Citi® Platinum Select®/AAdvantage® World MasterCard® 40,000 Miles Promotion

Do you own a Citi Platinum Select®/AAdvantage® World MasterCard®?

I got this card in March 2011 when there was bigger promotion of 50,000 bonus miles (now as a new cardholder, you can still receive 40,000 miles). But immediately after I got the bonus miles which required me to spend $1,000 in the first three months of card membership, the card has been lying in my drawer collecting dust. Actually, the only reason I got the card was for the bonus miles, so I didn’t find much use of it afterwards. But it looks I may need to dust it off and put it back in my wallet, at least for a short while.

The Citi® Platinum Select®/AAdvantage® World MasterCard® is currently offering a special promotion that allows new cardholder to earn 40,000 American Airlines AAdvantage® bonus miles after $3,000 in purchases within the first 3 months of cardmembership. In addition, the card also periodically offers additional bonus miles for card members when shopping for specific categories, such as gas station, restaurants, grocery stores, etc.

I know there are quite a few rewards cards that allow cardholder earn bonus rewards, such as 3% instead of the normal 1% cashback, during a certain period of time when shopping in certain bonus categories. Usually, these bonus shopping categories rotate every three months. Chase Freedom Card is one popular rewards card that has shift from fixed rewards to rotating bonus rewards recently and Discover Card has been doing this forever.

I am not really a big fan of such rewards mechanism (that’s exactly the reason I have abandoned Chase Freedom card completely, which used to be my favorite) for the reason that I have to keep track of different cards’ different bonus rewards categories at different time of the year in order to get the maximum benefits, which could become a big hassle if these parameters keep changing all the time. True, if I could keep up with these rotating categories, I would earn more cashback with those cards I own. But I consider that too much work. So instead I opt to using only three cards with fixed rewards: PenFed Platinum Cash Rewards Card at gas stations (5%), AMEX TrueEarnings Card at Costco, and Fidelity 529 Card everywhere else (2%). I likely have missed some bonuses by not optimizing my card usage, but things are much easier for me

Anyway, despite my strong dislike of the rotating categories, I did enrolled in this special promotion (yes, you have ENROLL in most of the rotating bonus rewards categories in order to receive the extras benefits and that’s one more thing I don’t like) so I can earn a few more miles before I cancel the card.

In addition to the signup bonus, Citi® Platinum Select®/AAdvantage® World MasterCard® members also enjoy these benefits:

• For a limited time, Earn 40,000 American Airlines AAdvantage® bonus miles after $3,000 in purchases within the first 3 months of cardmembership
• Your first eligible checked bag is free
• Priority Boarding with Group 1 privileges* and 25% savings on eligible in-flight purchases
• Earn a $100 American Airlines Flight Discount every cardmembership year with qualifying purchases and  cardmembership renewal
• Double AAdvantage® miles on eligible American Airlines purchases
• Earn 10% of your redeemed AAdvantage® miles back – up to 10,000 AAdvantage® miles each calendar year

This card  does have an annual membership fee at $95. The good news is the fee is waived for the first year. Considering the bonus miles you are going to receive and other benefits, the membership fee isn’t that bad comparing with similar airline credit cards from other banks.