AAdvantage® Aviator® Red World Elite Mastercard® review: Straightforward rewards and solid travel benefits

The AAdvantage Aviator Red World Elite Mastercard comes with a decent welcome offer, an intro APR offer on balance transfers, a solid rewards rate toward American Airlines purchases and a nice suite of travel perks.

Welcome bonus: Earn easily with one purchase and the annual fee

The AAdvantage Aviator Red World Elite Mastercard has one of the easiest welcome offers to earn — just pay the $99 annual fee in full and make one purchase on your AAdvantage Aviator Red World Elite Mastercard within the first 90 days of opening your account to get 50,000 bonus miles. While other travel cards have larger offers available, this card is a great pick because the bonus is simple to earn. The best airline credit cards typically require a minimum spending amount of at least $2,000 to earn a comparable number of bonus points or miles. Meanwhile, there’s no minimum purchase required to earn the bonus with this card.  

According to Bankrate's most recent points and miles valuations, an AAdvantage mile is worth around 1.0 cents. Depending on how you redeem your welcome offer, the 50,000 AAdvantage miles (earned when you pay the $99 annual fee in full and make a purchase on your card within the first 90 days) could be worth approximately $500. A domestic round-trip award flight with American Airlines can cost as little as 7,500 miles, so this bonus could be enough for multiple flights, depending on your travel plans.

Intro APR: A fairly lengthy offer for balance transfers

Travel rewards credit cards don’t often have introductory APR offers, but the AAdvantage Aviator Red World Elite Mastercard offers an intro 0 percent APR for 15 billing cycles on balance transfers made within the first 45 days. There’s a balance transfer fee of either $5 or 5 percent of the transfer amount, whichever is greater. An APR of 20.24% - 29.99% Variable will apply after the introductory period.

This offers the rare opportunity to consolidate debt on a credit card and continue earning rewards after the intro period ends. Only a handful of other reward cards on the market offer the same level of flexibility, making this card a great choice for those who want to use it for travel after paying down their debt.

Cardholder perks: A decent variety of travel benefits

The card offers a solid lineup of travel perks. These perks can help offset the card’s modest annual fee and let your earned miles go toward travel sooner.

While the AAdvantage Aviator Red World Elite Mastercard has many appealing features, it does have some drawbacks, such as an annual fee, limited rewards and rewards restrictions.

Rates and fees: The annual cost can be hard to justify

The AAdvantage Aviator Red World Elite Mastercard comes with an annual fee of $99, which is charged at the time the account is opened. If you don’t travel with American Airlines enough to justify paying an annual fee, then it may not be worth it.

This isn’t uncommon with travel cards that offer elite perks, as many have annual fees, but general travel cards provide more flexibility. For example, for a similar annual fee, the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card offers superior rewards in several bonus categories, better travel protections and benefits and up to $50 in annual statement credits toward hotel stays. You have to book through Chase Travel℠ to earn the highest rewards rate, but you can still earn 2X points on other travel. You’d also get bonus points on your account anniversary equal to 10 percent of your total purchases the previous year. Points are also valued at 2.0 cents with the best transfer partners. These all add up to a much more valuable credit card package for the same cost as the AAdvantage Aviator.   

Rewards: No bonus categories and limited redemptions 

Like other co-branded airline credit cards, you’ll earn the highest bonus miles by making purchases with the airline. You earn 2X AAdvantage miles on eligible American Airlines purchases and 1X miles on all other purchases. But due to the lack of bonus categories, this card isn’t an ideal choice for everyday spending. 

The AAdvantage Program currently has more than 20 partner airlines, including those in the Oneworld Alliance, so you can redeem miles with various other airlines. You can also gift or transfer miles for a fee. However, partner award redemptions can be complicated and difficult to utilize. If you don't want to redeem miles toward airline travel, you don’t have many alternative redemption options available. You’re also subject to award availability restrictions, which can be more difficult to find on popular routes or dates.

You can earn unlimited AAdvantage miles, but they will expire if you don’t keep your account active by making a purchase with your AAdvantage Aviator Red World Elite Mastercard or flying with American Airlines at least once every 24 months.

Companion Certificate: Difficult to earn

Cardholders who spend at least $20,000 on the card each year will earn an annual Anniversary Companion Certificate. With the certificate, someone can travel with you on a flight for just $99 (plus taxes and fees) if your account remains open for 45 days after your anniversary date. 

While this perk can be highly valuable if redeemed for an expensive flight, it requires high spending to earn. And since the card has no bonus categories, spending $20,000 is a value loss compared to the rewards you could earn by spending the same amount on a card with larger rewards categories. It could work if you are already spending significantly with American Airlines, but in that case, you’d be better served by making those purchases with a card that earns more rewards.

If you’re in an American Airlines hub, you can get significant value from the AAdvantage Aviator Red Mastercard. Bankrate writer Ryan Flanigan opened the card for the sign-up bonus, and he leverages the perks for his American flights.

To build AAdvantage miles rewards faster, consider pairing this card with another travel rewards card or airline credit card. 

Compared to other co-branded airline cards, the AAdvantage Aviator Red World Elite Mastercard’s reward potential is fairly limited. There are other travel cards that have better perks and rewards that allow you to spend less for better value.

We rate credit cards using a proprietary card scoring system that ranks each card’s estimated average rewards rate, estimated annual earnings, welcome bonus value, APR, fees, perks and more against those of other cards in its primary category.

Each card feature is assigned a weighting based on how important it is to people looking for a card in a given category. These features are then scored based on how they rank relative to the features on other cards in the category. Based on these calculations, each card receives an overall rating of 1-5 stars (with 5 being the highest possible score and 1 being the lowest). 

We analyzed over 150 of the most popular rewards and cash back cards to determine where each stacked up based on their value, cost, benefits and more. Here are some of the key factors that influenced this card’s overall score and how the score influenced our review: