Amex Membership Rewards, Chase Ultimate Rewards, and Citi ThankYou Rewards have a lot in common between them, besides their similar sounding names. All three are transferable points programs in which it is possible to convert points to various airline and hotel loyalty programs, usually 1 to 1. All three make it possible to buy airfare (and/or other travel) with points and get more than 1 cent per point value. All three require the accountholder to have certain premium cards to unlock these “better than 1 cent per point value” capabilities. Where the three programs differ drastically is in how points are banked and, therefore, how one can keep points alive when cancelling cards…
With Chase Ultimate Rewards, points are banked separately within each credit card account. If you have both a Sapphire Preferred card and a Freedom card, for example, you’ll accumulate points separately within each of the two accounts. Points in the Sapphire Preferred account can be transferred to airline and hotel programs. Points in the Freedom account cannot. Similarly, points in the Sapphire Preferred account can be used to book travel at a rate of 1.25 cents per point. Freedom points can also be used to book travel, but at a rate of only 1 cent per point. Fortunately, Chase makes it easy to get full value from your points: simply move points from your Freedom card to your Sapphire Preferred card in order to get full value from your points. To do so: log into your account, click on “Ultimate Rewards”, then select your Freedom card, then hover the mouse over the triangle next to your point total and click “Combine Points”. The same process can be used to move points from or to a spouse’s or significant other’s account.
Amex makes things easier. All Membership Rewards points earned by one person across different cards are pooled together in one Membership Rewards account. Your ability to transfer points or get extra value from points for travel is automatically available simply by having certain credit cards. Of the three issuers, only Amex has a no-fee card that unlocks the ability to transfer points to airline and hotel programs (the Amex EveryDay Card). On the other hand, Amex makes it very difficult to get a 20% bonus on points used for travel: only Business Platinum and Centurion card members qualify.
Citi’s program is a bit of a hybrid between the other two. Like Amex Membership Rewards, Citi ThankYou points earned by one person across different cards can be pooled together in one ThankYou account (log into your ThankYou account and “add sponsor account”). And, as with Amex, simply having a premium card unlocks the power to transfer points and/or buy travel at a reduced rate. The key difference is that Citi continues to track the origin of each point. Points earned from a particular card will expire if you cancel that card. Also, not all points are eligible for transfers. Unlike Chase and Amex, Citi lets customers earn ThankYou points from their banking products. Points earned from your banking relationship with Citi (e.g. from opening or maintaining a checking account) are not eligible for transfers to loyalty programs.
How to keep points alive when cancelling cards
Since each of the transferable points programs have different ways of banking points, the approach to keeping points alive differs by program as well:
Chase Ultimate Rewards
Preserve your points by moving points out of the account to be cancelled. You can move points to another Ultimate Rewards card that you own or to a spouse or significant other’s account. Make sure to stop putting spend on the card well in advance so that all points are accounted for before cancelling. Another option for preserving your points is to downgrade to a no fee Ultimate Rewards card instead of cancelling. A common approach, for example, is to downgrade the Sapphire Preferred card to the no fee Freedom card.
Amex Membership Rewards
Preserve your points by always having a Membership Rewards account open. You can accomplish this by opening a new card prior to (or even soon after) cancelling your existing card. Or, better yet, get a no-fee Membership Rewards card and keep it forever. This way, you can freely sign up for and cancel other Membership Rewards cards without having to worry about losing your points. The best of the no-fee cards, in my opinion, is the Amex EveryDay card because, unlike any other no fee card, this one allows point transfers to loyalty programs.
Citi ThankYou Rewards
Due to the fact that Citi keeps track of where each ThankYou point came from, ThankYou points are the most difficult to preserve when cancelling cards. Even though points appear to be pooled altogether, points from a closed credit card expire 60 days after cancellation. Of the three programs, Citi is the only one that allows people to share points with anyone. Unfortunately, sharing points does not prolong their life. In fact, even if you keep the source credit card active, points shared with another person expire after 90 days. To preserve your points, you could transfer them to an airline loyalty program. Unfortunately, if you have multiple accounts pooled together, you won’t be able to pick and choose which points you transfer. Also, of course, that would be a one-way transfer. You could never get the ThankYou points back if you changed your mind.
