The Citi Premier℠ Card has a phenomenal new welcome bonus, as the card is offering 60,000 ThankYou points after spending $4,000 within the first three months. That’s an incredible bonus for a card with a $95 annual fee.
The card offers triple points on travel and gas, and double points on dining and entertainment, making it one of the most rewarding cards out there in terms of bonus categories.
There are lots of ways to redeem Citi ThankYou points — you can transfer them to one of Citi’s roughly dozen airline transfer partners, or you can redeem them for 1.25 cents each towards the cost of airfare. That’s a pretty remarkable welcome bonus, when you consider that the 60,000 point welcome bonus would get you $750 worth of airfare.
When it comes to cards like the Citi Premier℠ Card, it can often make sense for a couple to sign up for the cards to maximize the points you can earn, so in this post I wanted to explain the rules associated with transferring Citi ThankYou points to others — this includes transferring points to other ThankYou accounts, and transferring ThankYou points to frequent flyer accounts in other peoples’ names.
Transferring Citi ThankYou points to other ThankYou accounts
Amex Membership Rewards, Chase Ultimate Rewards, and Citi ThankYou all have different policies when it comes to transferring points to accounts of other members.
In many ways, Citi has the most generous policy. Citi lets you transfer ThankYou points to the ThankYou account of any other member. There’s no need for that member to have the same address, to be an authorized user, to be a family member, or anything else. You can transfer them to virtually anyone with a ThankYou account.
There are a few restrictions to be aware of, though:
- You can transfer at most 100,000 ThankYou points to another ThankYou member per calendar year
- Shared points expire 90 days after they’re received, so the member you transfer points to will have a limited amount of time to redeem them; when the member goes to redeem points, those expiring soonest will automatically be pulled first
- The recipient of shared points can’t share those same points with another member
How to transfer Citi ThankYou points to another member
The process of transferring ThankYou points to another member is super easy. Just log into your ThankYou account, and then along the top column click on “More Ways To Redeem” and then “Points Sharing.”
The next page outlines how the process works.
You have the option of sharing exactly as many points as you’d like (you don’t even have to transfer in increments of one thousand), and to transfer you’ll need the recipient’s name and account number (either credit card number or ThankYou account number).
From there the process is quick, and the points should transfer instantly.
Transferring Citi ThankYou points to other partner accounts
You can transfer Citi ThankYou points between ThankYou accounts (within the above parameters), but what about transferring ThankYou points into a frequent flyer account of someone other than the account holder?
This actually isn’t possible, as you can only transfer ThankYou points to an account in the name of the cardmember. When you go through the process of transferring points to someone else, you’ll see that your name is already filled in, and all you can do is fill in your frequent flyer number.
So if you do want to transfer ThankYou points into someone else’s frequent flyer account, you’d want to first transfer points to their ThankYou account, and then they can convert the points to a partner program of their choice.
When should you transfer Citi ThankYou points to someone else?
In many ways, Citi ThankYou has my favorite policy when it comes to transferrability of any of the major points currencies. Being able to transfer 100,000 points per year to any other Citi ThankYou member is awesome.
So when can it make sense to take advantage of this feature?
- If you want to book an expensive ticket through the Citi ThankYou portal and want to redeem points for it entirely. For example, if you and a spouse both get the Citi Premier℠ Card, you’d have over 120,000 points after completing minimum spend, which his enough for a $1,500 ticket. You could combine those points into one account if your goal is to book a single $1,500 ticket using points.
- I see the most value in this if you want to transfer points to a partner program, where you have enough points for a redemption if you combine points from multiple accounts, but you don’t have enough individually. For example, if two people get the Citi Premier℠ Card you’d have 120,000+ points that you can redeem towards a single redemption with a partner.
Bottom line
While I’ve long been into ThankYou points, the increased offer on the Citi Premier℠ Card is the best offer we’ve seen on the card, and will hopefully renew interest in the card for some who may not have considered it in the past.
One of the unique things about ThankYou points is that you can transfer them to virtually anyone’s ThankYou account, which is a great way to pool points across accounts, especially if two people sign up for the card.
Lucky do you have a recipe for a chicken dish using lime and hot spices?
When transferring to someone else’s FF account, does it matter that the first name does not match if the last name matches? I would guess it is likely that some programs only verify the FF # while others also verify the last name and others would verify FF#, first and last name. I doubt there is consistency.
@ Andrew — The name is supposed to match, though like you said, I suspect it comes down to the individual partner as to just how much they verify. Some may verify just the last name, others may verify the first initial and last name, and others may require an exact match.
As always, thanks for all the great, concise info. One additional question I’ve been wondering and can’t find an answer to anywhere: after receiving a points transfer from someone, you presumably then have a pool of points, some of which (though not all) expire in 90 days. If you then go to transfer points to your own FF account, which of the points get transferred? One would hope the system would have you spend down the expiring points first, though something tells me that’s not the case and it’s either first-in first-out or some blend (like how BA allocates spend from a family sharing account). Any data on that?
@ Dave — Indeed, the system has it down so that the points redeemed first would be those that expire soonest. That’s a great question, and I’ll update the post to reflect that.
Lucky I don’t know if you actually tried to share your points with someone else but the online system has been broken for sometime now, at least for me. It gives me an error on confirmation.
I can still share my points but I have to call to get it done and every time I ask them about the online system I usually get a BS answer!
So am i right that this requires the recipient to actually have TYP account, which means he/she needs to be a primary holder of Citi TY related card to begin with?
You wont be able to transfer to someone, who, for example, doesnt have a SSN and thus cant apply to any US credit cards independently.
Thanks
@ capybara — That’s correct, that is a limitation there.
when are going to spot writing about he Citi thank you card and catch up on your trip reports ?
Lucky, I am eligible in about 9 months to get this card again. I now earn TY points on the ATT More card. Right now those TY points can only be used for buying things. Will those TY points transfer back to the Premier card when I get that card?
Just an fyi…I tried to transfer my Thank You points just after I closed my ‘Thank you Premier’ card account and they wouldn’t allow a transfer. Thank you program wouldn’t allow a transfer on a closed account. Specifically after you close your account you have 60 days before the points expire and the official policy is you can’t transfer expiring points. Very disappointing that over 60k points are now not transferable.