One of the major advantages that Citi has enjoyed in recent years has been some standout hotel redemptions thanks to excellent transfer ratios to two niche programs: Choice Privileges and Preferred Hotels & Resorts iPrefer Rewards. Sadly, transfers to both are set to be devalued on April 19, 2026. If you’ve been eyeing a transfer for a valuable redemption, you’ll want to make your move soon.
The Deal
- Citi has sent an email to cardholders indicating that transfer ratios to Choice Privileges and Preferred Hotels iPrefer will decrease as of April 19, 2026 as follows for Citi Strata Elite, Strata Premier, Citi Prestige, and AT&T Access More cardholders:
- Choice Privileges will be 1:1.5 (currently 1:2)
- Preferred Hotels going to 1:2 (currently 1:4)
Quick Thoughts
This is bad news for fans of Citi points for hotel redemptions. While there may still be opportunities for outsized value, these updates represent a significant devaluation.
Whereas 1,000 Citi ThankYou points currently transfer to 2,000 Choice Privileges points through 4/18/26, that ratio will become 1,000 Citi points to 1,500 Choice Privileges points as of 4/19/26. That certainly erases some of the advantage that Citi has enjoyed in the Choice transfer ratio.
The ratio to Preferred Hotels is being cut in half, with points transferring 1,000 to 4,000 until 4/18/26 and dropping to 1,000 to 2,000 as of 4/19/26. That really reduces the potential value of transferring to Preferred hotels from 4/19 onward.
Interestingly, we have not seen any change announced by Wells Fargo Rewards. Wells Fargo points currently transfer to Choice Privileges at the same 1:2 ratio as Citi. That will make Wells Fargo the more attractive path to Choice Privileges points moving forward, unless we see a change announced there as well.
The bottom line is that these ratio changes are very disappointing given that these two programs have offered paths to outsized value, particularly for boutique Preferred Hotels redemptions. If you have those redemptions in mind, it is worth checking our Guide to booking Preferred Hotels with points, as it sometimes makes more sense to book through Choice and sometimes through Preferred Hotels.
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With this and closing point sharing, it’s like Citi saw their emerging strength and growing reputation and said “nah.”
Yep, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
Not only that, many Preferred Hotels now are dynamic, or only offering cash+points. Double check before you rush to transfer.
Can you please share an example of a Preferred hotel that is showing dynamic pricing for iPrefer points redemptions? I have not come across any in Europe.
Check out The Charles Hotel in Cambridge, MA, USA or
Grand Fiesta Americana Coral Beach, Cancun, Mexico
These are just two examples. If you look up any area in North America, you will easily find hotels showing “Rates Vary” instead of the normal fixed price. I have not checked Europe or any other region.
Actually, I now see many iPrefer Hotels in Italy and Spain showing “Rates Vary”
You know what Warren B. would say: “Freak the F out and panic sell everything right now. It’s F-ing over.”
Question of the Week request: Given that Citi transfers are really the only way to get iPrefer points, is this worth a speculative transfer. With the looming deval, it’s effectively a one-month 100% transfer bonus.
C1 transfers 1:2 to iPrefer. Just checked and looks like there is a 30% transfer bonus until 3/31 (maybe targeted?)
Ah, thanks! I didn’t realize C1 could transfer to iPrefer. I’m spreading mis-info. But still curious on speculative transfer opinions, given just how large of a transfer ratio 1 to 4 is for a currency that does have some ridiculously valuable properties.
Doesn’t this make WF points more valuable? I’m curious why FM team rarely and only in passing gives WF currency creds (and even more often skip over it like it doesnt exist)?
Yes, they have no “unique” tranfer partners., which FM team has dinged the for. So what?? They have an assortment of solid ones representing each airline alliance, and offer 2 to 1 transfer for Choice P program.What’s wrong with that?? They also over cards that earn points on par or in some cases better than other cc programs.
I find it a nice supplement to any of the other more popular cc currencies and hope the program doesnt get abandoned due to lack of popularity.
Your worry should be that the program doesn’t get nerfed due to over popularity, like the current Citi program undergoing an overhaul. Let it slide under the radar.
Well said DMoney
You know exactly why FM doesn’t talk about WF cards enough.
It’s fairly obvious. Just as any other blog that doesn’t either.
