There are many reasons to change your credit card from one product to another, the most common being in order to move from a card that charges an annual fee to one that doesn’t. There are also some cards that you can’t apply for new, but that you can get through a product change (like the Chase Ritz Carlton card) and there may be times that you want to convert a card that’s no longer useful to you to one whose benefits are more appealing.
Citi has long been the most flexible bank when it comes to product changing, as it has allowed customers to do it across families of cards. For instance, you could change from a card that earns Citi ThankYou points to a card that earns American Airlines AAdvantage miles or vice versa. This is something that almost no other issuer allows.
However, we recently got an e-mail from a reader named Amit who wanted to change his AAdvantage Executive Elite card to a no-annual-fee Citi Double Cash, which earns ThankYou points. However, when he called, the rep informed him that he could only downgrade to an “AAdvantage Ally” card, which included AA or (oddly enough) Costco cards. He tried to hang up and call again, but the second rep told him the same thing.
Poking around FlyerTalk and reddit, I’m seeing numerous similar data points. It seems like Citi has either stopped or significantly limited the ability to product change between AAdvantage mile and ThankYou point-earning cards.
I wanted to try this out myself, so I called Citi to ask about changing a Citi Strata Premier card to an AAdvantage card. Two different reps told me the same thing as we heard from Amit, although in reverse: that it was no longer possible. When trying to move my wife’s AAdvantage Platinum Select to a ThankYou point card, I struck out twice as well.
We need data points
It’s too early to tell for sure whether this is just a momentary glitch or a permanent policy change. We’d love to hear from folks who have recently attempted to do the AAdvantage/ThankYou switcheroo, either successfully or unsuccessfully.
Our hope is that this isn’t a permanent change. Citi’s longstanding product change flexibility was a great feature of holding the bank’s cards. It would be a shame to see that eroded.
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I wonder if this is a necessary step for Citi to start allowing TYP to be transferred to AA…
Exact same as Amit. Tried yesterday. Went with MileUp card.
Upon reflection, this might have something to do with Citi’s sole source agreement with AA. The challenge is the indirect way of changing credit limits on a card type via product changes.
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Phew! Just over a month ago changed my ancient and hardly used AT&T Platinum something or other card to a Custom Cash. No problem then. Looks like I might have gotten in under the wire!
I posted about this in the Facebook group. I tried to PC a 5 year old AA platinum card to a double cash and was told I wasn’t eligible. Only options were AA cards or Costco card. HUCA and escalated to a supervisor, all three agents had the same response.
Three weeks ago I successfully PCd my AAdvantage Platinum card to Strata Premier.
I called about this a few days ago and was told the same thing. But then the rep told me the reason was because my account was too young & if I waited for my AF to hit (for the first time since Year One is free) then I’d have more options. Not SURE if that’s true, but I’m going to try again in May and see.
While Citi is often an afterthought in the transferrable currency world, I have accumulated more TYP than any other currency for 3 main reasons:
The first one was gone 4-5 years ago. It seems like around 2020 or 2021, they really made it difficult to get their cards with good signup bonuses (AA Platinum, Citi Premier), particularly for those of us that have been playing the game for a while. The retention offers really seemed to dry up recently. I used to be able to get a decent retention offer on almost all my cards on a yearly basis (like an extra 2x TYP on all purchases up to 35k points, or spend $3k, get 10k TYP), but these seemed to become much more rare about 1-2 years ago. And now they are limiting product conversions! Yikes.
Tried to PC a Mileup to Rewards+ on 3/25/25, was told only options were the other AA cards and Costco.
Darn. I meant to change by AA world elite to strata. I’ll give it some time and hope they change this.
Another DP. I tried to PC from AAdvantage Platinum to CCC and was given the same 2 options as Amit. However, the rep told me that this might change in the future and asked me to check after some time.
Unfortunately I can add another negative DP. Tried product changing P2’s AA Platinum to a strata premier, but was only given the option of other AA cards and the Costco card. Tried via phone and chat (twice). Sad times!
Bummer. I PC’d a doublecash into a rewards+ about 2 weeks ago with no issue, in case the rumors about its discontinuation are true. Thinking, I have an AA card to turn into a doublecash in about August.
Now I guess I’ll have a Citi and a Barclays AA card to get rid of later this year.
I was even considering keeping the Barclays open an extra year as a backdoor to a second Custom Cash if/when the portfolio consolidation happens.
This really sucks. Was due for a product change in a couple weeks. Now I’ll have a crappy mile up card or cancel I guess. Can you go to Costco and then to TYP?
Bummer. Had no idea this was even possible.