This shouldn’t come as a surprise, but American Airlines’ co-branded Barclays credit cards are no longer open to new applicants, as the airline instead heads toward an exclusive agreement with Citi.
American Barclays cards no longer open to new applicants
As of October 2025, applications have been closed for the AAdvantage Aviator Red World Elite Mastercard, which was Barclays’ last American credit card that was still open to new applicants. Meanwhile the bank already pulled applications for the AAdvantage Aviator Business Mastercard earlier in the year.
For now, existing cardmembers can continue to use their cards. The expectation is that as of some point in 2026, these cards will be converted into Citi products, and more details will be shared in the coming months.
The reason for the conversion is that American and Citi have entered into an exclusive credit card agreement (announced in late 2024), which ultimately is expected to net American significantly more money. It remains to be seen how exactly that transition works out.
The fact that American had cards issued by two banks was unique among the “big three” carriers, and it was the result of the merger between American and US Airways. American had historically partnered with Citi, while US Airways had historically partnered with Barclays. Rather than going for exclusivity with one of the banks, the airline initially kept both. Then American realized it was leaving money on the table as well.
This is bad for sign-up bonuses, otherwise sensible
The obvious downside of Barclays AAdvantage cards being discontinued is that there are fewer cards you can apply for with big sign-up bonuses. The Barclays cards always had hefty welcome bonuses with very limited minimum spending requirements, so applying was a great opportunity to pick up AAdvantage miles on the cheap.
That being said, it just didn’t make sense to essentially have Barclays and Citi issuing cards with very similar perks, and very few points of differentiation. It was primarily just a way to double down on getting card welcome bonuses. With Citi now being exclusive, we’re seeing some other benefits as well, like AAdvantage having been added as a Citi ThankYou transfer partner, which is a positive.
Bottom line
American’s co-branded Barclays cards are officially no longer open to new applicants. While existing cardmembers can continue to use these cards, they’ll be transitioned to Citi at some point in 2026. That’s thanks to a new exclusive agreement between the two companies.
We should learn more details in the coming months. With this new exclusively, I’m curious if we also see some new cards launched.
What do you make of AAdvantage Barclays cards being discontinued?