| Want to learn more about policies of major transferable points currencies? See my series about Amex Membership Rewards, Capital One, Chase Ultimate Rewards, and Citi ThankYou. |
Citi ThankYou is a popular transferable points currency. There are several excellent cards earning Citi ThankYou points, so these rewards are pretty easy to accrue, and there are great uses of them.
Sometimes the logistics associated with combining and redeeming points can get confusing. In this post, I’d like to go over the basics of moving Citi ThankYou points around, including how you transfer them to airline and hotel partners, how you combine them between accounts, and how you share them with others.
In this post:
How to transfer Citi ThankYou points to airline & hotel partners
Citi ThankYou points can potentially be transferred to 19 travel partners, including 15 airline loyalty programs and four hotel loyalty programs. Let me emphasize that this assumes that you have the Citi Strata Elite℠ Card (review) or Citi Strata Premier® Card (review), which allows you to unlock the full value of the ThankYou ecosystem.
Airline Partners | Hotel Partners |
|---|---|
Aeromexico Club Premier | |
If you exclusively have no annual fee cards, then the transfer ratios aren’t the same, and you don’t quite have access to the same partners (like American AAdvantage).
American AAdvantage and EVA Air Infinity MileageLands are two unique and valuable transfer partners of Citi ThankYou. Beyond that, Citi ThankYou transfer partners largely overlap with those of other points currencies, and my favorites include Air France-KLM Flying Blue, Avianca Lifemiles, Emirates Skywards, Qatar Privilege Club, and Singapore KrisFlyer.
The process of transferring Citi ThankYou points to partner loyalty programs is easy. To start, just log into your Citi ThankYou account. Make sure you’re logged in under an account that gets you full access to Citi ThankYou partners at the best redemption rates, including on cards like the Citi Strata Elite℠ Card (review) or Citi Strata Premier® Card (review).
Once you log into your account, click on “More Ways to Redeem,” and then “Points Transfer.”
Once you click that, you’ll be on the page that shows all the Citi ThankYou transfer partners. Just select the partner you want to transfer points to, by clicking “Continue.”
On the next page you’ll see a slider where you can select how many points you want to transfer, in increments of 1,000 points. You’ll also have to enter your loyalty program number. The name on the loyalty program account is already pre-populated with the name on the primary Citi ThankYou account. You can also choose to save your loyalty account number for future transfers, so you don’t have to enter it each time.
Note that you can only directly transfer points to a partner loyalty account belonging to the primary cardmember, so you can’t directly transfer your Citi ThankYou points to someone else’s American AAdvantage account, for example.
Note that you can transfer points between your various card accounts instantly and for free, though we’ll cover that a bit later. If you’re trying to transfer points to a partner loyalty program, you’ll want to do so from the Citi Strata Elite℠ Card (review) or Citi Strata Premier® Card (review). You can easily transfer points from excellent no annual fee complements, like the Citi Strata℠ Card (review) or Citi Double Cash® Card (review).
From there you just have to confirm the transaction, and then it should immediately start to process. See our guide to how long Citi ThankYou points transfers take. Transfers to a majority of partners are instant, though some transfers can take up to two days.
How to combine Citi ThankYou points between accounts
If you have multiple cards earning Citi ThankYou points, combining the points online is easy. This allows you to redeem all the points you earn with whatever the best redemption options are (for example, you need a premium card to transfer to most Citi ThankYou partners at the best ratio possible).
For all practical purposes, if you want to move your points to travel partners, you’ll want points to be with the Citi Strata Elite℠ Card (review) or Citi Strata Premier® Card (review).
To combine accounts, log into your Citi account, and then scroll over the dropdown at the top that has your name and ThankYou account balance. Then go to the “My Citi Accounts” section.
On the next page you’ll want to click “Combine My Accounts.”
Then you’ll easily be able to link any ThankYou accounts that you have under one online log-in.
If for whatever reason you don’t see all your cards under the same Citi ThankYou account listed, you may have to call up Citi ThankYou customer service, and they can manually link accounts.
There’s one important thing to be aware of. If you close a Citi ThankYou card, the points for the account you closed down will automatically expire after 60 days. This applies even if you still have another Citi ThankYou card open.
