This June it was announced that Hilton would be entering into an exclusive credit card agreement with American Express as of January 2018. Previously Hilton was in a unique position, as they had co-brand cards issued by both American Express and Citi.
Just last week American Express revealed that they’ll completely be revamping their portfolio of Hilton cards, including improving their existing two cards, and also introducing two new cards altogether.
Up until now, another way to earn Hilton points has been through two popular transferable points currencies. Specifically, you could transfer both American Express Membership Rewards and Citi ThankYou points to Hilton at a 1,000:1,500 ratio.
I guess this shouldn’t come as much of a surprise, but it has just been announced that Citi ThankYou points will no longer be transferable to Hilton Honors after December 13, 2017. I was expecting this to happen, given that Hilton is otherwise cutting ties with Citi.
The way I see it, this isn’t a huge loss. Personally I value Hilton Honors points at 0.4 cents each, so even with the 1:1.5 ratio, you were still getting at most 0.6 cents per Citi ThankYou point, which is less than half of what I value those points at. In the past we’ve even sometimes seen promotions on points transfers from Citi ThankYou to Hilton Honors, including a 33% bonus, which made the transfer ratio 1:2. Even then I didn’t consider that to be a good deal.
So while it’s always good to have options, personally this was never one of the best uses of Citi ThankYou points. Personally I’d much rather transfer those points to Air France-KLM Flying Blue, Etihad Guest, Singapore KrisFlyer, etc.
As a reminder, here’s the current list of Citi ThankYou transfer partners:
Transfer Partners | Transfer Ratio |
|---|---|
Aeroméxico Club Premier | 1000 : 1000 |
1000: 1000 | |
1000 : 1000 | |
1000 : 1000 | |
1000 : 1000 | |
1000 : 1000 | |
1000 : 1000 | |
1000 : 1000 | |
1000 : 1000 | |
1000 : 1000 | |
1000 : 1000 | |
1000 : 1000 | |
1000 : 1000 | |
1000 : 1000 | |
1000 : 500 | |
1000 : 2000 | |
1000 : 200 | |
Preferred Hotels & Resorts I Prefer | 1000 : 4000 |
1000 : 1000 |
Will anyone miss the ability to transfer Citi ThankYou points to Hilton Honors?
(Tip of the hat to Doctor Of Credit)
Yes but for transferring 100k in points into my account I can get a free night in NYC
Maybe 2 nights for 200,000 points
I'm down to 1 total Citi card in my card portfolio. They better do something to get more of our spend if they want to be a competitor in the credit card market.
I have one thousand thank you points expiring this year (three thousand total). That number really isn't enough for me to start an account with any of the other transfer partners (Hilton is the only account that I have and use points for). Any advice?
Citibank Rewards in Australia yesterday sent out an email notifying cardholders of the same thing in that market. Looks global.
"The way I see it, this isn’t a huge loss."
Even without the fuzzy math estimation, this isn't a loss for anyone, except maybe for Citi, which has never grasped just what a powerful marketing tool and revenue generator a loyalty program can be for a company.
Unable to compete, Citi just lost the Hilton Honors account to AMEX, and, as a result, might have been ASKED to remove HH as a CTY transfer...
"The way I see it, this isn’t a huge loss."
Even without the fuzzy math estimation, this isn't a loss for anyone, except maybe for Citi, which has never grasped just what a powerful marketing tool and revenue generator a loyalty program can be for a company.
Unable to compete, Citi just lost the Hilton Honors account to AMEX, and, as a result, might have been ASKED to remove HH as a CTY transfer partner, marking yet another ignominy along the path of Citi's race to the bottom in the loyalty world.