American Airlines AAdvantage members will soon lose the opportunity to hold co-branded cards — and earn sign-up bonuses — from two different banks, as Citibank has bought Barclay’s portfolio of American Airlines-branded Aviator cards.
The move comes as Citi renewed its co-branding deal with the airline for another ten years, the longest-lasting relationship in airline co-branding; Citi’s first AA-branded card started the industry. Barclay’s became a second-issuer for American when American and USAir merged; the terms included allowing Barclay, which had been USAir’s issuer to continue.
Citi will begin, over the next year, merging Barclay cardholders into Citi cards; it is not known if the Aviator brand will continue.
One key difference between the two products has been that the Barclay card, which typically has a 60,000-point sign-up bonus, required only one purchase and payment of the annual fee to earn a bonus, while Citi’s cards have carried minimum spend requirements for the bonus.
