The best use of Citi ThankYou points is to strategically transfer points to airline and hotel partners in order to book high value awards. Your best bet is usually to wait until you find a great hotel or flight award before transferring points.
If you have at least one premium card such as the Strata Premier or an old Prestige card, most points transfer at a ratio of 1:1. However, Citi regularly runs promotions during which they offer a transfer bonus to a specific program. For example, we’ve frequently seen 25% bonuses for transfers to Avianca LifeMiles and to Air France / KLM Flying Blue.
You cannot transfer points to airline & hotel partners at the full 1 to 1 ratio from Citi’s fee-free cards, such as the Custom Cash or Double Cash. That said, you can pool points with your Strata Premier or Prestige card and then transfer the points at full value. Points can then be transferred to the loyalty accounts of the primary cardholder or any authorized user on the account.
Below you’ll find a complete list of all the transfer partners of Citi ThankYou Rewards; good, bad and ugly.
Citi Transfer Tips
- 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.
- Watch for transfer bonuses: Citi sometimes offers improved transfer ratios through limited time transfer bonuses.
- 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.
- Always have at least one transferable account: With a few exceptions, ThankYou Rewards are fully-transferable only from Citi Premier and Citi Prestige accounts. If you or a friend has such an account, you can move points to that account from any other account before transferring to an airline or hotel program.
- You can keep points alive by downgrading to a fee-free card: If you don’t want to keep your Premier or Prestige card due to annual fees, consider downgrading to a fee-free ThankYou card like the Custom Cash or Rewards+.If later you want to transfer points to an airline program, you can get a new Premier or Prestige card, upgrade your fee-free card to a Premier or Prestige card, or move points to a friend who has a Premier or Prestige card.
Current Transfer Bonuses
If there are any current transfer bonuses from Citi ThankYou Rewards, details will appear here:
Citi Airline Transfer Partners
Citi has a unique group of airline transfer partners, with a few unusual highlights. We have them grouped below by “Best,” “Useful” and “Hey, good to see you’re participating.”
Best overall Citi airline transfer partners
| Rewards Program | Best Uses | Citi Transfer Ratio (and transfer time) |
|---|---|---|
| Aer Lingus Avios | Fuel surcharges are sometimes lower when booking with Aer Lingus rather than British Airways, Qatar, or Iberia. It's possible to move points (Avios) between Iberia, British Airways, Aer Lingus, and Qatar. See also: Avios Sweet Spots for Award Tickets. | 1 to 1 via Qatar (~1 day) |
| Air France KLM Flying Blue | Monthly Air France Promo Awards often represent very good value. Air France miles can be used to book Sky Team awards, including Delta awards. Air France often offers very good business class award pricing between the US and Europe & Israel. | 1 to 1 (Instant) |
| Avianca LifeMiles | Avianca LifeMiles can be great for Star Alliance awards. They offer reasonable award prices and no fuel surcharges on awards. They also offer shorthaul awards within the US (for flying United, for example) for as few as 7,500 miles one-way. Best of all, their mixed-cabin pricing can lead to fantastic first-class award prices. See this post for details. | 1 to 1 (Instant) |
| British Airways Avios | While flights on British Airways itself often incur outrageously high fuel surcharges, many BA partners charge low or no fuel surcharges. Excellent value can be had in redeeming BA points for short distance flights. It's possible to move points (Avios) between Iberia, British Airways, Aer Lingus, and Qatar. See also: Avios Sweet Spots for Award Tickets. | 1 to 1 via Qatar (~1 day) |
| Cathay Pacific Asia Miles | Cathay Pacific has a decent distance based award chart, but they no longer allow stopovers longer than 24 hours. Cathay Pacific Asia Miles can be a good option for booking American Airlines flights with a distance based award chart, especially if other OneWorld Alliance miles aren't available. For long distance flights, it is possible to reduce the cost of a premium cabin award by adding on a lower cabin segment. See this post for details. | 1 to 1 (Instant) |
| Iberia Avios | On their own flights, Iberia offers low award prices and a very reasonable 25 Euro cancellation fee. Partner awards can offer good value under some circumstances as well, but these are usually nonrefundable. Fuel surcharges are sometimes lower when booking with Iberia rather than British Airways, Aer Lingus, or Qatar. It's possible to move points (Avios) between Iberia, British Airways, Aer Lingus, and Qatar. See also: Avios Sweet Spots for Award Tickets. | 1 to 1 via Qatar (~1 day) |
| Qatar Privilege Club Avios | Qatar has reasonable award prices for flying Qatar itself. Points are now transferable 1 to 1 to British Airways (and from there to Aer Lingus or Iberia). It is now also possible to book JetBlue flights with Qatar Avios. | 1 to 1 (~1 day) |
Useful Citi airline transfer partners
| Rewards Program | Best Uses | Citi Transfer Ratio (and transfer time) |
|---|---|---|
| Emirates Skywards | The best use of Emirates miles has been to fly Emirates itself. Unfortunately fuel surcharges can be extremely steep. One workaround is to book select routes such as JFK to Milan or Newark to Athens. See: How to find and book Emirates first class awards. | 1 to 1 (Instant) |
| Etihad Guest | Etihad offers a distance based award chart for flying Etihad and another for its partners. Points may offer good value for expensive but short-distance flights. | 1 to 1 (~1 hour) |
