Best uses for Citi ThankYou Points (2026)

Citibank offers several cards that earn ThankYou Rewards points. By using the right combination of cards, you can earn 2 to 12 points per dollar on all spending. Once you’ve collected lots of points, though, you’re going to want to get great value from them.

This post provides an overview of good uses for Citi ThankYou Points, so you’ll know where to start. It has been updated for 2026 to include Citi’s new credit cards, award pricing changes, and ThankYou Points’ new transfer partnership with American Airlines.

Earning Citi ThankYou Points

If you like the idea of earning 2x to 12x transferable points for all of your spend, then Citi has you covered. The key is to assemble a collection of Citi cards and to use the right one for the right spend:

• Citi Strata Elite ($595/year): Earn 12 points per dollar (12X) on hotels, car rentals, and attractions booked through Citi Travel; 6X on airfare booked through Citi Travel; 6X on dining between 6 pm and 6 am EST on Fridays and Saturdays; 3X on dining all other times; 1.5X everywhere else.
• Citi Strata Premier ($95/year): Earn 3 points per dollar (3x) for grocery, dining, gas stations, flights, hotels, and travel agencies.
• Citi Strata (no annual fee): Earn 5 points per dollar (5X) on hotels, car rentals, and Attractions booked through Citi Travel; 3x for grocery, gas stations, and a self-select category (Fitness Clubs, Select Streaming Services, Live Entertainment, Cosmetic Stores/Barber Shops/Hair Salons, or Pet Supply Stores); 2X on dining.
• Citi Custom Cash (no annual fee): Earn 5 points per dollar (5x) on purchases in your top eligible spend category each billing cycle, up to the first $500 spent, 1x thereafter. Eligible categories: Restaurants, Gas Stations, Grocery Stores, Select Travel, Select Transit, Select Streaming Services, Drugstores, Home Improvement Stores, Fitness Clubs, and Live Entertainment. A great approach is to get multiple Custom Cash cards by signing up for one and later product-changing other Citi cards to this one. That way, you can exceed the $ 500-per-billing-cycle cap. You could, for example, assign one card as your 5x grocery card and another as your 5x drugstore card, and spend up to $500 per month on each.
• Citi Double Cash (no annual fee): Earn 2 points per dollar for all spend. Use this one everywhere that you don’t earn more with the Premier or Custom Cash cards.

Basic Info About Citi ThankYou Rewards Points

Here are some things you should know:

• Move points from one account to another (even to friends’ accounts): You can freely move up to 100,000 points per year to any other Citi ThankYou Rewards account. The catch is that once points are moved, they expire within 90 days. Make sure you have immediate plans for those points before moving them. One exception is with the Citi Custom Cash card. This card lets you pool points (see the next bullet), but it does not allow you to move them.
• You can pool points, but Citi still tracks which card earned them: Citi lets you pool your ThankYou accounts so points earned from all your cards show up in the same place and can be used together. When you do this, you get access to the best available redemption options. For example, Citi’s no-annual-fee cards offer very few transfer options to hotels & airlines, but by pooling points with your Citi Strata Premier, Strata Elite, or Access More card, you can transfer them to any supported transfer partner. Unfortunately, even after pooling points, if you cancel any of your cards, you will lose the points that were earned with that card and not yet spent.
• You can keep points alive by downgrading to a no-annual-fee card: If you don’t want to keep your ThankYou rewards card due to annual fees, consider downgrading to a no-annual-fee ThankYou card instead. Downgrade options include the Double Cash, Custom Cash, or Strata. Doing this will keep your points alive. If you want to transfer points to an airline or hotel program later, you can get a new Strata Premier or Strata Elite card, upgrade your no-annual-fee card to one of them, or move points to a friend who has a one (or a Prestige or AT&T Access More card).

How NOT to use your ThankYou Points

One reason Citi can afford to throw so many points at cardholders is that it makes it easy to redeem points for poor value. Don’t do this. Your goal should be to earn more than 1 cent per point. Worst case, make sure to get exactly 1 cent per point value. While there are some exceptions, the following options for redeeming points are bad deals. Stay away from the following:

• Don’t Shop With Points
  Citi makes it easy to pay with points when checking out at Amazon.com, PayPal, Best Buy, Shell, BP, Amoco, and other retailers. In most cases, you’ll get less than 1 cent per point value. Don’t do it.
• Don’t Use Points Cover Your Card Charges
  Citi lets you redeem points at a very poor rate to offset charges on your credit card. Don’t do it.
• Don’t Redeem Points for Gift Cards
  You can redeem points for gift cards at 1 cent per point, but you probably shouldn’t, since you’ll get the same value for your points by redeeming for cash. One exception: Citi sometimes has point discounts for select gift cards.
• Don’t Book Travel with Points
  When using points to book travel through Citi’s ThankYou portal, you’ll only get 1 cent per point value. Worse, the portal sometimes shows rates that are higher than those found elsewhere for the same travel bookings. And when things go wrong with your travel, you may have to deal with Citi’s travel center to fix it rather than going right to the travel provider. That rarely works out well. If you want to book paid travel, you are almost always better off redeeming points for cash and then using a points-earning credit card to book travel directly with the travel provider.

