Citi AAdvantage Cards May Adopt a 48 Month Restriction, doubling the current 24 month rule, although with some other changes. Until recently, all Citi AAdvantage card public offers had the following language: “This card is not available if the business already has a CitiBusiness / AAdvantage Platinum Select World Mastercard card. Bonus miles are not available if you have had any CitiBusiness / AAdvantage card opened or closed in the past 24 months.” This language is still on the Citi AAdvantage offers linked to on our Best Travel Credit Cards page.
But now there are Citi AAdvantage offers such as this Citi AAdvantage Platinum Select offer that states (bolding mine): “American Airlines AAdvantage bonus miles are not available if you have received a new account bonus for a Citi / AAdvantage Platinum Select account in the past 48 months.”
That mirrors the language for Chase Sapphire cards, which clearly state: “This product is available to you if you do not have any Sapphire card and have not received a new cardmember bonus for any Sapphire card in the past 48 months.” This language was adopted last year (see Chase Sapphire Reserve: New 48 Month Language).
The bad news, obviously, is that 48 months more than doubles the time you'd need to wait since previously receiving a bonus. I say more than doubles, because previously the 24 month clock started from when you opened an account, whereas now it's from when you received the bonus, presumably at least a month if not more after you opened the account.
The good news is that the new language is specific to the card in question, so it doesn't apply to other Citi AAdvantage cards, only the exact one you're applying for. Also, it no longer starts the clock again after you close a card; the 48 months is only from when you received the bonus.
Also, there are still public applications without this language, and targeted offers such as the 75K Citi Business AAdvantage Bonus Offer I recently wrote about do not have this language.
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HT: Dan
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