American Airlines' premium credit card, the Citi / AAdvantage Executive World Legend Mastercard, is currently offering new cardholders its biggest-ever welcome deal: 125,000 bonus miles after spending $15,000 in the first five months. Valued at roughly $1,813, that's enough for serious long-haul redemptions — and the good news is you don't have to be a first-time cardholder to get it.

Citi restricts welcome bonuses on its cobranded cards to once every 48 months per product. Crucially, the clock starts on the day you received your last bonus on that card — not when you opened or closed the account. Since it usually takes a few months between approval and hitting the spending requirement, your actual eligibility date may be later than you remember. If you're unsure, call Citi at 888-766-2484 or AAdvantage at 800-882-8880 to pin down the exact date (your online AAdvantage activity only goes back two years).

Each AAdvantage card is counted separately, so you can stack bonuses across the family. Someone who earned the Executive, Platinum Select and Business card bonuses in recent years has effectively collected three rounds of miles. One trap to watch: if you earned the Platinum Select bonus and your card was later upgraded to the Executive, you'd need to wait 48 months from that original Platinum Select bonus before qualifying for the Executive offer.

If you already hold the Executive card and want the bonus again, you'll need to offload it first. Downgrading to the no-annual-fee AAdvantage MileUp card is the gentler route — it leaves your credit report untouched, though it forfeits the MileUp's small bonus. Cancelling outright keeps the MileUp option open but may dinge your credit score temporarily by raising your credit utilisation ratio.

For American Airlines loyalists who earned the Executive bonus more than four years ago and no longer hold the card, the path is simple: apply now. For everyone else, dig out the date of your last payout before applying — misjudging the window by a couple of months means walking away empty-handed. Given the current offer is the card's largest on record, it's worth the phone call.

Full details are in The Points Guy's write-up, which also links a complete review of the Executive card for anyone weighing whether the annual fee justifies the perks alongside the bonus.