Credit card ads that live inside the booking flow

Reach travelers at peak intent, without breaking the booking flow or cheapening either brand.

Credit card acquisition is the growth engine of the Citi–American Airlines co-brand partnership. The challenge was reaching travelers at their moment of highest intent — mid-booking — without interrupting the flow or feeling like a bolt-on ad.

Native placements, tuned through rounds of qualitative testing.

I led the creative, testing, and optimization for these placements as Creative Director, UX/UI at Citi, with a team of designers and copywriters working cross-functionally with marketing, product, legal, and tech — and with American Airlines reviewing, approving, and implementing every placement on their side.

• Designed the card offer as a native placement woven directly into the trip summary and passenger details steps of the AA.com booking flow — not a banner interruption
• Refined offer hierarchy (the $300 statement credit + 40,000 bonus miles), card art, and contextual timing through rounds of qualitative, focus-group-style testing rather than live A/B measurement
• Folded in qualitative feedback that aligned with business priorities and what legal would clear from a copy standpoint, balancing persuasion with a heavily regulated approval process on both the Citi and AA sides

Creative direction, UX and design by my team at Citi; American Airlines reviewed, approved, and handled the final coding and implementation on AA.com.

The highest-converting card acquisition surface in the partnership.

The AA.com booking flow placements became the dominant acquisition channel for the AAdvantage Platinum card — most sign-ups for that card now originate from a direct click on these ads, inside the booking path itself.