A couple of days ago, I had the chance to test out Admirals Club access courtesy of the Citi Strata Elite card and wanted to share some details from my experience. The Strata Elite also offers Priority Pass access and as One Mile at a Time reports, access there is potentially easier than with other Priority Pass memberships.
My experience accessing an Admirals Club with Citi Strata Elite lounge passes
One of the many benefits of the new Citi Strata Elite card is 4 Admirals Club passes per year. Each one-time-use pass admits an adult (18 or older) and accompanying children under 18. As many new cardholders have reported, the Admirals Club passes in your American Airlines wallet within minutes of being approved for the card.
A few days ago, my family had the opportunity to use an American Airlines Admirals Club at Chicago’s O’Hare airport thanks to access from the Citi Strata Elite card.
The passes themselves show up in the cardholder’s American Airlines app as four separate QR codes under the “AAdvantage” tab within the section titled “Rewards”. You have to click “View passes” to see the QR codes.
When I showed a QR code to the employee, she was very confused. She wanted to first scan our boarding passes, looking for an Admirals Club membership. When that didn’t work, I again showed her the QR codes and she asked to see the credit card. I showed her that and she commented about how she’d never heard of this credit card (which didn’t surprise me since it is so new and is not an American Airlines card, but nonetheless it seems that American has done no training with lounge employees to know that this benefit is coming).
Eventually, the lounge attendant said, “oh, these are like a day pass”. She told me to scan one QR code first and then she had to scan the associated traveler’s boarding pass after scanning the Admirals Club pass. We repeated that process a second time and it worked perfectly. I think if I had led by saying that we had Admirals Club day passes, it may have been more obvious to the agent how to use it for access.
Overall, it wasn’t necessarily difficult to use the passes and gain access, but neither was it as smooth as I expected. I wanted to share that because I imagine that if I ran into a lounge agent at one of AA’s US hubs who was unfamiliar with how to use the passes, the chances of running into confusion at outstation airports with a club is probably somewhat high.
Since we only needed to use 2 passes (each allows entry for an adult and accompanying children under 18 years old), we still have two more to use. We’ll be flying American one more time on this trip and will likely put those other two passes to use as well.
Access Priority Pass lounges with your Strata Elite card (no Priority Pass membership card required)
One Mile at a Time reports on an interesting bit about Citi Strata Elite Priority Pass lounge access: you do not need to register for Priority Pass, nor do you need a physical Priority Pass card to access lounges; you can simply present your Citi Strata Elite card at a Priority Pass lounge and gain access for the cardholder plus up to two complimentary guests (additional guests cost $35 each where available). That is an awesome simplification of the process as compared to other issuers that make you enroll in the benefit and then wait to receive a physical Priority Pass card in the mail.
Note that you can request a digital Priority Pass account (which can be done at this link) in order to store a digital Priority Pass card on your phone, but you don’t need to if you’ll be carrying your Strata Elite card.
It is worth mentioning that Citi Strata Elite Priority Pass Select membership includes access to lounges but does not include access to restaurants or experiences. Authorized users also get Priority Pass Select membership, but there is a $75 fee for authorized users on a Strata Elite card.
At the same time, the Strata Elite card does not earn a place in our day-to-day wallets, so I’m not sure that I would be carrying the physical card for lounge access. The main bonus categories are for booking travel through Citi, which isn’t something we typically do from someplace other than home. The 3x dining bonus category isn’t better than other cards in our wallet (it is better on Friday and Saturday nights between 6pm and 6am Eastern time, but we’re not carrying it all the time for that). I just don’t think the card will leave home very often, so I could see the appeal of signing up for the digital Priority Pass. We probably won’t do that in my household because we already have (better verions of) Priority Pass from other credit cards, but it is good to know that this is possible.
Want to learn more about miles and points? Subscribe to email updates or check out our podcast on your favorite podcast platform.
How do you see the list of lounges that the Citi Strata Elite card works at?
I need a matrix of what PP membership gets me in where. I have memberships through C1Vx, USBAR, CSR, and now Citi SE.
I just got the CSR and Citi SE, so maybe that is why I haven’t figured this out yet.
Before it was easy –> use C1Vx membership unless restaurant, and then use USBAR.
CSR allows access to “experiences”, which C1Vx didn’t.
What makes this annoying is that PP only shows you the lounges you can get into with the username you use to sign-in.
Am I making this too difficult?
I’m on android and I just clone the priority pass app. Keep each login separate. Luckily I only have 2 atm.
How do I link my AA account to my Citi Strata elite card? I’ve had the credit card for months now, but never connected the AA FF account, so not sure how the passes are just supposed to appear in my AA app wallet? I checked and the passes are not there. TIA.
Another AA membership account was probably created when you opened the Strata, at least that happened in my case. Had to go into my original AA account and Merge the one that the Strata opened. I wasn’t seeing my passes either, which is what initiated all this
The Strata Elite card hasn’t existed for even 1 full month yet (it just launched during the last week of July), so you can not have had the Strata Elite “for months” — are you confusing it with the Strata Premier card? That one won’t get you any AA passes.
During the application process for the Strata Elite, there is a field to enter your AA number.
Thanks for the update as I’m looking forward to using these passes when traveling with my kids, as they get in free. Were you flying AA at the time? I have a Fiji Airways flight out of LAX in March where I’m hoping to use the Admirals passes, rather than paying for my kids to get into the Centurion lounge.
Yes, we were flying AA.
Interesting how you can just use the card for priority pass, but I wouldn’t be surprised if some lounges don’t understand that and will give you a headache if you don’t have the digital card. Especially if you’re in an international airport.
Right – I’d want to see more data points to indicate if this is widely true
I am having trouble signing up for the digital card. I keep getting a pop up error stating, “Sorry, something went wrong…There was an error with your payment card. Please re-enter your payment card details.”
I hope showing the physical card will work internationally.
Sitting at Sapphire lounge in PHL at the moment courtesy of Citi Elite. I believe its only good for one per calendar year.
On another note priority pass with Citi does not include access to minute suites for a free one hour visit either. Tested in ATL.
Good tip.
Nice! Did you access by showing the Elite card? Any idea if guests are admitted?
I signed up through PP to access a digital card. I would not risk flashing the Citi card as its a brand new product and most folks are not even aware it exsists. PP app says additional guests $75 per.
Think it possible to give these Admirals Club passes to someone else to use?
I’m also curious. Does the cardholder have to be present? Do they have to use one of the passes for themselves in order to give one to a guest?
The terms and conditions state that only the primary cardholder may use them. Even additional cardholders may not use them.
Anyone explore this further yet? Since Nick was able to have his wife use one of them I wonder if it’s possible to do that without the cardholder present. He said he used two of his passes so I assume he holds a card and she doesn’t.
Curious to see if these passes will be declined when the lounge is not accepting the regular day passes.
I tried using them last month at DFW and was denied because they were at capacity and said they weren’t accepting day passes.
Good to know! That significantly reduces their value to me, but ymmv
Ouch, I agree.
I successfully used one at Charlotte when no day passes were being accepted.
Oohh, the plot thickens!
It certainly does!