So be sure you remember this, or else your points could be forfeited. You can easily avoid this by just transferring the points to an airline or hotel partner, as the points follow that program’s expiration policy once transferred.
This 60 day rule can be rather frustrating, since Amex, Capital One, and Chase, aren’t so restrictive regarding combining points.
How to share Citi ThankYou points with others
Citi lets you share up to 100,000 ThankYou points per year with any other ThankYou member, which is a great feature. However, there are some restrictions to be aware of:
- You can transfer at most 100,000 ThankYou points to another ThankYou member per calendar year (that limit is total, rather than to just one person)
- Each ThankYou member can receive at most 100,000 ThankYou points 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
All things considered, this is a generous policy. Capital One is the only other major transferable points currency that lets you transfer your points to another member. This is a good opportunity if you want to transfer your points to a loyalty account that isn’t in your name.
How do you go about doing this? Once you log into your account, click on “More Ways to Redeem,” and then “Points Sharing.”
There you’ll get a summary of how many points you can still transfer for the year. Click on the “Begin Sharing” button to start the process.
There you’ll first see a slider asking how many points you want to transfer.
Then you’ll have to enter the ThankYou member’s first name and account number for where you want to transfer points. From there it should be an instant process.
Bottom line
Citi ThankYou is a valuable points currency, as it has quite a few useful airline and hotel partners. Hopefully the above is a useful rundown of how you can transfer, combine, and share Citi points with others.
The process of transferring points to airline and hotel partners is easy, as it is with most transferable points currencies. The same is true when combining points between Citi accounts, which can be done online at any point. The ability to share Citi points is an advantage of the program, but comes with restrictions — you can transfer up to 100K points per year, and points expire 90 days after they’re transferred.
To Citi cardmembers, what has your experience been with transferring, combining, and sharing points?
The limits of 100k/year transfer to another person and 90 day expiration after transfer also apply to your own accounts. I've had Prestige and Double Cash cards for years. The thankyou website only allows me to send 100k per calendar year from Prestige to Double. A few years back I also transferred Prestige to Double and then didn't use the 75k points. The points expired without warning and after several calls to Citi they told...
The limits of 100k/year transfer to another person and 90 day expiration after transfer also apply to your own accounts. I've had Prestige and Double Cash cards for years. The thankyou website only allows me to send 100k per calendar year from Prestige to Double. A few years back I also transferred Prestige to Double and then didn't use the 75k points. The points expired without warning and after several calls to Citi they told me about the 90 day expiration on transfers.
In my mind, this 100k/year limit really dampens my use of my Double card. If I had 150k in my Double account and want to transfer to an airline I can only transfer 100k from the Double to Prestige and then 100k to the airline. I find I use my Cap One Venture X to get 2X without the "gotchas" of Citi transfers.
Beware that sharing points with Citi can be very buggy and will fail when you most need it. Of course most everything with Citi tends to be very buggy.
My wife & I have been combining Chase Ultimate Rewards for years. One person needs one of the two Sapphire cards.
One important thing to note is that in order to combine ThankYou point accounts, the contact information on each account must match ***exactly***. If one account has phone number in Cell and another has it in Mobile, the account won't show up to be combined, for example.
I ran into this issue twice, though I was able to edit contact info for the accounts and then combine them online without having to call Citi. It's...
One important thing to note is that in order to combine ThankYou point accounts, the contact information on each account must match ***exactly***. If one account has phone number in Cell and another has it in Mobile, the account won't show up to be combined, for example.
I ran into this issue twice, though I was able to edit contact info for the accounts and then combine them online without having to call Citi. It's annoying that the ThankYou accounts maintain their own contact info that's separate from the main Citi card contact info, but it is what it is.
Can confirm that Citi views "123 Main St" different from "123 Main Street".
Congrats on the shoutout in The NY Times today!
When transferring ThankYou points to an airline, let’s say AA, can the frequent flyer account be in a different name, e.g. your spouse ? The article states that the name is pre-populated, can the name be overwritten?
@ InternationalTraveler -- No, you can only transfer points to the account holder, unfortunately. I'll add that to the post to clarify. Thanks for the question.