Do (sometimes) cash out points

Citi lets you redeem points for cash back at 1 cent per point, but only if you have a Double Cash or Custom Cash card as part of your Citi card lineup. That’s hardly an amazing value, but other than transferring to airline and hotel partners, it’s better than most other redemptions.

However, be aware that if you only have a Strata Premier, Strata Elite or Prestige card, cashing out will only get you 0.75 cents per point of value.

Do transfer points to airline and hotel programs

This is the way to go!

Citi offers a number of airline and hotel programs to which you can transfer your points, usually at a 1:1 ratio. For a complete list, see: Citi Transfer Partners. By transferring points wisely, it’s often possible to get far more than 1 cent per point value.

Please keep in mind these tips:

• Always have at least one transferable account: With a few exceptions, ThankYou Rewards are transferable only from the Citi Strata Elite or Citi Strata Premier cards (and the no-longer-available Citi Prestige and AT&T Access More cards). If you or a friend has such an account, you can move points to that account from almost any other account before transferring to an airline or hotel program, but you are limited to moving 100,000 points per year this way. Another option is to pool points among your own accounts. For example, if you have the Citi Double Cash and the Citi Strata Premier cards, you can pool points between them in order to make all of the points transferable. Note that the Custom Cash Card is different. With this card, you cannot move points to other accounts, but you can pool points with your own Strata Premier card in order to make them transferable.
• Wait to transfer points: Don’t transfer points until high-value awards are available and you are ready to book them. Transfers are one-way only. Citi ThankYou points are valuable for their flexibility. Once you transfer, you are locked into a single program that may or may not have awards available.
• Slow Transfers: Most transfers are instant, but some can take a day or more to complete. This can be a big problem since award space could disappear before the points are available to make an award booking. Our Citi Transfer Partners post shows the expected transfer time for each program.
• Check Award Value Before Transferring: Just because an award exists doesn’t mean that it’s a good idea to book it. For example, you might find that a flight is available for 25,000 miles, but the cash rate for the same flight is only $200. If you were to transfer your Citi points to an airline for this purpose, you’d get only 0.8 cents per point value. In that case, you’d be much better off redeeming your points for cash and then buying airfare with your credit card.
• Partners Often Offer Better Value: When booking flights, you’ll often find better value booking an award using miles from a partner airline rather than the one you want to fly. For example, Air France KLM Flying Blue will sometimes charge fewer miles to fly Delta Airlines than Delta would charge for its own flights.
• Watch for Transfer Bonuses: Citi sometimes offers bonuses when transferring to select programs. See our post “Current Point Transfer Bonuses” to see both current and expired bonuses (the latter can give you an idea of what to expect in the future).

Stay in Preferred Hotels & Resorts

Citi offers two ways to get great value when booking Preferred Hotels:

• Transfer to Choice Privileges. Citi offers a 1:2 transfer ratio to Choice Privileges for those with a Strata Premier or Strata Elite card (or a no-longer-available Citi Prestige or Access More card). Many luxury hotels in the Preferred Hotels & Resorts collection can be booked with Choice Privileges points. Point prices range from 20,000 to 87,000 points per night. Given the 1-to-2 transfer ratio, this translates to 10,000 to 43,500 Citi ThankYou points per night for some incredible hotels.

• Transfer to Preferred Hotels I Prefer. Citi offers an incredible 1-to-4 transfer ratio to I Prefer. Point prices range from 15,000 to 150,000 points per night. Given the transfer ratio, this translates to 3,750 to 37,500 Citi ThankYou points per night for some of the most incredible hotels.

Not all hotels are available to book with points. And, there’s no obvious correlation between hotels bookable with Choice points vs those bookable with I Prefer points. Worse, when a single hotel is bookable both ways, award availability differs. For an easy way to see which hotels are bookable in the different platforms, see: Find Preferred Hotels bookable with points (easy searchable table)

Stay in an Ascend Hotel Collection Boutique Hotel or Resort

Citi offers an excellent 1:2 transfer ratio to Choice Privileges for those with a Strata Premier or Strata Elite card (or the no-longer-available Prestige or AT&T Access More cards). Choice’s Ascend Hotel Collection offers high-end boutique hotels and resorts with award prices usually ranging from 16,000 to 40,000 points per night. With most award prices between 16,000 and 30,000 points, the cost with Citi points is only 8,000 to 15,000 points per night.

