If you think it is nuts to pay the annual fee on a credit card without ever using it, then we can prove you wrong.  Please check out our latest featured review if you don't believe us.

First of all, you can't apply for these new cards - they are designed as replacements of US Airways MasterCard for the existing Barclays customers. 

Citi will be the sole issuer of the post-merger American Airlines' credit card products after the two frequent flyer programs, American Airlines AAdvantage and US Airways Dividend Miles, combine in early 2015.  Since Barclays can't issue any new AAdvantage cards after the merger, it has been creative to design two versions of AAdvantage cards to keep its existing customers.  Now through 2015, approximately 40,000 existing US Airways MasterCard holders receive an invite to upgrade to AAdvantage Aviator Silver World Elite MasterCard, and if you don't have an invite or choose not to upgrade, your US Airways MasterCard will simply become 


AAdvantage Aviator Red MasterCard after the merger.  It is expected after the merger all Aviator Red MasterCard holders will still have the option to upgrade to the Aviator Silver WEMC.

Please see our new review of these two cards by visiting the links above.  In a nutshell, we think for American flyers it is most likely a better deal to upgrade to Aviator Silver WEMC.  If you don't have the invite in hand now, don't be upset - just wait until your US Airways MasterCard becomes Aviator Red.

Looks like Chase has pulled Ink Bold from its website.  And since the public 70K offer for Ink Plus has expired, the best public link for Ink Plus is now back to 50,000 points.  As usual, you need to spend $5,000 within 3 moths of account opening to receive 50,000 Ultimate Rewards points which can be transferred to United, British, Korean, Singapore, Southwest, Hyatt etc.  The first year annual fee is waived (saving $95).  There are reports that you can still walk in to a Chase branch to get Ink Plus 70K and Ink Bold 50K - you can try it but we don't think those offers will last long.

Landing page for Ink Plus 50,000 points

Citi has been running almost non-stop "limited time" 50K offers for its co-branded American Airlines AAdvantage Platinum Select credit cards (the regular offers on Citi main page have always been 30K but Citi has been keeping several public pages for 50K offers around).

Now there are slightly better 50K offers for these two AAdvantage cards: you will receive 50,000 miles PLUS two Admirals Club day passes after you open a new card and spend at least $3,000 within 3 months.  As always the $95 annual fee is waived for the first year.  If you open a personal card and a business card, you will get 100,000 miles plus four lounge passes.

Landing page for both offers
Application page for personal Citi AAdvantage Platinum Select 50K + two passes
Application page for Citibusiness AAdvantage Platinum Select 50K + two passes