[Expired] CitiBank Offering Up To 30,000 American Airlines AAdvantage Miles To Sign Up For Their Checking Products: No Direct Deposit

This deal is still active, but you can view additional details at our new post here.

Update 2: Bonus is back and extended until June 30th. For those wondering how they know your AA number, they have your SSN and because this requires a Citi AA card, they can get that information that way. Promo code is: 4Y6KEW8XL3.

You enter promotional code here: http://www.offer.citibank.com/, once you click through to the next page if you click Promotion Disclosures you’ll see the terms of the bonus.

Update: This bonus is back. Previously you’ve been able to get this even if you didn’t receive the direct communication just by calling in and asking for it, or using somebody elses codes (using the same code multiple times has worked). Do this at your own risk though. These codes should work: DTTEZS60ML or DWBXLFT7VF, a lot of people in the comments have had success just calling and asking and the CSR will use “their code”. You’ll need to have a Citi American Airlines card to be eligible.

Offer at a glance

• Maximum bonus amount: 30,000 AAdvantage miles
• Availability: Those who received communication, you’ll need to have held a Citi® / AAdvantage® credit cardmembers to have received it [Note: People have reported that they were able to successfully get this bonus without having received the communication, do this at your own risk]
• Direct deposit required: No
• Hard/soft pull: Soft
• Credit card funding: Yes, unknown amount
• Monthly fees: $10-$30, avoidable
• Early account termination fee: $0
• Expiration date: June 30th, 2014  December 31st, 2014 March 31st, 2015 June 30th, 2015

The Offer

Direct link to offer [requires promo code]

• Receive AAdvantage miles when you open a Citibank checking account, complete a minimum spend requirement on the debit card & do one or more bill payments for 2 consecutive calendar months or more
  • Citigold checking: 30,000 AAdvantage miles, at least $750 in debit card purchases within 60 days of account opening
  • Citibank: 15,000 AAdvantage miles, at least $375 in debit card purchases within 60 days of account opening
  • Basic banking: 5,000 AAdvantage miless, at least $125 in debit card purchases within 60 days of account opening

The Fine Print

• Only available to those who received the communication (you should’ve also received a unique promotional code), you need to have held a Citi® / AAdvantage® credit cardmembers to receive it
• If you received a bonus reward for opening a new Citibank checking account within the past two years you will not be eligible to receive this bonus
• Valid until March 31st, 2015
• You can use debit or credit option when making the debit purchases, as long as you use the debit card provided
• Account must be open and in good standing when the AAdvantage miles post

Avoiding Fees

All of the Citibank accounts waive the monthly service fee for the first two months, after that you need to complete set requirements to keep them fee free.

Citigold Account Package $30 Monthly Fee

To avoid the $30 monthly fee you need to complete one of the following:

• $50,000 in combined link deposit or retirement accounts
• $100,000 in all linked deposit, retirement, credit or investment accounts (excluding a first mortgage with citibank)
• $250,000 including linked Citibank mortgages

Citibank account Package $20 Monthly Fee

To avoid the $20 monthly fee you need to have a combined average balance of $15,000 or more

Basic Banking $10 Monthly Fee

Make a direct deposit (the following methods count as direct deposit, click to view) and 1 bill payment each month or keep an average balance of at least $1,500 in the previous calendar month to avoid the monthly fee.

Early Account Termination Fee $0

We couldn’t find any mention of any EATF in the product disclosures and haven’t heard of anybody being hit with a fee. Your account does need to be open for the miles to post though.

Our Verdict

They’ve previously had a similar deal with a cash bonus instead, it offered $500 for the gold account ($250 for the Citibank account and $0 for the basic banking). Although this required a lot of money to be deposited into the account to trigger half the bonus.

My biggest issue with the current promotion on offer is that Citibank has issued a 1099 in the past for a checking account promo which awarded miles instead of cash. When they do this they need to assign a cash value to these points and the last time they did this they assigned a value of 2.5¢ per Thank You point. This happened back in 2009, since then Citi has stopped issuing 1099’s when the bonus has been miles instead of cash. This means you shouldn’t receive a 1099 form and won’t have to pay taxes on this bonus (if the bonus is cash you always have to pay taxes). Nobody from 2012 or 2013 has received a 1099 form from Citi as far as we know.

the IRS has not pursued a tax enforcement program with respect to promotional benefits such as frequent flyer miles

From our research miles will generally post 1-3 months after all the requirements are met, although some people had to spend 6 months chasing down their bonus.

Doing this deal is really going to depend on how much you value AAdvantage miles at, conservatively I think you should be able to get at least 1¢, if this is the case your best bet will be to go for the Citigold account. Here is what I’d do if I received this offer

• Open a Citigold account
• Fund the maximum amount with a rewards earning credit card
• Complete $750 in spend with the debit card
• Do the Bill Pay for two consecutive months (account is fee free for this period)
• Immediately send a secured message saying I had completed the requirements and ask for the points to post
• Pay the $30/month fee until they post (should be 1-3 months – as long as it’s less than 5 months you’ll be better off going with the Citigold account than the regular Citibank account)
• As soon as points post, close the account

You’ll end up with 30,000 miles + any miles/cash from funding the account with a credit card and you’ll have to pay for about 2-4 months in fees ($60-$120).

I won’t be doing this offer as I haven’t received the targeted e-mail. If you have an open Citi/AAdvantage credit card you might be able to use one of the promotional codes found around the web – personally I don’t think the risk is worth it considering you’ll be paying a monthly fee till the miles post. If you have a promotional code you can enter it at: http://www.offer.citibank.com/. You can also try calling them on 866-810-9043 or going into a branch to see if you’re eligible.

We’ve added these offers to our current checking account promotion page, it didn’t make the cut to the best of list due to it being a targeted offer. If you’re looking for a non targeted offer I suggest checking out the 22,000 mile bank direct offering.

Direct link to offer [requires promo code] | Screenshot of offer

Post history: 

Update 3: Offer extended until June 30th, 2015

Update 2: It looks like this has now expired. If you know of a working code, please let us know.

Update: This post has been republished because this deal is now live again. Thanks goes to PointCentric for letting us know about it, his/her promo code was “DTTEZS60ML” you should be able to use it but you might have trouble as this is supposed to be a targeted offer. We’ve updated all other information on this page, when you see stuff that has been striked out that is the old information.

Original post: Hat tip to Miles Momma