The best way to preserve your ThankYou points when canceling a card, in my opinion, is to downgrade to a no-fee ThankYou card instead. There is a side benefit to this approach too. Your no fee card may be eligible for occasional lucrative retention offers. See: How one call led to a points bonanza and rethought plans.
For an up to date list of all transfer partners from each transferable points program, please see the Transfer Partner Master List.
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FYI, Citi rep and supervisor both refused to downgrade to no fee card and delete $95 fee for Capital One Venture Rewards. They both said that the fee would remain even if we downgraded the card. We could only cancel card to avoid fee, which would mean we’d lose the points. We redeemed points and then cancelled the card.
Citi rep or Capital One rep?
Sorry, Capitol One. There’s more to the story. The rep allowed us to downgrade to a no fee card, but had to specifically waive the $95 fee for the Capital One Venture Rewards, which we were cancelling. We had already redeemed the points. A different rep who processed the downgrade, read us a script that said we’d have to pay the $95 fee, but said that since the previous rep had waived it, we didn’t have to pay.
Later, when we saw the $95 fee still on the account, the Capitol One rep said the fee could not be waived, because we had received a sign up bonus. To get rid of the $95 fee, we had to cancel the downgraded card too.
[…] cancel your card. With bank programs, though, there’s a big risk. I’ve written before about how to keep your transferable points alive when cancelling cards, but I believe that Citi’s ThankYou program requires a bit more […]
[…] 9. Very useful post on Frequent Miler on transferrable points and ways to keep them alive. I’ve actually learned something new. Apparently, there is no way to preserve Citi Thank You points from a cancelled card, as they will expire even if you get another card with similar benefits. […]
[…] See also: Banking transferable points and keeping them alive. […]
I was told by BA that if I cancel their cc, I would loose the points I gained with that cc (sounds similar to the Citi card). Has anyone else been told this by BA chase?
Not true.
Definitely not true. BA points are stored with BA, not with Chase.
If I already have a Freedom and decide to downgrade my CSP, is it possible for me to have 2 Freedom cards?
Yes.
I’ve got about 120k UR sitting in my CSP/Freedom account and another 75k in an Ink Bold account. I’m keen on not paying the annual fee on the Bold, but am a little nervous about consolidating balances as I’ve read horror stories on FT about chase closing down accounts with high (north of 200k balances). I do very little MS but am still worried – do I reason to be here?
Would be interesting to hear anecdotes…but perhaps if someone has $5k in their account and blowing $500K – $1MM in MS per year…well, then they’ll probably shut you down. Chase is WELL AWARE of person’s buying GCs to get points.
I wouldn’t put it past them to have put pressure on WM to cut the GC loads on BB. I mean, why would WM care?? They are neither losing money nor costing money…other than the CR’s time….yet had to spend some coder’s time to make that update…i.e. $$$
As a data point, I have a good amt. of UR but only 1 Ink card, but then again, I travel for work and put a fair amt. of real spend on the cards I have and keep a healthy balance with Chase as well. I think those using family member’s cards and raking in 40k-100K+ pts / month….they are “on the list”
When did the Walmart gift card loads to bluebird die? Thanks
No reason to worry. People get shut down for many reasons, but consolidating your own points is not one of them.
I have the Citi Forward card that gives 5 pts on dining and entertainment. Are those points transferable to airlines if I have the Citi Premiere or Prestige?
Yes! That’s why I love my Forward card.
Where can I get the Citi Forward card? Can’t seem to find a link to it anywhere.
Its no longer available to new applicants
Fascinating stuff on Citi especially as that’s a new program to me. The bit about bank points being combinable *but* not transferrable to travel partners is especially strange, and news to me, so gaining clarity on that is helpful.
How do they keep track of this? Or more important – how do I discover that as a user? Say I have 50K from a Premier signup and 40K from a CitiGold signup for a total of 90K. When I go to make a transfer of 90K it’ll stop me and say “only 50K of your miles are transferrable?”. Or do I have to keep guessing until I discern which points came from where?
This being the case, what’s the best way to get value out of CitiGold TY points? Are they still eligible for the 1.6 uplift when redeeming for paid flights on AA if I have the Prestige card?
When you go to make a transfer it will show you how many total TYP are available for transfer and (in that example) it will show 50K. I believe that all points are available for 1.6 cents paid flights