I can’t speak for the rest of the team, but for me it’s because Wells Fargo’s cards just aren’t all that compelling.
Other than the Choice cards, I don’t think they have any that offer bonused spend on groceries. The Autograph Journey offers 3x on dining, but so does the Citi Strata Premier, Chase Sapphire Preferred and Reserve, Amex Gold, Bilt Obsidian, etc. – all of which have transferable points that are more valuable than Wells Fargo.
Its collection of transfer partners isn’t very inspired either. It’s Avios programs, Flying Blue, LifeMiles, JetBlue, Virgin Atlantic, & Choice. Most of those are transfer partners of nearly every other transferable points currency, so there’s nothing unique about Wells Fargo other than 1:2 transfers to Choice in a month’s time. Having some Wells Fargo points to transfer to these partners in order to save points in other programs for other partners certainly isn’t a bad play, but it’s not one I’m overly worried about.
Wells Fargo’s welcome offers aren’t particularly interesting either. 60K points on the Autograph Journey isn’t bad, but you can get welcome offers of 75K, 100K, 150K, 200K, etc. on other transferable points cards, so the Autograph Journey is never in the forefront of my mind.
For what it’s worth, I don’t think any of us on the Frequent Miler team have any Wells Fargo cards; at least not their transferable points cards anyway. Our own personal lack of interest probably translates into a lack of interest in writing about their cards.
Someone insinuated in the comments below that the reason we don’t cover Wells Fargo cards is because we can’t earn commission on them. From what I can remember (I haven’t checked), I believe we do earn affiliate revenue on some cards at the moment, although I’ve no clue how much we earn on them. We do write about loads of cards that we don’t earn commission on though. For example, we don’t have affiliate links for cards issued by Barclays, but we often write about the Wyndham cards (particularly the business card), JetBlue cards, the soon-to-be-transferred-to-Citi American Airlines Aviator cards, etc. We also wrote about the Amex Platinum and Gold cards for the ~2+ years where we didn’t have affiliate links for those cards on the site because we were using reader referral links as those were the best offer.
Earning commission on credit cards therefore doesn’t play any factor in what we write about. Instead, we write about the best deals and what we’re most interested and excited about. Unfortunately, as a result that doesn’t tend to include Wells Fargo.
If Wells Fargo updated the Autograph Journey card to offer 3X on groceries, boosted the welcome offer to 75K or more, increased the base earning rate from 1X, etc., I think we’d be much more interested in writing about it. As it is right now though, there are lots of other cards and opportunities that are more worthwhile for more people than any Wells Fargo cards.
Adam Smith would tell us that superior opportunities are being worked out of the market and that we’re moving towards common industry pricing. The end game is commoditization. We’ve seen it occurring for years. Nothing is off the table. Accept it. And, loyalty will only be rewarded at the highest revenue levels.
Adam Smith wouldn’t say anything. He’s dead.
Wow, after the Hyatt devaluation I was thinking about entering the Citi ecosystem specifically for these hotels. Now I’ll have to seriously reconsider. I guess Citi does still have EVA and American Airlines, even though I feel like lately Alaska has been having better deals overall vs American.
Regardless, it’s getting harder and harder to justify transferring points to hotel programs.
Hi will this reduce the RRV of Citi points, and will the Hyatt deval reduce Bilt and Chase?
Hi just read the new and very thorough Hyatt point RRV article, but something seems slightly broken in your RRV metric if Hyatt RRV goes down (admittedly slightly) but Chase and Bilt remain the same. I am guessing they will go down at a later point?
worth to transfer my TYP over in advance of the deval? suggestions on properties to redeem them at?
Yikes Citi. I wonder if that was triggered by Hyatt’s devaluation. Next stop are continuing airline devaluations fueled by increased jet fuel prices brought to you by Trump and Co.
I just opened the Strata Premier last week and that had been one of the reasons I chose the card. Sucks…
2 highlight stays for me via iPrefer:
Dromoland Castle in IrelandThe Lake House on Canandaigua in NY
Brett, would like to hear more about Dromoland, if you don’t mind..would consider that for an early September booking. TIA.
This one hurt. There’s an IPrefer hotel we like that booked for 12,500 points with the original 1:4 transfer rate. I already have our reservations for 2026 but considering moving more points for the future, just afraid of further devaluation.
Care to share the hotel?