In some breaking news this morning, American Airlines has announced that it has picked Citi as its sole credit card partner and that it will drop Barclays effective January 2026.
Usually airlines only partner with a single credit card partner (Delta with Amex, United with Chase, Alaska with Bank of America, etc.), but American Airlines has been an outlier here because of its 2013 merger with US Airways.
American Airlines also announced that it expects that payments it receives from co-branded credit cards will increase 10% per year, with the airline bringing in $5.6 billion from these deals from September 2023 through September 2024.
No news yet on what will happen to currently Barclays co-branded cardholders, but I personally would not apply for an American Airlines co-branded Barclays card unless the sign-up bonus was high and I would be fine getting rid of the card in the next year.
