Citi Cancelling American Airlines Cards For Those With Shutdown Accounts

In December last year American Airlines began shutting down frequent flyer loyalty accounts due to credit card rewards abuse. Despite the fact that these American Airlines accounts were shut down, the actual Citi cards continued to work and not accrue any miles. Citi is now sending letters out stating that these cards will be closed within 30 days.

It does strike me as a bit odd that there isn’t any sort of apology from Citi or offer to convert these into other credit cards, but that is generally prohibited in the co-branded credit card relationship.

 

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Penelope35
Penelope35 (@guest_1047770)
September 2, 2020 19:04

Two of mine were shutdown but I was able to convert the last to a Costco card.

Pudding
Pudding (@guest_1047184)
September 1, 2020 20:19

I have a 10 year old personal AA card, am shutdown by AA, got this letter from Citi yesterday, called in today and asked to product change to DC and they were able to do the change. The card now shows as a DC online too. I don’t know if that will stop the 30 closure or not but for the sake of trying keeping my AoA up I think it was worth a try.

doubleA
doubleA (@guest_1046866)
September 1, 2020 13:03

so they say cash like transactions should not earn points/miles. well, put your money where your mouth is. stop issuing miles/points for such transactions and stop the abuse. you already got lvl3 data to do so. and if you can’t: zip up your pants and stop being a d*ck.

Alvin
Alvin (@guest_1046734)
September 1, 2020 08:08

My DP: I converted my AA card to DC half a year ago. Yesterday, my DC card was canceled. The letter says the reason is “inactivity”. I don’t know if it is possible to reinstate the card…

Dick Bupkiss
Dick Bupkiss (@guest_1046842)
September 1, 2020 12:23

Has your DC card actually been “inactive” since the conversion?

payyoutuesday
payyoutuesday (@guest_1046730)
September 1, 2020 08:01

“… that [PCing to another card] is generally prohibited in the co-branded credit card relationship.”

This just isn’t true for Citi, and you should change this statement.

Kyle
Kyle (@guest_1046776)
September 1, 2020 10:10

I think William was saying that it’s probably prohibited to proactively offer to PC to another card. If I were AA, I wouldn’t want Citi going out of their way to tell customers that their AA card could be changed to a DC.

Jason
Jason (@guest_1046711)
September 1, 2020 07:12

I got the letter, and I proactively called Citi and asked them to close the card today, so there would be no note on my credit file of them causing a force closing by issuer, which is much more negative than a requested closing by card owner.

Also they offered to allow me to transfer credit from this card I was closing to an existing Citi thankyou card, thereby increasing my credit line, with no credit pull required.

YoniPDX
YoniPDX (@guest_1046794)
September 1, 2020 10:28

Accounts closed by issuer (in the comments) – have little impact unless it really impacted your Avg. Acct. Age (oldest card), debt utilization, or you have a really young/thin credit file.

It’s only has a major FICO hit when it’s “closed by issuer” and flagged with a negative e-OSCAR code AND derog comment (i.e. closed for non-payment forebearance, repayment plan, etc). Things like your High Credit exceeding your actual CL . Otherwise You might take a small hit if you lose 5% of overall available CL.

But honestly anyone that got shut down for abusing the grAAvy train – is/was a Churnner that was lol/24

Sexy_kitten7
Sexy_kitten7 (@guest_1047491)
September 2, 2020 12:29

Of course it would. IIRC the notation is typically “closed by grantor,” which is accurate.

Sexy_kitten7
Sexy_kitten7 (@guest_1047790)
September 2, 2020 19:39

I guess I’m not following. To my knowledge, this kind of shutdown (FFP first, then CC) has never happened. What exactly are you referring to?

Shiti
Shiti (@guest_1046691)
September 1, 2020 04:36

AA sure puts the “dic” in vindictive.

Sevillada
Sevillada (@guest_1046681)
September 1, 2020 03:35

I’m been changing mine to either a double cash or a citi+ rewards… I think they sent me a letter about the last one… not sure if I’ll get to change it or they’ll still shut it down.

Brad C
Brad C (@guest_1046671)
September 1, 2020 03:03

Citi product conversions take 51 days to complete. Will they still close cards mid-conversion?

MuricaVirus
MuricaVirus (@guest_1046597)
August 31, 2020 23:38

Shity is always shity. There is no citi in the city of shiti.

Shitty Citi
Shitty Citi (@guest_1046669)
September 1, 2020 03:01

it actually rhymes

Amen Sister
Amen Sister (@guest_1046692)
September 1, 2020 04:37

PREACH!!

greg w
greg w (@guest_1046707)
September 1, 2020 06:58

10000% CORRECT FCUK shitty bank

Tom Schmidt
Tom Schmidt (@guest_1050510)
September 8, 2020 13:02

I love Shitty bank!!!