American Airlines’ New Card is a Dud
This is the October 26, 2025 edition of the LazyPoints Weekly newsletter. It goes out by email every Sunday at 8:00 a.m. Pacific–unless I oversleep–and is archived here on the blog. Want it straight to your inbox each week? Sign up here.
Citi and American Airlines launched a mid-tier card this week, the $350-fee Globe card (named after their competitor’s logo, apparently?). Its standout feature is the ability to earn 15,000 Loyalty Points after flying 12 paid segments on AA. If you don’t understand what that means and immediately want the card, it probably isn’t for you.
Fee and benefits
For that $350 fee, you’ll get 4 Admiral’s Club passes each year, along with a $100 “splurge credit” (most easily redeemed for hotels booked through AA or LiveNation/Tickmaster purchases), up to $100 back on in-flight purchases, and $30 statement credits on up to eight Turo bookings. You will earn 6 AA miles per dollar spent on hotels booked through AA, triple miles on AA purchases, double miles on dining and transit, and 1x on all other purchases. As a cardholder, you will earn 5,000 Loyalty Points for every four paid segments with American, up to 15,000 (it takes 40,000 to unlock AA’s lowest status tier). On renewal each year, you’ll unlock a companion certificate that can be redeemed for $99 plus taxes and fees. Note that the splurge credit, lounge passes, and in-flight purchase rebates are calendar-year based, so if you got the card now you could use them twice in the account’s first year. I would only value the “splurge credit,” so for me that would be about $100 in annual value ($200 in Year 1).
The sign-up bonus is 90,000 AA miles, an incredibly lucrative offer that should easily equal a round-trip to Japan, and potentially two round-trips to Europe. If you value them around 1.3¢ each, as I do, that bonus is worth nearly $1,200 in travel value. But you could get fancier.
How it stacks up
The mid-tier ($300-$399 annually) airline card space is one of the strongest in the industry, with cards from Alaska, Delta, and United offering benefits that can easily cover the annual fee.
Atmos ($395 fee): 25k-point companion award discount and 4 lounge passes.
Delta Amex Platinum ($350 fee): $120 in rideshare credits, $120 in Resy dining credits, $150 credit toward Delta Stays (hotels), annual companion certificate.
United ($350 fee): $200 United TravelBank credit, 10k-point award discount, $100 in rideshare credits, up to $80 back on Avis/Budget bookings.
The Alaska and Delta cards also offer greater status head starts and more compelling benefits. And because Alaska status comes with perks on AA, most people looking to dip their toe into elite status to fly with AA will be better off getting it via Alaska.
The lounge passes are useful, but you can use the Summit’s Alaska lounge passes when flying AA (although their lounge network is much smaller), or you can get four annual lounge passes on the Citi Strata Elite; both cards have a much stronger year-to-year value proposition than the Globe.
As for the bonus, you can currently earn 100,000 Citi points, transferable to AA, on the Citi Strata Elite, while the $95-fee Citi AA Executive and Citi Strata Premier often offer 75k miles or more. So while this offer is undoubtedly excellent, this amount of AA miles is not difficult to come by, and on more affordable cards.
Lazy take 🦥
Skip this one unless you’re actively chasing AA status and willing to pay a significant annual fee for extra Loyalty Points.
This week on the blog 📝
Is it time to collect points on rent with the Bilt Mastercard, or wait to see what Bilt Cards will look like when the lineup changes in 2026? We weighed the pros and cons.
