Using Citi ThankYou Points for Vacation Tours and Activities

On my recent visits to Hawaii and Thailand, I got to try out a feature of the Citi ThankYou Rewards portal that was completely new to me: using Citi ThankYou points to pay for tours and activities. When traveling to far away destinations, we often want to partake in some local activities such as water sports, boat rides or tours and these can be quite pricey. They are designed to capture the tourist dollar, after all!

The Citi ThankYou Rewards portal offers many of these activities and allows us to use Citi ThankYou points to pay for them at a rate of 1 Citi ThankYou point = 1 cent. That is, 10,000 points = $100. This allowed me to use my points to make my trips that much more exciting by being able to add fun activities and pay for them with points.

There are two ways to pay for activities with Citi ThankYou points

1. Book directly through the Citi ThankYou Reward Portal: In Thailand, we took a speedboat trip to the Phi Phi islands and Ma Ya Bay and booked directly through the Citi ThankYou Rewards portal under Activities. I explain below how to book these activities. In my experience, you have to book 3 days in advance for the activity to be available through the portal.
2. Book through your hotel and pay with a lodging certificate ordered through the Citi ThankYou Rewards portal: In Kauai, we took a kayak tour of the Wailua River and booked through the hotel, putting the tour on our room bill. As we were staying at the Grand Hyatt Kauai, we ordered Hyatt gift certificates through the Citi ThankYou portal and used these to settle the bill. Of course, this can only be done when staying at a Hyatt, Marriott or Ritz-Carlton and gift checks are available through the Citi ThankYou Rewards portal. I previously wrote about how to do this in the post: Using Citi ThankYou Points to Pay for Meals and Hotel Incidentals.

How to Book Activities Directly Through the Citi ThankYou Rewards Portal

To order the gift checks, log into your Citi ThankYou Points Account.

Once there, go to Book Travel and then Activities

On the next part, I need to type in my cities and dates. As an example, say I want to go to Maui in January. I can take a look at which activities are available there. I can book luaus, kayaking and snorkeling tours, boat rides, airport transfers. As far as I could tell when comparing, the prices for these activities are exactly the same or pretty close.

Is this a good deal?

While you can redeem Citi ThankYou points for activities and tours at one cent each, this may not be the best use of Citi ThankYou points. If you have the Citi ThankYou Premier card, every Citi ThankYou point is worth 1.25 cents toward airfare. That means that same 10,000 points that you would use to pay for activities would be worth $125 in airfare. I personally have plenty of points so I don’t mind redeeming them at one cent each, but if you don’t, you may want to save them for the higher value flight redemption. Additional reading: How To Book Flights With Citi ThankYou Rewards Points.

Earning Citi ThankYou Points

• The best sign-up bonus right now is for the Citi ThankYou Premier card. This offers 50,000 points, but the card has an annual fee of $125.
• The regular Citi ThankYou card is offering 30,000 points right now.
• I don’t know if sending in old brochures (or if you can still find them at bank branches) will still work, but it did work as of the end of September and expired offers were still being honored. This offer had a 15,000 point sign-up bonus and offered 5 points per dollar for 12 months at drugstores, grocery stores and gas stations.

Summary

• The Citi ThankYou Travel Rewards Center allows us to use our ThankYou points to book tours and activities during our vacations through the Citi ThankYou Rewards portal.
• Points will redeem at 1 cent each so 10,000 points are needed to redeem for a $100. Points can be worth at most 1.25 cents each toward airfare with the Citi ThankYou Premier card.

Other posts you may like:

• How To Book Flights With Citi ThankYou Rewards Points.
• Credit Cards with Drugstore Category Bonus: An Update.
• Using Citi ThankYou Points to Pay for Meals and Hotel Incidentals