American AAdvantage Platinum Select Card

Next in the series of comparisons of the major US airlines’ credit cards comes the United MileagePlus Explorer card. This card sits as a middle card, offering entry-level perks without a high annual fee. This card competes with the Delta Gold Card and the United Explorer Card. This card is largely comparable to the American Aviator Red Card but slightly better in my opinion.

This card is commonly seen being advertised on American Airlines’ website but never on planes (which is where they push the Aviator Red Card instead).

This blog is just for entertainment purposes. I provide the information here just to give readers a vague idea if the rewards offered by the card might make sense for them to consider the card.  The information on this page has been collected independently, and all information should be confirmed with the card company before applying.

Welcome Offer

At the time of posting, the American Platinum Select card has a 50 000 bonus mile offer after spending $2 500 in 3 months. In general, I’ve been able to get good value out of AA miles and so value them at 1.5 ¢/pt.  That makes this current welcome offer worth at least $750, which is good for a $99 annual fee card, especially when you consider that the annual fee is waived in the first year.

Earnings

The American Platinum Select Card has a typical setup for a co-branded card: 2x miles/$ on American Airlines (standard) and at restaurants and gas stations and 1x mile/$ on everything else.

These earning rates are fine for a $99 annual fee co-branded card. The 2x miles/$ restaurant category is good, and gas stations is fine I guess.

These cards also earn 1 LP per $1 spent on the card as is standard for American’s cards.

Benefits

For its $99 annual fee, this card offers several travel benefits. It offers a first checked bag free, preferred boarding (group 5 of 9), and 25% back on inflight purchases. It does not offer any free checked bags or priority boarding perks. If you spend at least $20 000 on the card in a given year, you’ll get a $125 AA flight discount code, which is the equivalent of about 0.6% additional cashback, which is alright.

How to use the points

The main use for American Airlines miles is to redeem them for American Airlines, Oneworld, and other partners’ flights.  American Airlines has dynamic pricing for its own flights but still uses an award chart for its partners. American Airlines is not currently a transfer partner of any credit card reward currency, so their miles are still somewhat harder to come by.

The other type of point earned, Loyalty Points, is used for American status: you need 40 000 LP for Gold (Oneworld Ruby), 75 000 LP for Platinum (Oneworld Sapphire), 125 000 LP for Platinum Pro (Oneworld Emerald), and 200 000 LP for Executive Platinum (Oneworld Emerald). 

Examples of using the card

These examples assume you spend all your airfare budget on American Airlines.

Spend per month

	Example A		Example B		Example C		Example D
Groceries (1x)	$300	300	$200	200	$600	600	$400	400
Gas (2x)	$0	0	$100	200	$200	400	$100	200
Airfare (2x)	$700	1 400	$200	400	$0	0	$400	800
Hotels (1x)	$1 000	1 000	$200	200	$0	0	$300	300
Gen Travel (1x)	$400	400	$0	0	$300	300	$100	100
Dining (2x)	$600	1 200	$300	600	$300	600	$0	0
General (1x)	$1 000	1 000	$500	500	$500	500	$400	400
Total	$4 000	5 300	$1 500	2 100	$1 700	2 400	$1 700	2 200
Average points/$		1.33		1.40		1.41		1.29

The somewhat limited earning structure means that the average points earned has a small range of 1.29 – 1.41 points/$, but the higher value of AA miles means that these points are worth 1.94 – 2.12 ¢/$.  That’s a good return overall, but a lot of these categories should go on a 2% cashback card instead in my opinion. The range is somewhat small because all four of these examples include a decent amount of gas or dining, which are common spend categories.

Specific examples

Card	American Airlines Economy class ($750)  (% return)	Marriott Hotel night ($230/night)	Points values (Flight/Hotel)
No rewards card	3 500 UM (5.6%)	2 200 MP (7.7%)	$42.00 / $17.60
General 2% cashback card ($0)	3 500 UM + $15.00 (7.6%)	2 200 MP + $4.60 (9.7%)	$57.00 / $22.20
Chase Sapphire Preferred ($95)	3 500 UM + 1 500 UR (8.6%)	2 200 MP + 460 UR (10.7%)	$64.50 / $24.50
Amex Green Card ($150)	3 500 UM + 2 250 MR (9.8%)	2 200 MP + 690 MR (11.9%)	$73.50 / $27.26
American Platinum Select Card ($99)	5 000 AM (8.6%)	2 200 MP + 230 AM (9.2%)	$64.50 / $21.05

Is this the right type of credit card for you?

This card could be a good way to test if American’s program is right for you because its annual fee is waived in the first year. If it turns out not to be a good fit, there’s very little lost by product changing to the free card.

The benefits on this card seem decent to me, but it’s worth noting that all the benefits to the card are also provided by having at least entry level status with AA (aside from the food/drink discount).

Because this card offers double miles in dining, AA flights, and at gas stations, this card is one of the more efficient ways of earning AA miles from credit card spend.