ThankYou Rewards Guide (2019)
Credit Card Reference, Introduction to 'Transferable' Reward Points
Citibank’s reward program is called ThankYou Rewards. ThankYou Rewards homepage.
ThankYou Rewards is a valuable rewards program. You can easily earn points from signup bonuses, and then redeem your points to get free tickets from a set of useful frequent flyer program partners.
ThankYou Rewards are probably the least valuable of the big three “transferable” points programs, with the weakest set of partner frequent flyer programs, the fewest cards for earning signup bonuses, and the most restrictive rules for holding onto your points when you want to cancel your card.
On the other hand, when you are planning on transferring your points to frequent flyer programs, Citibank has the most lucrative reward earning rates of any program, and you'll still get great value by collecting their signup bonuses and using your points for free airplane tickets.
Even if you don’t want to mess with finding awards space, you can still use your points, at 1-1.38 cents each, to purchase travel through Citibank’s website. So a 50,000 point signup bonus is still worth at least $500-625, and often considerably more.
Many people will wind up eventually earning ThankYou points as a side benefit of getting the Citi Prestige card for its one-of-a-kind 4th night free benefit and 5x reward rates on airfare or restaurant; or as part of collecting the most valuable credit card signup offers.
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Airline transfer partners
Points usually take 1-2 days to transfer to partners. However, points transfer instantly to Avianca, Flying Blue, Jet, JetBlue, and Virgin Atlantic; and transfers can take longer with Etihad and Thai.
Citibank occasionally run promotions where you’ll get a better-than-normal rate for transferring your points to a specific partner program during the promotional period. Take Advantage of Transfer Bonuses to Get More Value from Your Reward Points.
| Star Alliance (United) |
SkyTeam (Delta) |
Oneworld (American) |
Other |
|---|---|---|---|
| Singapore (KrisFlyer) | Air France / KLM (Flying Blue) | Cathay Pacific (Asia Miles) | Jet Blue |
| Turkish Airlines |
Qantas | Etihad | |
| Avianca | Malaysia | Virgin Atlantic | |
| EVA Air |
Jet Airways (India) | ||
| Thai | Qatar |
Singapore, Flying Blue, Cathay Pacific, and Avianca are good frequent flyer programs, but they also are partners with other credit card programs. Unlike Ultimate Rewards and Membership Rewards, ThankYou rewards doesn’t have a partner that helps avoid fuel surcharges on Star Alliance or SkyTeam airlines, and doesn’t partner with any of the big US airlines.
JetBlue operates a fixed-value points program, so you can get around 1.3 - 1.5 cents per point when you purchase tickets, without having to worry about award availability.
Turkish Airlines offers some interesting award opportunities, but the ThankYou program’s other unique transfer partners are generally not very useful.
Remember that you can use miles from any of these programs to book awards with any of that program’s partner airlines. So, you can transfer your ThankYou points to Singapore Airlines, and then use the Singapore miles to fly United, any of the two dozen or so other airlines that are part of the Star Alliance, or any other of Singapore Airline’s airline partners. With all the partnerships, you can redeem your ThankYou points for flights in over 100 airlines.
Hotel transfer partners
The typical value that you can get from many types of hotel points is well under 1 cent per point. It will rarely make sense to transfer your points to a hotel partner.
| Hilton (1000:1500) |
Cashing out your points
If you don’t want to mess around with frequent flyer tickets, your best option is to purchase travel through the Citi Travel Center.
If you have the Citi Premier card, you'll get 1.25 cents per point when purchasing airfare.
Since you can typically get better hotel rates than what is available on the Citibank travel portal and Citibank reservations are considered 3rd party reservations in terms of hotel loyalty program, we wouldn't recommend booking hotels this way. But, you can easily redeem your points by paying for airfare, car rentals, or cruises.
If you link a Citi Rewards+ card to your account, you'll get an additional 10% rebate on the first 100,000 points you redeem each year, boosting the Premier card's point value to 1.38 cents per points.
Combining the high reward earning rates of the Prestige card, with the higher cash-out rate of the Premier card, and the 10% rebate of the Reward+ card lets you maximize your points.
But, it can take some time to properly set up the combination. You can only earn a signup bonus from the ThankYou family of cards if it has been 24 months since you opened or closed any of the cards. So, it would take four years to earn the signup bonuses on all three cards. But there are some shortcuts. If you are willing to give up the signup bonus of the Rewards+, you can get it at around the same time you get one of the other two cards, without messing up your 24 month clock.
Alternatively, you could use your points for JetBlue tickets. JetBlue operates a fixed-value reward program, where you'll can use your points, at a value of around 1.3 - 1.5 cents each, to purchase any of their tickets, without worrying about award availability.
ThankYou Reward credit cards
Promotional signup offers are sometimes available that are higher than the typical signup bonuses shown below.
| Card | Typical Signup Bonus | Bonus Categories | Effective Annual Fee |
|---|---|---|---|
| Citi Prestige | ??? | 5x airfare and restaurants
3x hotels and cruises 2x entertainment (until September) |
$100-$245 |
| Citi Premier | 30-50,000 | 3x all travel
3x gas, parking, public transportation 2x dining and entertainment |
$95, waived first year |
| Citi Rewards+ | 15,000 | Rounds up rewards to nearest 10 | $0 |
| Citi Double Cash | 0 | 2x on all purchases | $0 |
| AT&T Access | 10,000 | 2x online retail and travel purchases
2x AT&T |
$0 |
| Citi Preferred
(discountinued) |
2x dining and entertainment | $0 |
The points you earn from the Double Cash, Citi Reward+ and the AT&T cards can’t normally be transferred to frequent flyer programs. However, if you have the Citi Prestige or Premier cards, you can temporarily transfer your points to the account associated with that card, and then onto one of the airline partners.
