Citi just increased the bonus from 30,000 to 50,000 bonus ThankYou Points on the Citi ThankYou Premier Card. The terms of the offer are you earn the 50,000 points after you spend $4,000 in purchases with your card within the first 3 months of account opening.
I wish I could take advantage of this but I need to wait about a year. Last year Citi automatically converted my obsolete AAdvantage Visa that I had gotten years ago to a Citi ThankYou Preferred card. Unfortunately, it specifically says in the terms of the offer that “Bonus ThankYou Points are not available if you have had a ThankYou Preferred, ThankYou Premier or Citi Prestige card opened or closed in the past 24 months.” BUT, we knew that already. Unfortunately, my conversion date counts as an open date. I will mark the date and will apply as soon as my 24 months are up.
If you can apply, you should consider this offer. There is a $0 introductory annual fee the first year, then $95. You can earn 3x ThankYou Points on Travel that includes Airfare, Hotels, Travel Agencies, Gas and Parking, 2x ThankYou Points on Dining out and Entertainment (click here for a detailed definition of entertainment) and 1X ThankYou Points on other purchases. You pay no foreign transaction fees when you use your card on purchases made outside the United States.
In addition, you need 20% fewer points when redeeming ThankYou points for airfare through the Citi ThankYou Travel Center. This means one Citi ThankYou point equals $0.0125 incremental value on travel. For example, a $250 airline ticket will cost you 20,000 Citi ThankYou points. Click here to learn more about redeeming points.
Finally, you can transfer points to participating frequent travel programs with no transfer fees. Most points transfer at full 1:1 value. Unfortunately, ThankYou points transfer to JetBlue at 50% meaning that 1000 ThankYou points equal 500 JetBlue TrueBlue points. Click here to view Citi’s other transfer partners. You can click here to learn more about transferring points.