| EVA Air Infinity MileageLands | If you want to fly one of the best business class products in the sky, the best way to snag EVA flights is with their own miles since they release more award space to their own members. One-way business class flights from the US to Taipei cost 75K to 80K miles. Fuel surcharges are very low on these routes. | 1 to 1 (~2 days) |
| Finnair Plus+ | Finnair points are now "Avios" and points can be moved to/from other Avios programs. Finnair uses zone based award charts rather than distance based. As a result, Finnair sometimes has better (and sometimes worse) pricing than other Avios programs. | 1 to 1 via Qatar (~1 day) |
| JetBlue | JetBlue points offer the most value when cheap ticket prices are available and when award taxes are high relative to the overall cost of the ticket (more details can be found here). The JetBlue Plus Card and the JetBlue Business Card offer a 10% rebate on awards, so you can get more value by holding one of these cards. | 1 to 1 (Instant) |
| Qantas Frequent Flyer | Best use is probably for flights on El Al with no fuel surcharges. Also useful for short AA flights. Qantas offers distance based award charts similar to Cathay Pacific. Both are OneWorld Alliance members. I recommend comparing award prices across both programs before transferring to either. Qantas offers round the world business class awards for only 280,000 points (but with many restrictions) | 1 to 1 (~1 day) |
| Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer | Use to book Singapore Airlines First Class awards (generally reserved for their own members), Alaska Airlines economy awards, or for Star Alliance awards (including United Airlines). | 1 to 1 (~1 day) |
| Turkish Airlines Miles & Smiles | Miles & Smiles offers a number of awesome sweet-spot awards including 7.5K one-way anywhere within the US, even to Hawaii. Many awards cannot be booked online but can be booked via phone or email. See: Turkish Miles & Smiles Complete Guide and Turkish business class sweet spots from the US. | 1 to 1 (12 - 24 hours) |
| Virgin Atlantic Flying Club | Virgin Atlantic offers a few excellent sweet spot awards. See: Best uses for Virgin Atlantic points (Sweet Spot Spotlight). | 1 to 1 (Instant) |
Other Citi airline transfer partners
| Rewards Program | Best Uses | Citi Transfer Ratio (and transfer time) |
|---|---|---|
| AeroMexico ClubPremier | AeroMexico is a SkyTeam partner. Club Premier points can be used to book flights on AeroMexico, SkyTeam alliance members (such as Delta or Korean Air), or on select partner airlines. Unfortunately many have reported that awards are extremely difficult to book through AeroMexico so we do not recommend transferring points to this program. If you want to fly AeroMexico, look to transfer points to another SkyTeam partner (such as Air France) and then book AeroMexico with that program. | 1 to 1 (~6 days) |
| Jet Airways Inter Miles | JetAirways JetPrivilege miles are useful only for a few very specific cases such as certain flights to Hawaii for as low as 15K (30K business) one-way, or to the Caribbean or Central America for as low as 10K (20K business) one-way. Details can be found here. | 1 to 1 (Instant) |
| Malaysia Enrich | Given Malaysia's award chart devaluation in June 2017, I'm not aware of any good uses for these miles. | 1 to 1 (1 to 2 days) |
| Thai Airways International Royal Orchid Plus | I'm not aware of any good uses for these miles | 1 to 1 (3 to 7 days) |
Citi Hotel Transfer Partners
One fantastic option is to transfer points 1 to 2 to Choice Privileges in order to get great value when booking Preferred Hotels & Resorts, Ascend Hotel Collection hotels, Cambria Hotels, and Nordic Choice Hotels. Another great option is to transfer 1 to 1 to Wyndham to book Vacasa Vacation rentals for 15,000 points per bedroom per night. See: Wyndham Vacasa – Great Value is Real!
Indirect Transfer Partners of Citi ThankYou Rewards
In some cases it is possible to transfer to an airline or hotel program in order to then transfer from that program to another program. In most cases this is a bad deal, but it’s cool to think about the possibilities.
| Rewards Program | Citi Indirect Transfer |
|---|---|
| Hilton | 10K to 15K via Virgin Atlantic |
| IHG | 10K to 10K via Virgin Atlantic |
Transfer partners of other popular programs
- Amex Transfer Partners
- Bilt Transfer Partners
- Capital One Transfer Partners
- Chase Transfer Partners
- Marriott Transfer Partners
- Transfer Partner Master List
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Does anyone know which programs you can transfer to from the Custom Cash? It’s my oldest card and I don’t use it much, but I’d like to top off my JetBlue points if possible. I know it won’t be 1:1. Right now I have less than 1,000 points on the card, so maybe that’s why I can’t find a transfer option?
Zero transfer partners w the CCC by itself.
You’ll need the Citi Strata Premier card ($95 AF) and then your CCC points will automatically join w your CSP points and they all can then be transferred to 18+/- airlines or hotels partners for outsized award bookings. (See FM Citi sweet spot awards)
FWIW, I have the CCC as well as the Citi Rewards+ card and both augment the Citi Strata Premier card perfectly (see FM Citi cards trifecta)
Just a heads up on transfer time from Citi to EVA. I transferred 75K miles last week. It took 3 and 1/2 days. Fortunately, the flight I wanted to book was still available.
Tip: For various reasons, some families like to store points in a single person’s loyalty account. (Say, only one family member maintains hotel elite status.) When more than one family member is earning points, Citi’s 100k limit on transferring points can present an issue.
However, some loyalty programs have family (and friends) accounts that allow for sharing or pooling or transferring points among group members. Other programs (such as Virgin Atlantic) allow for transferring points between any two members even if unrelated.
In these cases, Citi’s 100k limit becomes irrelevant. Hope this helps.
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