New 50K offer on the Citi Thank You Premier

The Citi Thank You Premier has come back with an increased sign-up bonus of 50,000 points after spending $4,000 in 3 months. This is the highest offer we’ve seen for this card (though at one point the spending requirement was only $3K). It is an increase of 20,000 points over the standard offer. All that said, I wouldn’t recommend applying for it today. Read on for why.

Update: Now that we have the details on the Citi Prestige 75K offer, I think you just have to weigh the pros and cons of each and choose which card makes sense for you.

The Offer

• 50,000 Thank You Points after spending $4,000 in the first 3 months

Key Details & Card Benefits

• $95 annual fee is waived the first year
• Earn 3X on travel (including gas)
• Earn 2X on dining & entertainment
• Points are worth 1.25 cents towards travel, or you can transfer to partners

Quick Thoughts

This is a great offer on this card, and at 3X earnings on gas, it is one of the best cards on the market if you plan to transfer your points to travel partners. While Citi doesn’t have quite as many useful transfer partners as Chase or Amex, there are still some values to be had in the list:

• Hilton  1:1.5 (on promo right now at 1:2)
• JetBlue 1: 0.5
• Asia Miles 1:1
• Etihad 1:1
• EVA 1:1
• Air France / KLM Flying Blue 1:1
• Garuda Indonesia 1:1
• Jet Airways 1:1
• Malaysia Airlines 1:1
• Qantas 1:1
• Qatar 1:1
• Singapore Airlines 1:1
• Thai Airways 1:1
• Virgin Atlantic 1:1

For most travelers looking to maximize the value of the points, Singapore Airlines and Air France/KLM Flying Blue are probably the programs to which you would most likely consider transferring. There are niche redemptions in some of the other programs within the list as well.

All that said, I wouldn’t hop on this offer today. According to longstanding rumor, Citi is scheduled to announce new benefits to the Prestige Card on Monday. Along with those benefits, it has been reported that there could be some sort of re-launch of the card. One would hope that will the loss of several key benefits in a week’s time and the introduction of what are rumored to be some pretty weak replacement benefits that there may once again be a sign up bonus offered with the Prestige Card. As you know, Citi’s typical restriction on sign up bonuses states that you must not have have opened or closed a card within that same card family within the past 24 months. This means that if you sign up for this offer today, you would not be eligible to receive a sign up bonus on a Citi Thank You product for 24 months. Personally, I’d wait it out until at least Monday, if not another week or two in order to see if an offer comes out on the Prestige. If they only offer the same 50K, it may come down to which card’s benefits interest you the most — but I would recommend keeping your options open. On the other hand, if you already have a Prestige open and aren’t looking to open it anew, this offer is solid and 3X on gas is a good option to have in your wallet.

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