American Airlines is one of my favorite ways to travel through the sky.
Not only does it offer an abundance of routes to Latin America, which I love to visit, but I’ve also never had major customer service issues with the carrier.
So, with a trip to Argentina soon on the radar, I’m considering applying for an American Airlines credit card. But which one? Frankly, there are too many to choose from.
To help me — and you! — decide, I dug into the details of the different American Airlines cards on offer.
The Basics of the American Airlines Frequent Flyer Program
American Airlines Customer Service is a member of the one world alliance, so you can use Advantage miles to fly on any of its 12 partner airlines. You can also fly with several other partners outside the alliance.
American Airlines partner airlines
Image credit: American Airlines
The American Airlines Advantage program offers elite status to frequent flyers. You can use a combination of elite qualifying dollars (EQDs) along with either elite qualifying miles (EQMs) or elite qualifying segments (EQSs) to qualify for the four different tiers:
American Airlines elite status
Image credit: American Airlines
When it comes to elite status, credit cards unfortunately aren’t going to help much. The only cards that offer any assistance are the City®/Advantage® Executive World Elite™ MasterCard® and Advantage® Aviator™ Business MasterCard®, but they require a lot of spending to earn bonus EQMs or EQDs.
The Benefits of American Airlines Phone Number Credit Cards
The fastest way to earn Advantage miles is with the airline’s co-branded credit cards.
In addition to signup bonuses, all of them earn at least 2X miles per dollar on American Airlines purchases and 1X mile per dollar on everything else. Most earn 2X miles in a few other bonus categories, too.
Another perk of being a cardholder is you won’t have to worry much about your miles expiring. Although Advantage miles generally expire after 18 months of inactivity, each mile-earning purchase resets the clock.
Here are two other big (but often overlooked) benefits:
Avoiding basic economy boarding
As you probably know, basic economy tickets are the pits. You have to board dead last, meaning there probably won’t be any room for your carry-on bag.
But if you carry a co-branded American Airlines credit card, you’ll get to board earlier — even if you paid for the ticket with a different card.
When you’re a card member, you’ll get to board in at least Group 5 (rather than Group 9 with basic economy and Groups 6–8 with standard economy tickets). Executive cardholders will get to board even earlier, with Group 4.
While you still won’t get to pick your seat, you’re more likely to find overhead bin space. You’ll receive this benefit on all the AA-branded cards in this post, with the exception of the Advantage Mile Up card.
Booking reduced mileage awards
Cardholders can also get discounts on tickets purchased using miles. For flights of 500+ miles, you could get 7,500 miles off, and on flights under 500 miles, you could get 2,000 miles off.
To qualify, you must be a cardholder who is:
Traveling entirely within the contiguous United States or Canada
Going to or from a destination on AA’s list of reduced mileage awards cities, which changes every few months
Booking a flight that has low-level Miles Aver space available (though you can book your seat in another fare class)
Follow the instructions on the reduced mileage awards webpage to book an eligible flight, which includes finding and using the appropriate award code.
You can check availability on the AA website, but if you want to avoid a booking fee you’ll have to book over the phone at +1 855 500 0238. If you book at a travel center you’ll incur a $35 fee for domestic travel or a $45 fee for international travel.
6 American Airlines Credit Cards Go Head-to-Head
While you might see lots of different AA cards floating around the internees — like the Aviator Silver or Blue — many aren’t accepting new applications.
Here are the six major American Airlines Reservations Phone Number credit cards that you can apply for today, followed by a detailed breakdown of their features. The first four are issued by City, while the last two are issued by Barclays.
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