You can transfer Citi ThankYou points to 14 airline and 3 hotel partners, and the best programs can save you thousands of miles on flights to destinations like Hawaii

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• Citi ThankYou points are valuable because the program partners with 14 airlines and 3 hotel chains.
• Citi’s hotel partner programs are Choice Privileges, Wyndham Rewards, and Accor Live Limitless (ALL).
• Other partners include JetBlue, Air France-KLM, Singapore Airlines, and Cathay Pacific.
• Read Insider’s guide to the best travel rewards credit cards.

Earning transferable points with rewards credit cards is one of the best strategies you can use to maximize returns on your spending. Programs like Chase Ultimate Rewards® and Amex Membership Rewards are popular with award travelers, in part because their transfer partners include numerous domestic airlines and popular hotel chains. Citi is an Insider advertising partner.

The Citi ThankYou Rewards program is a bit of an underdog in this regard, with just one domestic carrier (JetBlue) among airline transfer options. 

Despite having few domestic airline options, you can still squeeze excellent value from the program — in fact, some of Citi’s international airline transfer partners offer lucrative sweet spots that allow you to book award flights for far less than other frequent flyer programs charge.

In addition, the program added Choice Privileges, Wyndham Rewards, and most recently Accor Live Limitless (ALL) to its partner roster, marking the first hotel transfer options since Hilton left the program several years ago.

That’s on top of the numerous other ways to use your rewards points, like booking travel directly through the Citi ThankYou Travel Portal or cashing in rewards for gift cards and merchandise. These options are available to any ThankYou Rewards cardholder, but to unlock the ability to transfer points to all of Citi’s airline partners, you’ll need to have the Citi Premier® Card or Citi Prestige® Card
(no longer available to new applicants) in your wallet.

We’re focused here on the rewards and perks that come with each card. These cards won’t be worth it if you’re paying interest or late fees. When using a credit card, it’s important to pay your balance in full each month, make payments on time, and only spend what you can afford to pay.

For most of these partners, the transfer ratio is 1:1, with transfers in 1,000-point increments. The only exception for Citi Premier and Prestige cardholders is Accor (2:1). For other cardholders, JetBlue, Choice, and Wyndham, which are the only transfer partners available (along with Sears Shop Your Way rewards) if you don’t have a Citi Premier® Card or Citi Prestige® Card have transfer ratios and availability that vary depending on the card you have.

It’s important to note that ThankYou points transfers are one-way and nonrefundable — once you move ThankYou points to a partner, you can not transfer them back to ThankYou Rewards.

How to earn Citi ThankYou points

You can earn Citi ThankYou points through welcome bonuses and spending on a variety of different Citi credit cards, including:

Remember, you can only access all of Citi’s transfer partners if you have the Citi Premier® Card or Citi Prestige® Card. If you have multiple Citi ThankYou credit cards, you can combine your points into one ThankYou account.

Best Citi airline transfer partners

As with most transferable points programs, there are definitely some partners that are better than others. Depending on the partner and how you redeem your points, the value you get from your transfer can vary significantly.

Here’s a look at the best Citi airline transfer partners.

Turkish Airlines Miles & Smiles

It may seem strange that one of the best uses of Citi ThankYou points is transferring to a European airline that most people are likely never to fly. But the real value of Turkish Airlines miles lies in using the Miles & Smiles frequent flyer program to book award flights on its Star Alliance partners.

For example, the Miles & Smiles partner award chart requires only 7,500 Turkish miles for an economy-class flight anywhere within the US, including Hawaii, on Star Alliance partner United Airlines. If you booked the exact same flight through the United MileagePlus frequently flyer program, you’d pay 22,500 United miles.

Using the Miles & Smiles program does take a bit of patience as its online booking site can be hard to navigate, but cheap award prices like these can make it worth the extra effort. 

Air France-KLM Flying Blue

Air France and KLM share the Flying Blue frequent flyer program, and one of the best uses of Flying Blue miles is its recurring promo rewards. Each month, Flying Blue publishes a list of routes with a 25 to 50% discount on mileage costs. This can be a great way to stretch the value of your ThankYou points, and one of the best ways to fly to Europe or Israel for cheap.

Rates for a one-way economy flight from the US to Europe range from about 15,000 to 30,000 Flying Blue miles. The number of miles required varies quite a bit depending on the date and if the route is on a monthly promo award. Keep in mind Flying Blue adds more taxes and fees than other programs, so you’ll have to weigh the savings in miles and the increased cash cost.

Because it’s a transfer partner of all of the major transferable rewards currencies, Flying Blue is a great place to combine points balances from different programs.

Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer

Singapore Airlines is also a member of the Star Alliance, which means that you can use KrisFlyer miles to book travel on partner airlines like United, Air Canada, and Lufthansa.

In fact, using Singapore Airlines is also cheaper than using United’s own miles for flights anywhere in the continental US to Hawaii. Singapore also has a non-alliance partnership with Alaska Airlines, and you can use as few as 11,500 KrisFlyer miles to get to Hawaii as well. 

For luxury aficionados, Singapore Airlines also flies the ultra-premium Singapore Suites first class on certain routes. Singapore rarely opens up award seats in Suites Class to partner airlines, so transferring to KrisFlyer is often the only way to book these bucket-list awards.

Virgin Atlantic Flying Club

Although Virgin Atlantic is headquartered in the UK, its mileage program offers a fair amount of value for US travelers. You’ll often get the best deal from Virgin Atlantic miles when you book award flights on its SkyTeam partners, like Delta.

Because Delta no longer publishes an award chart, the cost of a flight in Delta SkyMiles can vary wildly depending on the route, date, and number of stops. Before you book an award flight using your Delta miles, it pays to check with Virgin Atlantic. It is quite common that the exact same Delta flight will cost fewer miles if you book with Flying Club miles.

Here’s an example — for a sample flight from Cincinnati to Paris, Delta is charging 58,000 SkyMiles:

Delta Air Lines

But Virgin Atlantic is only charging 42,500 Flying Club points for the exact same flight (over a 25% savings):

Virgin Atlantic

Avianca LifeMiles

Avianca is also a member of the Star Alliance, which means that you can use its miles to book partners like United, Lufthansa, and Ethiopian Airlines. Avianca’s award chart divides the US into three separate regions, with flights within a region requiring only 7,500 Avianca Lifemiles to book. Some US airline frequent flyer programs would charge 12,500 miles or more for the exact same flights.

Avianca also offers regular promotions that offer huge (150% or more) bonuses on buying or transferring LifeMiles. This can make it easy to top off your balance if you just need a few more miles to book your next trip.

Good Citi airline transfer partners

Some Citi airline transfer partners can provide decent value, but only in certain situations.

Etihad Guest

Etihad is not a member of any airline alliance but has a number of non-alliance partnerships that can provide good value for your Citi ThankYou points. These include Czech Airways (Prague to Seoul in business class for 25,610 Etihad Guest miles) and Royal Air Maroc (New York-JFK to Casablanca for 22,000 miles in economy or 44,000 miles in business class).

Cathay Pacific Asia Miles

Cathay Pacific is a member of the Oneworld alliance and has a distance-based award chart. The number of miles you need will depend on whether you are flying only Cathay Pacific or if you are flying one of their Oneworld partners, like American Airlines or British Airways. A flight from Los Angeles to Hong Kong is only 30,000 Cathay Pacific miles in economy or 70,000 miles in business class.

Qantas Frequent Flyer

Like Cathay Pacific, Qantas is also a member of the Oneworld alliance and also has a distance-based award chart. The best value for using Qantas miles is on short flights under 600 flown miles on either Qantas or Oneworld partners like American Airlines. These short flights can be had for only 8,000 Qantas miles.

JetBlue TrueBlue

The number of points required for a JetBlue award flight is directly tied to the cash price of a ticket, so it’s hard to get outsized value from your TrueBlue points. Still, it is possible to save points by transferring your Citi ThankYou points to JetBlue instead of using them directly to book a paid flight through the Citi portal.

Remember that JetBlue is the only Citi airline transfer partner that you can use without having the Citi Premier® Card or Citi Prestige® Card (though at a lesser ratio of 1,000 ThankYou points to 800 JetBlue points).

Citi airline transfer partners that aren’t great value

The rest of the Citi ThankYou airline transfer partners are generally not worth considering, except for extremely niche redemptions.

Aeromexico Club Premier

Aeromexico uses kilometers instead of miles, so its award chart is generally inflated by 1.6x compared to other programs. While other bank program points, such as Amex Membership Rewards, transfer to Aeromexico at a rate of 1:1.6, Citi transfers at only 1:1. 

Eva Air Infinity MileageLands

The award chart for Eva Air Infinity MileageLands is not spectacular when compared to most other airline programs, and you’ll generally find better value elsewhere. Eva Air does have some generous stopover allowances, though you can’t book stopovers online — instead, you’ll need to call the airline directly.

Emirates Skywards

While Emirates first-class cabins are among the best in the world, it’s best to use partner miles to book these awards. While Emirates recently reduced the astronomical fuel surcharges they charge on Skywards award tickets, there are other mileage programs that offer better value.

