Citigroup To Offer American Airlines Cardholders Access To High-Interest Savings

Citigroup is planning to roll out a high-interest savings account option for users of its American Airlines co-branded credit card, CNBC reported on Monday (Nov. 4).

Citigroup spokeswoman Jennifer Bombardier said that participating American Airlines cardholders will get up to 50,000 miles as a sign-on bonus and a 25 percent boost on miles earned through the card.

The Citi Miles Ahead savings account won’t be offered in locations with a physical Citigroup branch. The interest rate has not yet been determined. When the bank launched Citi Accelerate earlier this year, the interest rate was over 2 percent.

“As we think about investments we’ve made in technology and our ability to mine the data that we have of our customers, we’re able to create value propositions that they’re likely to respond to,” Citigroup’s CFO Mark Mason told CNBC last month.

“For example, we know which of our card customers enjoy and prefer our ThankYou rewards programs and which of our card customers respond to many of the other programs that we offer from a rewards point of view, so we’re able to create packages for them that reward them with benefits they respond to,” he added.

Citi also introduced a debt repayment program to American Airlines cardholders.

Citigroup had a flat third quarter last month, but reported year-over-year gains in treasury and trade solutions services for that period. The financial institution, however, beat analysts’ earnings expectations. Overall, Citigroup’s revenue reached $18.6 billion in the third quarter of 2019, a 1 percent year-over-year increase.

Card average loans for the bank increased by 2 percent year over year, while card purchase sales increased by 5 percent in the third quarter of 2019.

Citigroup also announced that its corporate treasury APIs and its CitiConnect API platform have processed more than $26 billion for corporate clients. The platform has processed more than 157 million API calls since its November 2016 launch. The APIs for treasury services connect the bank’s more than 55 corporate clients and their treasurers, integrating a range of Citi’s financial services directly into their treasury and enterprise resource planning platforms.