Link: Learn more about the Citi® / AAdvantage® Globe™ Mastercard®
The Citi® / AAdvantage® Globe™ Mastercard® (review) is American Airlines’ new premium credit card. The card has a huge welcome bonus, which makes it worth considering, and it’s one of the reasons I already applied for the card.
While the card has a steep $350 annual fee, it offers lots of perks that can help offset that, whether you’re an occasional or frequent flyer on American. In this post, I’d like to take a look at the up to $100 annual “Splurge Credit” offered by the card.
How exactly does this perk work, and how useful is it? This is modeled after a similar perk on the Citi Strata Elite℠ Card (review), though unfortunately I find this one to be considerably less useful, sadly. That’s not to say it isn’t worth anything, though!
Details of the Citi AAdvantage Globe Card Splurge Credit
The Citi AAdvantage Globe Card offers a $100 Splurge Credit annually. The way this works, you receive a credit of up to $100 that you can use with your choice of four retailers, including 1stDibs, AAdvantage Hotels, Future Personal Training, and Live Nation. As you’d expect, there are some terms to be aware of:
- The Splurge Credit is offered per calendar year rather than per cardmember year, so you’ll receive the $100 credit to use between January 1 and December 31 of each year
- The Splurge Credit can be redeemed across one or more transactions, until it’s fully used
- Prior to using your Splurge Credit, you need to register at this link, and during that process, you can select up to two merchants at a time that you want to use this credit for
- When you select the merchants you want to choose the Splurge Credit for, that selection applies as of 12AM ET on the day the merchant is selected; in other words, this could even apply slightly retroactively, because if you made a purchase at 1AM and only registered at 8AM the same day, that purchase would be eligible
- Purchases made by the primary cardmember or authorized users can count toward the Splurge Credit, though the credit is a maximum of $100 per primary cardmember account
- It can take one to two billing cycles for the Splurge Credit to appear on your statement
- To qualify for the Live Nation Splurge Credit, a purchase must be made directly on livenation.com or ticketmaster.com for events or venues within the United States; the purchase must be fulfilled by Live Nation or Ticketmaster, and not by a third party service
Logistics of the Citi AAdvantage Globe Card Splurge Credit
Since I recently applied for the Citi AAdvantage Globe Card, let me share my experience with the logistics of this perk. Once you set up your account, you can either visit this link, or simply go to your main account management page, where you’ll see the option to select your Splurge Credit brands.
When you follow that link, you’ll see the option to select brands, and you’ll also see how much of your Splurge Credit you’ve used so far.
The page also lists all the brands you can choose from, and if you click on the “See details” buttons, you’ll see the terms associated with each merchant, if there are any.
For example, below is the page about using your Splurge Credit for AAdvantage Hotels.
Then if you click the “Select brands” button, you’ll be brought to the page where you can select which merchant you want to activate.
How useful is the Citi AAdvantage Globe Card Splurge Credit?
As mentioned above, the $100 annual Splurge Credit on the Citi AAdvantage Globe Card is modeled after the $200 credit on the Citi Strata Elite Card. However, it’s not quite as useful for two reasons (though admittedly the annual fee also isn’t as high):
- The credit is for $100 rather than $200
- The Citi Strata Elite offers a credit with American Airlines and Best Buy, and that gives you a lot more flexibility; American is super useful since you can just book flights, while Best Buy sells gift cards with all kinds of retailers
With that in mind, are there any creative ways to use the Citi AAdvantage Globe Card Splurge Credit? I’m not noticing any real tricks here, though a few thoughts. If you ask me, 1stDibs and and Future Personal Training seem really niche, unless you’re already a customer of those companies. Meanwhile Live Nation is useful for those who like to attend live events (not me!). Therefore I think that makes AAdvantage Hotels the most useful redemption option.
Many people like AAdvantage Hotels because it lets you earn AAdvantage miles and Loyalty Points for hotel stays, and in some cases, the rewards structure is actually pretty lucrative. So at a minimum, it seems like it could be worth using this credit for any stay of around $100 or so (or as close to it as possible).
Not only would you get the statement credit, but you’d also earn AAdvantage miles and Loyalty Points, plus the card earns an additional 6x AAdvantage miles per dollar spent with AAdvantage Hotels. So that hotel stay could quickly become rewarding. It’s not the most exciting thing on earth, but it should be possible to get some material value out of this benefit.
Bottom line
The Citi AAdvantage Globe Card offers several valuable benefits, and among those is a $100 annual Splurge Credit. You just have to register with your choice of four retailers, and then any eligible spending counts toward that credit.
Unfortunately the retail partners are a bit random, and I wouldn’t consider this credit to be worth close to face value. Personally I think AAdvantage Hotels is probably the best option, as you can essentially get a credit of $100 toward a hotel, all while earning AAdvantage miles and Loyalty Points for your stay. Many American flyers use AAdvantage Hotels anyway, so for those people, this credit is worth pretty close to face value.
Personally I’d consider some of the other perks of the card to be more valuable, like the Flight Streak Loyalty Points bonus, up to $100 annual inflight credit, the four annual Admirals Club passes, and more.
What’s your take on the Citi AAdvantage Globe Card $100 Splurge Credit?