Qatar Airways Privilege Club

Like fellow Gulf carrier Emirates, Qatar has a great premium cabin flight experience that is best booked with partner miles. In Qatar’s case, rather than transferring Citi ThankYou points to Qatar Airways Privilege Club, it’s better to use American Airlines AAdvantage miles to fly on Qatar Airways.

Thai Airways Royal Orchid Plus

Thai Airways is currently in the middle of bankruptcy, spurred on at least in part by the limited travel demand due to the pandemic. And while bankruptcy does not mean that your Royal Orchid Plus miles would all of a sudden become worthless, it does give you one more reason to avoid transferring your ThankYou points here.

Citi hotel transfer partners

It’s possible to get decent value from Citi’s hotel partners, Choice, Wyndham, and Accor, but because many of their brands are budget-friendly, you might be better off saving your points and paying cash instead. It’s also possible to redeem Citi ThankYou points at a rate of 1 cent apiece for stays at these chains by booking through the Citi Travel Portal.

Accor Live Limitless (ALL)

Citi’s newest transfer partner is Accor Live Limitless (ALL), which comprises 45 brands across over 5,000 properties worldwide. Accor hotels include Fairmont, Raffles, Sofitel, SLS, and Swisshotel, but most of its properties are located outside the US, making this a better deal for international travelers.

This transfer option is only available to Citi Premier and Prestige cardholders, with a transfer ratio of 2:1 (2 Citi points equals 1 Accor point). Accor doesn’t have an award chart; instead, you can redeem points in 2,000-point increments toward a stay discount, where 2,000 points equal 40 euros off your bill. That makes Accor points worth just over 2 cents each, but since there’s a 2:1 transfer ratio from Citi, you’ll only get a value of just over 1 cent per Citi point (depending on the current exchange rate).

Choice Privileges

The loyalty program of Choice Hotels, Choice Privileges includes brands like Comfort Inn, Quality Inn, Clarion, Cambria, and Ascend Collection hotels. Award prices start at 8,000 points per night and go up to 35,000 points per night, with a few exceptions. Rates also vary depending on the season and even the day of the week you stay.

If you have the Citi Premier® Card or Citi Prestige® Card, the transfer ratio is 1:2 (1 ThankYou point equals 2 Choice points), with transfers in 1,000-point increments. The no-annual-fee Citi Rewards+® Card and Citi ThankYou® Preferred Card have a transfer ratio of 1:1.5 (1 ThankYou points equals 1.5 Choice points), with transfers also in 1,000-point increments. And if you have the Citi® Double Cash Card, you also have the ability to transfer to Choice at a 1:1.5 ratio.

Wyndham Rewards

Wyndham Rewards includes familiar brands like Super 8, Days Inn, Howard Johnson, and Travelodge — as well as over 40,000 vacation rentals through its partnership with Vacasa.

With the Citi Premier® Card or Citi Prestige® Card, you’ll get a 1:1 transfer ratio to Wyndham. Otherwise, with the Citi Rewards+® Card, Citi ThankYou® Preferred Card, and Citi® Double Cash Card, the ratio is 5:4 (1,000 Citi ThankYou points = 800 Wyndham points). 

Wyndham’s award structure is simple — you’ll pay 7,500, 15,000, or 30,000 points for an award night, depending on the property. With Vacasa vacation rentals, you’ll pay these fixed points rates per listed bedroom. 

Citi retail transfer partners

In addition to airline and hotel transfer partners, Citi ThankYou has one retail transfer partner. 

Sears Shop Your Way

You can transfer your Citi ThankYou points to Sears Shop Your Way points at a rate of 1:10. Shop Your Way points are worth 0.1 cents each, and Sears does sell some third-party gift cards that you can buy with Shop Your Way points.

This would allow you to effectively redeem your Citi ThankYou points for 1 cent per point for gift cards (or other merchandise) available for purchase at Sears. Unless you already have Sears Shop Your Way points and need to top off your account for a redemption, it’s easier to redeem Citi ThankYou points directly for gift cards through the ThankYou portal.

How to transfer Citi ThankYou points

Transferring your Citi ThankYou points is a fairly straightforward process. Once you log into your account at thankyou.com, find “More Ways To Redeem” in the top header, then choose “Points Transfer.” Or, select “Transfer & Share” in the main menu under “See everything that can be done with ThankYou Points.”

Citi

After you’ve selected “Points Transfer,” you’ll then see a list of Citi transfer partner options available to you. It’s important to note that the first and last names on your ThankYou account and the account you’re transferring to must match in order to be able to transfer.

Citi transfer partners frequently asked questions (FAQ)

Jasmin Baron, CEPF

Editor