I have a couple of small businesses and like all good churners I have a few business credit cards for those purposes. This includes the Citibank American Airlines Work Elite Mastercard. It’s always been an OK card with decent earn rates towards American Airlines AAdvantage miles and the sign-up bonus was good. It’s good for small businesses where you can add and manage additional cardholders. To me, it was about like their other personal platinum-flavored cards. It usually offers a SUB of around 70,000’ish miles and a low annual fee. Earns 2x on some things like telecommunications and 2x on gas as long as you only want 1x loyalty points for that with the other 1x being “bonus” miles only. Yawn.

This card is not to be confused with the Barclay Aviator Business card but yet it’s about the same.

So why are we talking about this card now and how could it be a game changer for a few select people chasing status or benefits?

They are changing this card and how it’s going to reward you.

Citibank just released changes to this card as follows:

Enjoy your new, exclusive AAdvantage Business™ membership benefits as a Citi® / AAdvantage Business™ cardmember, now available to you and your Authorized Users.

What’s new

• We’ve updated our name to Citi®/ AAdvantage Business™ World Elite Mastercard® to better reflect the new value of your added benefits with the AAdvantage Business™ program. You will not be immediately reissued a new card with this change.

• With your AAdvantage Business™ membership, miles your company earns from eligible purchases made with the Citi® / AAdvantage Business™ card will now accrue to your AAdvantage Business™ account. They can be distributed to any registered employee at no cost, for use on flights, upgrades, car rentals and more.

• Each registered cardmember, the Primary and any Authorized Users, earns Loyalty Points toward status from eligible purchases made with the Citi® / AAdvantage Business™ card in their name.

• As a Citi® / AAdvantage Business™ cardmember, your company enjoys waived program requirements. Your miles are always available for you to use, no need to meet the $5,000 spend and 5 traveler minimums.

Same great benefits

• Continue to earn 2X miles on eligible American Airlines purchases, 2X miles at telecommunications merchants and cable and satellite providers, and 2X miles on car rental merchants and at gas stations

• Earn 1 mile for every $1 spent on all other eligible purchases made with your Citi® / AAdvantage Business™ card.

• As the Primary Cardmember, you’ll continue to enjoy your first checked bag free on domestic American Airlines itineraries, plus preferred boarding on American Airlines flights.

If you haven’t already, invite your Authorized Users and employees to register with your AAdvantage Business™ account and start earning miles for your business right away. Authorized Users must register to participate in the AAdvantage Business™ program, or their card account may be closed. Visit the travel management portal to get started.

So what? Well, look at the fine print. “In Theory” it seems that your employees (or other additional cardholders in 2-player mode) will earn 1x loyalty points on purchases but as the “business owner,” you will also earn 1x loyalty points on those purchases. While higher-level cards may earn high-level spending bonuses this is pretty sweet but not unusual.

But…Imagine if you will, you have a small business and you have your wife, your college student child, and your deadbeat cousin, and some actual, good employees all spending on this card. It “seems” like “In Theory” that all that cash flow going through those employee cards you would earn extra loyalty points plus business points for what they are doing daily like buying gas. Imagine you have a thriving small business where you have 10 or 20 employees doing this. Citi includes a graphic on this as well to prove my point.

Here it is again from their FAQ:

“Miles earned from the Primary Cardmember and Authorized Users post to the company’s AAdvantage Business™ account. Each card member (Primary and employee) earns Loyalty Points on their card purchases. Loyalty Points earned by the Primary Cardmember post to the Primary’s AAdvantage^® account. Loyalty Points earned by the employee post to the employee’s AAdvantage^® account.”

Now, maybe it’s not the big of a deal as a standard additional cardholder on your personal account would also contribute to your loyalty points but this allows you to have many employees contribute from the way I read this.

If you are looking to sign up and get the best sign-up bonus for such a card I’d suggest checking out the Frequent Miler blog’s “Best Offers” page as a good place to start your research.