Transfer Citi Points To Leading Hotels Of The World With 25% Bonus

The Citi ThankYou program, which is one of the major transferable points currencies, has just introduced its latest transfer bonus. This bonus is for the program’s newest partner, which was added in October 2023.

Citi offering 25% Leading Hotels of the World transfer bonus

Between September 15 and October 19, 2024, the Citi ThankYou program in the United States is offering a 25% bonus on points transfers to Leading Hotels of the World Leaders Club.

Ordinarily points transfer at a 5:1 ratio, while through this promotion you’d instead get a 4:1 ratio (in increments of 1,000:250).

This promotion is being offered on Citi’s end (in the United States), and is hard coded into the transfer ratio, meaning you should see the bonus at the time that you make the transfer. You can take advantage of this offer an unlimited number of times. Transfers from Citi to Leading Hotels of the World are generally instant.

There are several great cards earning Citi ThankYou points, including the Citi Strata Premier℠ Card (review), and it’s easy to combine points between the cards.

Should you transfer Citi points to Leaders Club?

Many people understandably might not be familiar with Leading Hotels of the World or Leaders Club, so let’s talk about that. Leading Hotels of the World is a collection of independent luxury hotels, with over 400 properties in 80 countries around the globe. Chances are that you’re familiar with some of LHW’s properties, even if you didn’t know they were associated with the group.

You should think of Leading Hotels of the World as more of a hotel marketing group than as a single hotel group. LHW doesn’t manage its hotels, but rather markets a group of otherwise independent luxury hotels. As a matter of fact, many properties of smaller hotel groups, like Rocco Forte, etc., belong to LHW.

Think of Leading Hotels of the World as being along the lines of Small Luxury Hotels of the World (SLH), which Hilton Honors has a partnership with. I would say that on balance LHW properties are a bit higher end than SLH properties, as LHW has some truly iconic properties, like the Ritz Paris.

What is award pricing like with Leading Hotels of the World Leaders Club? Pricing is dynamic, and you can search award costs by logging into your account and then going through the booking process.

Let me note that what’s really cool about this partnership is that you can redeem at some independent luxury hotels that you can’t otherwise currently efficiently book with transferable points.

Based on just about all the hotels that I’ve searched, each Leaders Club point gets you about eight cents (in USD) toward the cost of a hotel stay. So when you factor in the 4:1 transfer ratio from Citi ThankYou to Leaders Club (with the 25% bonus), that means you’re getting around 2.0 cents of value per ThankYou point.

That’s excellent, so if you’d redeem at one of these properties, that could be a great opportunity. Just make sure you do your own research before transferring any points.

Let me emphasize that the value per point is in comparison to what LHW would otherwise charge, and in some cases you might find better rates elsewhere. Furthermore, these luxury hotels almost all belong to programs like Virtuoso, so you are giving up some perks by booking this way.

Bottom line

At the moment you can receive a 25% bonus when you transfer Citi ThankYou points to Leading Hotels of the World Leader’s Club. Leading Hotels of the World has a revenue based program, whereby each point can be redeemed for a certain amount toward a luxury hotel stay. In some cases, this promotion will be an opportunity to redeem points for around 2.0 cents each toward a hotel stay, which could be a good use of points (assuming you’d otherwise pay the cash to stay at one of these properties).

Do you plan on taking advantage of this Citi ThankYou to LHW transfer bonus?