Because you can receive the Citi Prestige’s travel credit every calendar year, it is possible to receive up to $500 in airfare credits during the first year you have the card, which covers the $450 annual fee.
Collecting multiple signup bonuses
- These cards don't always offer signup bonuses. Sometimes they have bonuses in the 50,000 point range, sometimes they don't. With the possible exception of the prioritizing the Citi Prestige card to start taking advantage of the 4th night free benefit, you should wait to get started until you can get a nice bonus.
- You need to spread out your applications. With Citibank, you can only earn a signup bonus, if you haven’t opened or closed a card from the same family in the past 24 months. So, if you get the Prestige, Premier or Reward+ cards, you’ll need to wait 24 months before you can get a signup bonus for another one of these cards. The AT&T Access card is considered a separate category, so getting this card doesn’t affect the bonuses from the other cards.
- If you want to hold onto the Citi Prestige card, you can’t periodically cancel and re-apply. You may want to hold onto the Citi Prestige card for its 4th night free and airport lounge benefits, and its high reward rates on travel and dining purchases. If so, there is no good way to repeatedly receive the signup bonus. If you cancel the card, you’ll need to wait two full years before you can get it again.
- If you are only interested in collecting a signup bonus for one of these cards, you can’t just cancel at the end of the first year. Normally, you’d want to cancel the card to avoid paying an additional annual fee. However, if you cancel the card, you’ll reset the 24-month clock for another card.
- You can collect a bonus (on the Citi Premier or Prestige card) every two years. If you want to make the Citi Prestige card part of your core credit card collection, get it first. Two years later, get the Premier Card. Then just before the annual fee is due, downgrade the Premier card to the Rewards+ version. About a year later, you can apply for the Premier card again. If you don’t care about holding onto the Citi Prestige card, you can do the same thing, but sign up for whichever card has the higher signup bonus each time.
Bonus category opportunities
- The Citi Prestige card earns an amazing 5x ThankYou points on restaurants and airfare. These are the best reward rates of any card.
- The Citi Prestige and Premier cards earn good reward rates on other travel purchases. Both cards earn 3x ThankYou points. Interestingly, the less-expensive Premier card offers an extended range in the travel category, including various transportation options, and even gas and parking. Nevertheless, it probably doesn’t make sense to keep both cards unless you are primarily planning to cash-out your points.
- The Double Cash card earns extremely valuable rewards on everyday purchases—2x points, regardless of category. This is most transferable points you can get from any personal credit card. You'll need the Prestige or Premier cards to get full value from your points. But, the Double Cash card doesn't add an extra annual fee.
- The Citi Premier's bonus rewards on Entertainment and the AT&T Access card's bonus rewards on online shopping are no longer particularly interesting. You can earn the same 2x points with the Double Cash card, which also earns the same rewards on all other spending.
Point transfers and expiration
- You can transfer your points to anyone’s account, however the points will then expire in 90 days. The number of points you can transfer or receive each year is capped at 100,000 points. You can only transfer points to a frequent flyer account that matches the name on your ThankYou account. However, you can transfer points to someone else’s ThankYou account, and they can transfer them to their own frequent flyer account.
- Rather than having a centralized ThankYou account, you have separate accounts for each credit card (or bank account). You can combine your accounts. But, if you do, the points are still associated with the credit card or bank account that earned them. If you close an account, you'll lose any unused points that were earned with that card, 60 days later.
- If you don’t want to lose your points when you cancel your card, you either need to use them, transfer them to the frequent flyer program where you expect to get the most benefit later, or convert your card to the no-annual-fee Citi Reward+ card. If you convert your card, and you don’t have another Citi Prestige / Premier card (in your household), you’ll lose your ability to transfer to partner loyalty programs.
Advantages of Citibank banking relationships
- Citigold customers get an additional $145 discount on the Citi Prestige card's annual fee. This drops the effective annual fee to $100 per year. Opening a Citigold checking account is easy, but it comes with a $30 monthly fee. To avoid this fee, you need $200,000 in combined assets with Citibank. If you have a substantial amount of existing retirement or investment accounts that you wouldn’t mind moving over to Citi, you can pay a lower fee.
- You can also earn ThankYou points directly from your banking activity. With the Citigold account, you can earn up to 1,600 points per month, depending on how many different Citibank banking and lending programs you use. With a regular Citibank account, you’ll earn less from each program, with a maximum of 1,000 points per month. You can also periodically earn large numbers of points as a banking account signup bonus. Be aware that unlike the points you earn with credit cards, these points will expire 3 years after the end of the year when you earned them, and can’t be transferred to other people. In addition, they can’t be directly transferred to partner loyalty programs. If you want to use them for award tickets, you’ll need to temporarily transfer them to your Citi Prestige / Premier account first.
It has been reported online that if you were a Citigold customer, and you are not any longer, you may still get the lower annual fee. This means it is possible to only pay the maintenance fee for a couple of months, or only transfer your assets on a temporary basis, and still get the added benefits.
