The Citi ThankYou program is offering one of the first transfer bonuses we’ve seen in quite a while.
Citi ThankYou to Air France-KLM Flying Blue bonus
The US Citi ThankYou program is offering a 25% bonus when you convert points into Air France-KLM Flying Blue miles by April 16, 2021.
Points ordinarily transfer at a 1:1 ratio, though during this promotion you can convert 1,000 Citi points into 1,250 Flying Blue miles. You can generally expect that transfers will be instant.
There’s no limit to how often you can take advantage of this promotion, and the bonus is hard coded into the transfer ratio, meaning that you can earn the bonus on multiple transactions.
The last time we saw a transfer bonus from Citi ThankYou to Air France-KLM Flying Blue was in the summer of 2019, so that was nearly two years ago. Most transferable points currencies haven’t offered many transfer bonuses during the pandemic, so it’s nice to see these return.
Should you transfer Citi points to Flying Blue?
Flying Blue nowadays has dynamic and roughly distance based award pricing. While I wouldn’t say it’s one of my favorite frequent flyer programs, it is one that I get quite a bit of use out of.
In addition to the great value that can be had through Flying Blue Promo Awards, Flying Blue also has the advantage of having access to more award seats for travel on Air France and KLM metal.
In other words, Flying Blue makes more award seats available to members of its own program than to members of partner programs. So even when Flying Blue’s pricing isn’t the best, there are situations where it could make sense to book through Flying Blue (though with all of the Delta SkyMiles devaluations we’ve seen, typically you will find the best pricing through Flying Blue).
There’s always value in having a stash of Flying Blue miles if you think you’ll be traveling transatlantic in the coming years. Given that we haven’t seen a transfer bonus in quite a while, some people might find this to be worth a speculative transfer.
Redeem miles for KLM’s 787 business class
The best card for earning Citi ThankYou points
If you want to maximize the Citi ThankYou points you can earn, you can’t beat the Citi Premier® Card (review). The $95 annual fee card has a welcome bonus of 80,000 points after spending $4,000 within the first three months of card membership, and it offers 3x points on dining, gas stations, supermarkets, air travel, and hotels.
If you really want to maximize your points, it makes sense to pick up a no annual fee card complement:
- The Citi Rewards+® Card (review) rounds up purchases to the nearest 10 ThankYou points, and offers 2x points at supermarkets and gas stations, for the first $6,000 spent every year and then 1x
- The Citi® Double Cash Card (review) offers 1% cash back when you make a purchase, and 1% cash back when you pay for that purchase, and rewards can be converted into ThankYou points at a ratio of one point per cent
Personally, I think it’s hard to beat the combination of the Citi Premier and Citi Double Cash, as you’ll earn 3x points in five categories, and then 2x points on all other purchases.
Earning lots of Citi ThankYou points can be easy with the right cards
Bottom line
Citi ThankYou is offering a 25% bonus when you transfer points to Air France-KLM Flying Blue in the coming weeks. This could represent an excellent value, particularly if you’re looking to redeem on Air France-KLM metal, where Flying Blue has the best award availability.
Given how long it has been since we’ve seen a transfer bonus like this, I’m tempted to make a speculative transfer, since I do always find a way to redeem Flying Blue miles.
Do you plan on transferring Citi points to Flying Blue with a 25% bonus?
Can I transfer my TY points to an AU’s Flying Blue acct.?
Ben,
I have about 64,000 points in my Flying Blue account from a flight on Le Premiere in '19. So I'm Silver status. Can you ever use points for Le Premiere?
@ dana -- Unfortunately you need to have Flying Blue Gold status or above in order to redeem for La Premiere. So if you can get to a higher tier you could redeem this way (at a high cost), but otherwise it's unfortunately not possible.
I was always reluctant to speculatively transfer points over because of their 2 year points expiration policy. The only two ways to extend points expirations are to credit a flight or have one of their CCs. I had transferred some points over in 2019 to book some flights to/from Europe in 2020 that I had to cancel. Now I'm sitting on points in two FlyingBlue accounts and no near-term use for them. FlyingBlue has announced...
I was always reluctant to speculatively transfer points over because of their 2 year points expiration policy. The only two ways to extend points expirations are to credit a flight or have one of their CCs. I had transferred some points over in 2019 to book some flights to/from Europe in 2020 that I had to cancel. Now I'm sitting on points in two FlyingBlue accounts and no near-term use for them. FlyingBlue has announced that points won't expire through 12/31/2021, but that doesn't solve the problem unless Europe re-opens to Americans this year.
The points expiration problem had me looking at the Air France KLM World Elite MasterCard from BOA. While not an amazing sign-up offer, the 50,000 FlyingBlue Miles + $100 Statement Credit is pretty solid, and it's outside of the Chase or AmEx ecosystems. I had also forgotten that if you spend $50+/Year you get 5,000 FlyingBlue Miles which covers 2/3 of the $89 annual fee. Combined with the $100 statement credit the annual fee isn't a concern for a couple years.
I know this card hasn't received much coverage since its launch in 2018, but IMHO it's worth a re-visit.
I am tempted to make a speculative transfer as well... Will then need to apply for Citi Prestige later this year to get the TYP balance up.
Ben, do you know if Brex has any plans to offer a transfer bonus? I'm assuming they don't, but I thought I'd ask. And is that issue decided at the bank level or the airline level?