Quick Points of the Week ⚡
Major news 🚨
Introducing Bilt Cash. Bilt’s underwhelming Milestone Rewards are being replaced in 2026 by Bilt Cash. You will earn $50 in Bilt Cash for every 25,000 Bilt points earned. Bilt Cash can be redeemed within the Bilt universe on things like Bilt portal hotel bookings, Bilt Dining restaurant bills, Bilt Home Delivery, and more. The cash can also be used to buy your way up to higher-level status benefits, like one-time upgrades in Bilt elite status to take advantage of elevated Rent Day transfer bonuses. Exactly what that will look like and cost remains to be seen, but overall this looks like a win-win: a big boost in concrete value for engagement with the Bilt universe. (Bilt)
Citi cleans up its Strata Elite mess. The issuer locked many new cardholders’ accounts, interfering with their opportunity to use the card’s credits or earn the sign up bonus. Citi is crediting the bonus and essentially refunding the fee, albeit after some bad press. (Frequent Miler)
Amex may be loosening its restrictions on welcome bonuses. We’ve written about the once-per-lifetime rule, but they may be lightening up. (Thrifty Traveler)
No more passport stamps in Europe. Growing up, I never dreamed I’d have a passport, let alone one with so many stamps in it. Europe’s new electronic system will mean higher fees, and one less souvenir. (TPG)
New products and features 🆕
Don’t forget to use your credits. That’s the name of a new site, which helps you find locations and deals to use your premium card benefits like dining and shopping credits. (ThiftyTraveler)
United and Air Canada roll out new Apple boarding passes. They can help you find your luggage, navigate the airport, and live flight information. (TPG)
More value 📈
“Cash” back and rewards for frequent Lyft users. Set your Lyft Cash balance to automatically reload and you’ll get 2-5% Lyft Cash back per ride, plus your partner rewards. (Lyft)
Bilt adds bonus points for parking. Earn an extra Bilt point per dollar when parking with Metropolis. (Bilt)
25% transfer bonus from Chase to Southwest. Transfer bonuses on domestic airlines are pretty rare, so this is interesting. Rapid Reward points aren’t the best, but with this bonus they could be a decent option for domestic flights. (AwardWallet)
New partnerships 🤝
Earn and redeem JetBlue points with United and vice-versa. Loyalty benefits for elites are coming next year. (JetBlue)
Nerdy 🤓
Get cheap United flights with Maharaja Club. Short-haul domestic from 3,500 miles, transferable to Air India from Mesa and Rove. (Daily Drop)
Sign-up bonus of the Week 🎯
Chase’s $95-fee, Marriott co-branded Boundless is offering 125,000 + 1 free night after spending $3,000 within three months of account opening. The free night is redeemable for up to 50,000 points. This bonus is the best ever on this card, and well above what we’ve seen on this card over the past few years.
Marriott Bonvoy points pricing is all over the place in my experience—we stayed at a beautiful AC Hotel in Valencia last year for 14,500 points, and I can often find nice properties under 25,000, but sometimes it can be hard to find anything under 50,000 points per night. If you are frugal and selective, though, I think this bonus could be stretched to a week or more in stays.
As for the card itself, it’s underwhelming. You get a free night each year (up to 35,000 points, which can be topped up) and Silver status (which is basically nothing). It’s a fairly solid card to have in your wallet—maybe even a keeper—thanks to the free night, and provides a decent discount on Marriott stays, although it earns so poorly on non-Marriott purchases that you likely wouldn’t want to use it on anything else. But for a solid card with a bonus like this? 🔥🔥
Other great current bonuses
100k points + 25k companion certificate on the Alaska Atmos Summit (our take: 🔥🔥🔥🔥) (ending soon)
100k points on the Citi Strata Elite (our take: 🔥🔥🔥)
125k points on the Chase Sapphire Reserve (our take: 🔥🔥🔥)
80-125k miles on Delta credit cards (our take: 🔥🔥) (ends 10/29)
75k points on the Chase Sapphire Preferred (our hot take: 🔥)
80k points on the Atmos Ascent (our take: 🔥) (ending soon)
80k points on the JetBlue Plus (our take: 🔥)
100k Avios on Chase cards (our take: 🔥)
$300 (kind of) on Capital One no-fee cards (our take)
Enjoy the weekend! 🦥
Get that passport stamped while you still can.