Citi Thank You Rewards has announced the addition of a new transfer partner: Leading Hotels of the World Leaders Club. Citi Premier and Citi Prestige cardmembers can now transfer Thank You points to Leaders Club at a rate of 1,000 Citi points to 200 Leaders Club points. While that doesn’t sound great on the surface, the low points cost of LHW properties means that you can get decent value out of Citi points transferred to the program.
The Deal
- Citi ThankYou Rewards has added Leading Hotels of the World as a new transfer partner. Points transfer 1,000 Citi points to 200 Leaders Club points
Quick Thoughts
While the 5:1 transfer ratio doesn’t sound amazing at first blush, it could be a decent deal for anyone looking to redeem Citi points for a boutique hotel stay. Members of Leaders Club also receive benefits including pre-arrival upgrade opportunities and on-property perks (like breakfast for two), so there are some on-property benefits here as well.
As an example, an example night at Le Mount Stephen in Montreal, Québec rang in around $331 with taxes and fees or fewer than 3,500 Leaders Club points.
Since you’ll have to transfer in increments of 1,000 Citi ThankYou points, that redemption would require transferring 18,000 ThankYou points to Leading Hotels of the World (which would net 3,600 Leaders Club points). Even if you never used the leftover 129 points, you’d be looking at a value of around 1.8c per Citi ThankYou point.
Greg points out that the value isn’t really inflated there in the sense that he found hotel rates at the Leading Hotels of the World site to be competitive with what you would find elsewhere (in other words, this isn’t a case where the Leading Hotels of the World website inflates the price to make it seem like points are buying more value than they really are). By contrast, he sometimes even found the Leading Hotels of the World site to be a bit cheaper than other booking avenues over numerous searches.
Based on Greg’s test searches, he found that Leading Hotels of the World points are usually worth around 8 cents per point, making Citi points worth 1.6c per point when redeemed through this partnership. While you certainly can do better with international premium cabin flight awards, that’s a pretty good redemption rate for Citi points otherwise.
One other nice benefit Greg found while researching this new partnership is that in many cases you can book almost any room with points. For instance, at the same Le Mount Stephen property referenced above, you could redeem 14,735 points for a SkyLoft Suite Terrace, which has a rate for our example night of just over $1,400 all-in.
That could make this program especially appealing when you’re looking to redeem for a specific room type (like a suite). You’d have to transfer 74K Citi points to book that suite, but in certain instances a redemption like that might be appealing.
Overall, it’s great to see Citi add a new hotel transfer partner, particularly one that offers the chance to get better than reasonable redemption value out of the points.
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I just completed a LHW stay. Everything about the booking (the check-out screen & follow-up emails) made it look like I’d have to pay taxes for the stay, but (as I expected), the taxes were never charged. Has anyone here had similar or contradictory experiences with booking LHW hotels with points?
I mean, this has to be the 2nd or 3rd best way (behind Hyatt) to use transferable points for hotels. 1.5cpp is a decent hotel rate, all things considered. And Citi now has 2 hotel partners worth using (with Choice being the other). I’ve been eyeing the Venture X to unlock my Savor One points, but maybe it would be better to pick up the Premier to pair with my already existing Double Cash?
[…] at the Chicago Seminars over the weekend and seeing some new and familiar faces. Yesterday, Frequent Miler wrote a post about Leading Hotels of the World (LHW) becoming the latest Citi ThankYo…. More transfer partners are always appreciated, so I decided to sign up for a free LHW account […]
I see points expire after 24 months. Anyone know you can extend by transferring more?
This is great – thanks! I booked an all inclusive resort in Zanzibar for next summer. Taxes must be paid separately, so factor that in when crunching numbers. Still a decent deal given that its all inclusive.
When you say that taxes must be paid separately… which taxes do you mean? And does it charge you up-front when booking or do they say that you’ll pay at the hotel? Also, how clear is it that this is the case? I’m wondering if it’s a mistake? For example, when booking an award stay with Hyatt, you’ll sometimes get a confirmation that suggests that you will owe resort fees, but you really don’t.
It doesn’t appear to be a mistake. The charge shows on the confirmation as “taxes and fees.” I thought they would charge me immediately, but I only see a pending charge for $1.
Update – I think you’re correct. I received an updated email, and it looks like the taxes/fees were removed.
Note that there is a small “infrastructure tax” to be paid at the hotel upon checkout – $5 per person per day.
Great, thanks for the update! I’ve seen that sort of infrastructure tax in some other places too and with regular hotel programs. I think that in some locations they can’t get out of charging a tax when its a set dollar amount rather than a percent of the amount charged.
No they do charge tax. I booked a stay in Miami and they mentioned that points only cover ROOM RATE so something to factor in. In my case, they charge $80 for 2 adults 1 night
How does this compare to the other Citi option of transferring Citi points to Choice and using those points to book Preferred Hotels?
Not nit picking. More choices are good. I’m mostly wondering which choice I should check out first.
I don’t have the Citi Premier unfortunately but I do have the double cash. I get some of the transfer partners. Interesting there limiting access to the new additions. This won’t show in my transfer portal
So many drool worthy bucket list properties on LHW! Very excited to focus on earning citi points to take advantage!
Searched a couple of hotels I’m interested in. Around 1.5c per TYP but some as low as 1.36c pp.
Overall probably makes more sense to book at 1.5 through the CSR as UR are much easier to come by.
A transfer bonus would of course change everything.
I can’t seem to get the point rate to populate?
I think you need to log in.
I should have mentioned that you need to create an account and log in and then it will show the points price.
yes, I figured that so I did sign up…. is there an option I need to check for points to populate as a choice? TY!
After logging in you should see a slider bar labelled “View with Points”
Citi is the new king of niche lodging redemptions: Vacasa (Wyndham), Preferred Hotels (Choice), and now LHW.
They have many nice hotels. LDW used to be paid membership only; now it’s open to all. Without needing any effort, just the free breakfast benefit alone beats most other mid-tier “elite” statuses.
Just spent a few minutes looking through some of their properties. They have some really interesting ones. Not exceptional value, but great way to stay at luxury places I wouldn’t otherwise. Looking forward to reading more experiences from the community. Time to collect more ThankYou points!
Love TYP
Problem is getting enough of them…
This is where the legacy Citi Sears that earns ThankYou points kick ass!
Until I get a better card, the Double Cash card is my ‘everywhere else’ card and I’m racking up a lot of points from that. I’ve also had a couple trips that I didn’t feel confident booking on my own, and the 3x for travel got me a few tens of thousands of points.
Custom Cash offers 5 pts/$ on the first $500 per month.
So, there are ways to earn points. Maybe not as fast as with Chase or AmEx, but there are ways.
Perfect for an upcoming trip to Switzerland next summer.