How To Book Flights With Citi ThankYou Rewards Points

Citi ThankYou points are earned through credit cards issued by Citibank and can be redeem for a variety of rewards. Cards that earn these include the Citi ThankYou card, Citi ThankYou Preferred card and the Citi ThankYou Premier card. The points can be redeemed for gift cards, merchandise, mortgage payments or travel rewards through the Citi ThankYou Rewards Travel Center. This post is going to focus on redeeming the Citi ThankYou points for flights.

In terms of booking flights, Citi ThankYou points are almost the same as cash. You just go through the Citi ThankYou Rewards Travel Center and can usually book tickets at the same prices you find on Kayak, Expedia or Travelocity. There is no searching for award seats or capacity controls. Any paid ticket you can find through the Citi ThankYou Rewards Travel Center, you can use your points to book. In addition, you do earn miles for the tickets you book so you can feel free to book with your favorite airline if you’re going for elite status!

How much are Citi ThankYou points worth?

The value of Citi ThankYou points toward flights depends on which card or cards you have:

• Citi ThankYou card/Citi ThankYou Preferred card: 1 cent per point
• Citi ThankYou Premier card:1.33 cents per point for now

If you have multiple cards, you can link them together and then the points automatically become valued at the highest card value. You don’t  even need to transfer points from one account to another.

For example, I am earning most of my ThankYou points with the Citi ThankYou Preferred card since I got in on the offer to earn 5 points per dollar at drugstores, gas stations and grocery stores. Since my ThankYou Preferred card and ThankYou Premier card account are linked, I can automatically redeem all points at a value of 1.33 cents each!

You can also transfer your Citi ThankYou points to someone with a Citi ThankYou Premier card to redeem for higher value. However, all transferred points expire within 90 days so make sure you have a redemption in mind soon prior to transferring.

You do not need to have enough Citi ThankYou points to pay for your fight in full and can redeem as many or as few points as you want. You can apply the points for part of the flight cost and put the rest on any credit card. It doesn’t even need to be specifically your Citi ThankYou card.

The Steps to Redeeming Citi ThankYou Points For Flights

Step 1: Log in to your Citibank online account.

Step 2: On the next screen, you will see your different credit card accounts. When you scroll to the bottom, you will see your ThankYou point balance and you can click on View/Redeem.

Step 3: On the next screen, you will be taken to the Citi ThankYou portal with many reward choices. If you look under Book Travel, you may then select Flights in the Citi ThankYou Rewards Travel center. 

Step 4: Search for your flights. As an example, I am going to search for flights to San Francisco the last weekend of October. 

Step 5: On the next page, you can see the different flight options with various airlines just like any search engine. For every flight, you can see the total cost and the rate in points. Since I have the Citi ThankYou Premier card, each of my points is worth 1.33 cents each. So a $358.70 flights on United Airlines would cost ($358.70/.0133) = 26,975 Citi ThankYou points. 

The flights can also be filtered by price, stops, airline, specific flight numbers even.

Step 6: Select your flight and payment options. Once you decided on your flight, you can select exactly how many points you would like to apply toward your flight. If you have enough points to cover the cost fully, you can pay with points or you can redeem points for part of the flight cost. For example, if I decide to only pay 10,000 points for the flight, that counts as $133 toward the cost and I can pay the rest in cash.

On the checkout page, you can then pay the balance with any credit card.

Miles vs. Points

While redeeming miles or fixed-value points both get you free flights, they are very different. Miles are usually charged a certain rate regardless of cost of the flight provided award seats are available. Points, such as Citi ThankYou points, convert directly toward the cost of the flight and award seat availability is not relevant at all.

Main advantages of points:

• Flights paid for with Citi ThankYou points earn miles and count towards status.
• There is no need to search for award seats. Any flight through the Citi ThankYou Rewards Travel Center can be booked.
• You can redeem any amount of points. If you only have a portion of the points you need to redeem for a flight, you can pay part with points and the rest in cash. In order to redeem miles, you need to have at least the miles cost of the ticket. 

Main advantages of miles:

• Miles can often get better value per mile when booking for international award seats or business and first class flights. On my recent trip to Milan, I was able to book first class seats on United with miles, which would otherwise cost over $4000.00. That’s a lot of points to collect!
• Cancellation fees and change fees on miles tickets are usually smaller, especially for elite members.

My strategy: I usually use miles for long-haul expensive flights when I want to travel in comfort or first class. I also use miles for domestic flights when I have an opportunity to add a free domestic one-way flight (see these posts for how I do this on American Airlines and on United Airlines). I make sure that every time I book a flight with miles, I maximize the value and don’t leave any miles on the table.

For cheaper domestic flights, I tend to use Citi ThankYou points or U.S. Bank FlexPerks Rewards points. Of course, I may still redeem miles for particularly expensive tickets or use British Airways miles for short-haul award flights on American Airlines. 

Related posts:

Four Girls to Cancun Countdown: Redeemed FlexPerks Rewards and BusinessFirst!

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