Loyalty Alchemy: Convert Citi to Choice, 9K to 15K

I’ll admit it… I’m a strange kind of geek.  I love dreaming up loyalty point transmutations.  These are techniques for converting one type of loyalty point to another, ideally with many confusing steps but without losing value along the way.  The recent finding that JetBlue points convert 2 to 1 to Amtrak points set my wheels spinning.  Let’s see what we can cook up in the lab…

Convert 9,000 Citi ThankYou Points to 15,000 Choice Points

Citi ThankYou Points don’t convert directly to hotel points, but there are tricks to doing so.  For example, you can transfer 2 to 3 to Hilton by transferring first to Virgin Atlantic and then to Hilton.  That’s nice, but too simple for me to geek out about.  I want a complicated process with multiple transmutations along the way!!!  Plus, since it’s often possible to buy Hilton points for a half cent each, the conversion from Citi to Hilton loses value.  If you think of Citi points as being worth 1 cent each and Hilton points being worth 0.5 cents each, the 2 to 3 conversion from Citi points to Hilton means converting 2 cents worth of Citi points into 1.5 cents worth of Hilton points.  We can do better.

Here I’ll show you how to convert Citi points to Choice Privilege points without losing value.  The following recipe converts 9,000 Citi ThankYou points into 15,000 Choice Privileges points…

Ingredients

Make sure you have the following ingredients at-hand…

• 10,000 Citi ThankYou Points
  You’ll have 1,000 points remaining afterwards to use in other recipes
• 1 premium Citi ThankYou card (Citi Prestige or Citi Premier)
  This is needed to unlock 1 to 1 point transfers to JetBlue
• 1 Citi Rewards+ card
  This is needed to get a 10% point rebate
• 1 Amtrak Guest Rewards account
• 1 Amtrak Guest Rewards World Mastercard, or Amtrak elite status
  This is needed to unlock Amtrak to Choice point transfers

Directions

1. Combine your premium Citi ThankYou Rewards account with your Rewards+ rewards account.  See: Citi ThankYou Rewards Complete Guide: Combine Points Across Cards.
2. Transfer 10,000 Citi points to 10,000 JetBlue points.  Thanks to your Rewards+ card, you should get 1,000 Citi Points back if you haven’t maxed out the card’s annual 10% rebate.  Net cost: 9,000 Citi ThankYou points.
3. Via Points.com, transfer 10,000 JetBlue points to 5,000 Amtrak points.
4. Spend $20,000 on your Amtrak Guest Rewards World Mastercard in order to unlock the ability to transfer from Amtrak to Choice Privileges.  Optional recipe substitution: Earn Amtrak elite status to unlock this capability.
5. Convert 5,000 Amtrak points into 15,000 Choice Privileges points.

Recipe Review

A loyalty alchemy recipe is judged on the following traits:

1. Does it preserve or increase value?
2. Is it complicated enough to geek out about it?
3. Is it practical?

Does it preserve or increase value?

ThankYou points can be converted to pennies with the Citi Prestige card (or indirectly with the Premier card), so we must get a minimum of 1 cent per point value without the Rewards+ card or 1.11111 cents per point value with the Rewards+ card (thanks to it’s 10% rebate).  Of course it’s possible to get far more value by transferring to loyalty programs and redeeming for high value rewards, but I think that 1.11111 is a good floor value for the purpose of this review.

If you have some Choice points to begin with, additional Choice points can be bought for 0.8 cents each using the good old Points + Cash trick.  The trick is to book a Points + Cash stay like the one shown above and then cancel it.  The net result will be that you’ll have bought points for 0.8 cents each.  For example, if you book a stay for 6K points + $48 and then cancel it, you’ll find that you’re still out $48 but you now have 6K additional points in your account.  Long story short, since Choice points can be bought for 0.8 cents each, that’s a convenient value to assign to each point.

Based on the above, we can look at our pre and post values:

• BEFORE: 9,000 Citi ThankYou points x 1.11111 cents per point = $100
• AFTER: 15,000 Choice points x 0.8 cents per point = $120

Another way to look at it is the value you get per Citi point:

• Without the Rewards+ rebate: $120 value / 10K Citi points = 1.2 cents per point value
• With the Rewards+ rebate: $120 value / 9K Citi points = 1.33 cents per point value

Bottom Line: Overall, the transmutation preserves and slightly increases the cash-equivalent value of your points.

Is the recipe complicated enough to geek out about it?

This one’s a no-brainer. Yes!

Is the transmutation recipe practical?

For most people, the answer here is no.  In order to convert Amtrak points to Choice points you must either spend $20K on the Amtrak World Mastercard or have Amtrak elite status.  Both are big obstacles for most.  Plus, if you do either of those, you’ll earn Amtrak points along the way and so you may not have need to convert Citi points to Choice points.  You can simply convert your Amtrak points to Choice at a 1 to 3 ratio.

Final Thoughts

The alchemy described above isn’t necessarily practical, but it’s so geeky-cool!  It almost makes me want to get the Amtrak card just so that I can try it out…

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