Citi Rewards+ Card

  Citibank Credit Cards

Citibank Webpage

Annual Fee

No annual fee

Current Offer

20,000 ThankYou points with $1,500 spend.

Typical Signup Offer

None

Signup Bonus Chart

Bonus Categories

2x Groceries (≈3%)

2x Gas (≈3%)

1x Everywhere Else (≈1.5%)

3% Foreign Transaction Fee

ThankYou Rewards Guide

Anyone who is collecting ThankYou points (from either signup bonuses or ongoing spending) should get the Rewards+ card to get an extra 11% of value on their first 100,000 points each year. As discussed below, you just have to be careful about how you get it.

You will most likely eventually downgrade a Premier Card to this card, because outright cancelling a ThankYou card causes you to lose any points attached to it and resets the 24 month clock for earning new signup bonuses, while downgrading does not.

Jump to

• Intro to ThankYou Points
• Signup Bonus
• Notable Benefits
• Bonus Categories
• Getting Rid of the Card

Introduction to ThankYou Points

ThankYou Rewards is the name of Citibank's own rewards program. ThankYou Rewards Guide.

• ThankYou points can be transferred to many different frequent flyer programs. his gives you the flexibility to take advantage of award space on over a hundred different airlines. In many cases, you can choose to book a flight through one of several different partner programs, allowing you to take advantage of whichever program requires the fewest miles and fees for your trip.
• ThankYou Rewards occasionally offers promotional transfer bonuses. When the promotion is active, you'll get extra airline miles when you transfer your ThankYou Reward points to a specific airline. For example, if Citibank is offering a 40% bonus for British Airways, you'll receive 14,000 British Airways points for every 10,000 ThankYou points you transfer. See Take Advantage of Transfer Bonuses to Get More Value from Your Reward Points for more information or visit Frequent Miler’s Current Transfer Bonuses page for a list of current (and past) promotions.
• You can also "cash out" your points at 1 cent each. Citi Premier and Prestige customers can very easily convert their points to cash.
• If you have the no-annual-fee Citi Rewards+ card, you get a 10% rebate on your points redemptions. This is capped at to your first 100,000 points of redemptions each year. For example, if you transfer 50,000 points to British Airways, you'll get 5,000 points back. This gives you an easy boost of 11% to point values, regardless if you convert your points to frequent flyer tickets or cash them out.
• We value ThankYou points at 1.5 cents each. Because you can take advantage of award space and "sweet spots" from many different frequent flyer programs and the occasional transfer bonus, ThankYou points are generally worth more than any single type of airline miles. If you highly valuable premium-cabin award tickets, ThankYou points are worth even more. But because Citibank has a weaker set of airline partners, ThankYou points are typically somewhat less valuable than Membership Rewards points. On the other hand, if you expect to be able to take advantage of Turkish Airlines awards for domestic and Hawaii travel on United Airlines, they may actually be more valuable the other types of bank points. How Much are Points Worth?
• If you aren't comfortable using your points for frequent flyer tickets, they are only worth 1 cent each. Unlike Chase's Ultimate Rewards, transfer rates for hotel programs aren't very attractive, there are no fixed-value airline partners (like Southwest), and there is no cash out option for greater than 1 cent per point.

Collecting the Signup Bonus

• Avoid earning the signup bonus for this card. You can only collect one signup bonus every 24 months from the Citi ThankYou card family. More accurately, you can't collect a signup bonus within 24 months of signing up for, or cancelling, the Citi Prestige, Citi Premier, Citi Preferred, or Citi Rewards+ card. While cancelling a card resets the clock, converting a card from one to another usually does not.

If you earn the signup bonus on the Reward+, you'll block your ability to get a much more valuable signup bonus from the Premier Card.

• The best way to get the card is to downgrade the Premier Card. Collect its far more lucrative signup bonus, wait at least a year, and downgrade to the Rewards+ card. If you no longer want the Premier, you'll need to downgrade anyway to avoid losing your points and resetting the Citibank ThankYou bonus clock.
• If you don't want to wait, apply for it just after applying for the Premier Card. Make sure to earn the signup bonus for the more valuable card first. By signing up at roughly the same time, you won't need to wait much more than two years until your next signup bonus.

Notable Benefits

• 10% rebate. If you have this card, you'll receive 10% back on the first 100,000 ThankYou points you redeem from any of your linked cards. This can boost the value of the points you earn from the Citi Prestige, Citi Premier, AT&T, and Double Cash cards. The maximum benefit each year is 10,000 points, valued at $150.
• Access to Mastercard luxury hotel program. When you book at one of the participating hotels, you'll get an number of valuable benefits, like free breakfast, a $100 hotel credit, a room upgrade, and late checkout.Take Advantage of Luxury Hotel Programs for Valuable Extra Perks
• Free ShopRunner membership. Like all World Elite Mastercards, your card entitles you to a complimentary ShopRunner membership, which provides free two-day and return shipping from around 150 of the largest online retailers. ShopRunner
• DoorDash and Hello Fresh discounts. Cardmembers who have a DoorDash membership get $5 off their first two orders each month when paid for by their Mastercard. If you don't have a free membership from Chase, you can get your first three months membership for free through Mastercard. You also get a 5% credit back on each HelloFresh purchase.

Bonus Categories

• There are better options for your grocery and gas purchases. 2x ThankYou points are more valuable than what you would get from a good general-purpose reward card, but you can earn even more valuable rewards with other cards. Best Credit Cards for Grocery Spending. Best Credit Cards for Gas Spending.
• The main benefit of the Citi Rewards+ Card is 10% points back. This boosts the reward rates you earn from the other Citibank cards that have better reward rates.
• You can earn small amounts of extra rewards with the "Round Up" feature. All purchases on the Rewards+ card are rounded up to an even multiple of 10 points. For example, if you buy a cup of coffee for $2, you'll get 10 points instead of 2—a reward rate of 5%. If you really want to optimize your rewards, you can use the card for some of your small purchases. But this is unlikely to add up to a significant amount of rewards over the course of the year.

Getting Rid of the Card

• You could lose your ThankYou points when you cancel your card. Any ThankYou points associated with your card will expire 60 days after you cancel. You can transfer them to another person's account, but they will then expire after 90 days. You can also convert the card to another ThankYou Rewards card to maintain your points. However, since the Rewards+ card has no annual fee and you are not limited to a single copy, there isn't much reason to cancel the card before you've used your points
• Cancelling your card resets the clock for earning another ThankYou point signup bonus. You aren't eligible if you've opened or closed account within the last 24 months. Product changing, rather than cancelling, shouldn't reset the clock. But sometimes it does and there is really no rhyme or reason to it. You should theoretically be able to product change to any other Citibank personal credit card.
• You might be able to receive a retention offer to keep your card. It could be enough to make it worthwhile to keep the card.

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