See these posts for more info:

• Choice’s Ascend Collection Gems (Great Value with Citi Points!)
• Nordic Choice Sweet-Spots: Great Value w/ Choice Points

Also, note that Bluegreen vacation properties are bookable with Choice points under the Ascend Hotel Collection brand. It can be difficult to find availability, but the opportunities can be amazing.

Stay in a Leading Hotel of the World (LHW)

For those with a Strata Premier or Strata Elite card (or the no-longer-available Prestige or AT&T Access More cards), Citi points transfer 1,000 to 200 to LHW’s (Leading Hotels of the World) Leaders Club. That transfer ratio doesn’t sound great, but Leaders Club points are worth approximately 8 cents each towards hotel stays, and so this transfer ratio gives you 1.6 cents per point value with your Citi points. That’s pretty good!

One cool thing about this opportunity is that just by booking through Leaders Club, you are eligible for on-property perks:

• Upgrade priority upon arrival
• Daily continental breakfast for two
• Early check-in and late check-out considerations

Greg and his wife tried out a stay with Leaders Club, and the results were great! See: Sampling Leading Hotels of the World (LHW) thanks to Citi ThankYou Rewards

Fly within the US

There are a number of good ways to use Citi points to fly within the U.S. Here are some examples:

• Transfer to American Airlines. Domestic pricing on AA starts as low as 5K miles one-way for economy, while business-class specials start at 15K miles one-way. Awards on Alaska Airlines within the contiguous US & Canada cost 12.5K each way in economy or 25K in Business/First.
• Transfer to Qantas Frequent Flyer to fly American Airlines. Qantas charges as few as 9,200 points one-way for short-distance AA flights (up to 600 miles). Qantas can also be a good choice for flights up to 1200 miles, where they charge 13,200 points one-way.
• Transfer to Air France / KLM Flying Blue or Virgin Atlantic Flying Club to fly Delta Airlines. When Delta releases seats to partners, it can be a good deal (especially on short-distance nonstop flights) to book with either Virgin Atlantic points or Air France/KLM miles. I recommend checking award prices with both programs to see which is cheaper.
• Transfer to Avianca LifeMiles to fly United Airlines. Within a single zone, awards typically cost 7.5K one-way in economy class or 10K one-way in business class. Between Zone 1 (most of the East Coast) and Zone 2 (most of the states, except the far west) is 10K one-way in economy or 15K in business class.

Fly First Class to Japan

The cheapest way to fly ANA first class between North America and Japan (or between Europe and Japan) is with Virgin Atlantic points.

If you can find first class award space (that’s the tricky part!), these prices are amazing.

Fly Business Class to Asia

Fly oneworld partners using American AAdvantage from 60K one-way

Citi is the only major transferable points program that transfers to American. To transfer at a 1:1 ratio, you must have a Citi Strata Premier or Strata Elite card (or a no longer available Citi Prestige or Access More card).

Fly EVA Airways from 75K one-way

EVA offers very good award space to its own members, and Citi is the only major transferable points program that transfers 1:1 to EVA. To do so, you must have a Citi Strata Premier or Strata Elite card (or a no longer available Citi Prestige or Access More card).

Fly Business Class to Europe

Fly Air France / KLM business class for 60K one-way

Air France and KLM share a rewards currency: Flying Blue. With Flying Blue miles, it’s often possible to find business class awards to/from Europe for only 60,000 miles one-way. Search for available space at AirFrance.us or KLM.com. You’ll need to create a free Flying Blue frequent flyer account to search. Make sure to select “Book with Miles,” then leave the travel dates blank to display the monthly award availability calendar.

Fly oneworld partners using American AAdvantage from 57.5K one-way

Fly Star Alliance partners for 70K (or fewer) Citi points one-way

Avianca LifeMiles offers a good way to book business class flights to/from Europe on their Star Alliance partners (United, Air Canada, Lufthansa, Swiss, TAP Air Portugal, etc.) with no fuel surcharges. For most routes, LifeMiles charges 70,000 points one-way. Better yet, business-class flights between the US Northeast and the UK or Ireland cost only 45,000 points one-way.

Fly JetBlue Mint for 78K Citi points one-way

This isn’t the cheapest option in this round-up, but award space is usually plentiful. Thanks to Qatar Airways’ partnership with JetBlue, it’s possible to book JetBlue business class (Mint class) to/from Europe for 78,000 miles one-way.

Fly to Hawaii

Conclusion

There are many exciting ways to use Citi points. This post was intended to give you a taste of some of them.

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