flying at all. Spending on an American Airlines credit cards and with the airlines’ partners is all that’s needed to earn status.

You earn 1 Loyalty Point per dollar spent on AAdvantage credit cards and can also earn huge amounts of Loyalty Points via the AAdvantage eShopping portal, from personalized SimplyMiles offers, dining out through the AAdvantage Dining program, and spending through several other partners. Even better, you can double or triple dip to earn tons of Loyalty Points on the same purchase.

Example: Let’s say you purchased something from Lululemon for $150. You’d earn 150 Loyalty Points from using your MileUp card to make the purchase. In addition, if you navigated to Lululemon’s website via American’s shopping portal, you could earn anywhere from 1 to 10 Loyalty Points per dollar spent (the bonus amount fluctuates day to day). If you time it right, and earned 10 points per dollar spent, that would give you another 1,500 Loyalty Points. Finally, if SimplyMiles happened to have a Lululemon offer and you added it to your card before making the purchase, you’d get whatever amount of Loyalty Points were tied to that offer. So that’s a triple dip — three ways to earn Loyalty Points all on one purchase!

Achieving 40,000 Loyalty Points would earn you Gold Elite Status, which includes perks such as priority boarding, a free checked bag, complimentary preferred seats at booking and complimentary access to Main Cabin Extra Seats at check-in, if available.

You can apply for the Citi AAdvantage MileUp℠ Card here.

Card Features

Bonus Offer

You’ll earn 10,000 miles and a $50 statement credit after you spend $500 on purchases in the first three months.

Annual Fee

This card has no annual fee.

Earning Rates

The Citi AAdvantage MileUp℠ Card earns:

• 2 miles per $1 spent on purchases from American Airlines
• 2 miles per $1 spent at grocery stores
• 1 mile per $1 on all other spending

The earning rates are nothing special, but they are basically in line with other no annual fee airline cards.

Redeeming Miles

American Airlines makes it very easy to redeem miles on their website. Plus, you can use them to book travel on OneWorld partners, like British Airways, Air Berlin, Iberia, Japan Airlines and more.

The sign-up bonus of 10,000 miles isn’t much, but it could be enough for a free flight. At the MileSAAver award level, you can snag a one-way flight that’s less than 500 miles long using only 7,500 miles.

Card Benefits

With this being a free card, the other benefits are pretty weak. If you’re looking for perks like free checked bags or priority boarding, the Citi AAdvantage Platinum Select card offers those and more.

25% back on In-flight Purchases

When you use your card to pay for food and beverages onboard American-operated flights, you’ll get 25% back as a statement credit. This doesn’t include Wi-Fi.

Citi Merchant Offers

Citi Merchant Offers is a free cash-back program for targeted Citi credit cardholders. It saves you money on shopping, dining and more. You choose offers from brands you love and get cash back in the form of statement credits.

To redeem an offer, simply select the offer you want to add to your card by clicking the “See Details” link. Then, click “Add Offer” to enroll your selected Citi card in the offer.

Warning: Make sure to review the requirements and restrictions listed on each offer so you know what is needed to trigger the cash back.

Finally use your card to pay and within a few days, the cash back will be applied to your credit card as a statement credit.

Who should look for another card?

If you’re considering the Citi AAdvantage MileUp card, I strongly encourage applying for the Citi AAdvantage Platinum Select card instead. While it does have a $99 annual fee, there are a bunch of notable perks that the MileUp lacks. That includes the first checked bag free (for you and up to four companions), no foreign transaction fees, and a $125 American Airlines flight discount after you spend $20,000 on the card per cardmember year and renew the card.

A checked bag typically costs $30, so checking four bags will more than make up for the card’s annual fee after just one trip. Plus you have a year to try the card before the first annual free posts. If it didn’t meet your needs, you can always downgrade to the MileUp card but you’ll keep the 75,000 mile sign-up bonus!

If you like the idea of this card but fly other airlines more often, look at Delta’s no annual fee Blue SkyMiles card or United’s no annual fee Gateway card.

Bottom Line

The lack of an annual fee makes this card perfect for those who don’t travel enough to justify paying one. While the card’s everyday spending rates aren’t great, the 2x miles for groceries can be somewhat useful. Even if the MileUp card is the card you eventually want to own, I still recommend starting with the Citi® / AAdvantage® Platinum Select® card and downgrading after a year. If you can meet the minimum spending requirements, earning 75,000 bonus miles will get you much further than the 10,000 welcome bonus on the MileUp card.

Apply here for the Citi AAdvantage MileUp℠ Card.