Hi Genise,

Thank you for pointing that out. I have corrected the post.

Hi Kelley,

It really depends on how many ThankYou points you have. If you have quite a lot and could split them up amongst a few programs, that would give you a lot more flexibility in the future. But if I had to pick just one partner to transfer my ThankYou points to I would pick Avianca. Avianca is excellent for Star Alliance awards, especially to Korea and Thailand, they have solid award prices, and do not charge fuel surcharges on awards (which can be a big cash saver). Check out our post on the best ways to redeem Avianca miles for some ideas!

I hope this helps and thanks for reading!

Janet,

If you’re looking to get 3 economy one-way tickets, you should consider transferring your points to either Virgin Atlantic Flying Club or Air France Flying Blue. You can redeem as little as 28,000 miles when using Virgin Atlantic miles.

Find more details on Virgin Atlantic Flying Club here:
https://www.virginatlantic.com/us/en/flying-club/partners/airlines/air-france.html

Xin chao, Bang!

We’ve written an in-depth guide on the best ways to fly to Vietnam with points and miles, which you can check out here.

https://upgradedpoints.com/best-ways-to-fly-to-vietnam-with-points-and-miles

Also, if you’d like to have a service that offers personalized help with booking your flights or earning points and miles, you can e-mail me at stephen@upgradedpoints.com for more information.

Hi James! Thanks for reading. We appreciate your support and feedback. If you maximize your Citi points, they can be worth many times more than the “generally accepted value” of the points themselves. For example, an international flight in Lufthansa First Class booked by transferring Citi points is worth a remarkable 10-20 cents per point. This is a return of nearly 10 times better than using them to book paid flights that earn miles.

If you book a paid flight and earn miles, you might only get 1-1.25 cents per point. With a paid flight, you’ll probably earn around 10% of the actual cash value (1.25 cents per point). 10% of 1.25 cents per point is around .125 cent per point. If you add the cumulative value of those two, you’ll get at best a 1.375 cents per point return based on the example we just discussed.

If you compare the 1.375 cents per point return on a paid travel booking redeemed with points with up to 20 cents per point return with redeeming an award flight, you’ll quickly find that the difference is massive.

Thanks again!

I am a mileage member of American, Asia Miles (Oneworld Ruby), United (1K), EVA Air, and Japan Airlines. I live in Singapore and travel to the USA a lot and my favorite stopover is Tokyo.

I saw that my Citi ThankYou points (I have around 1.2 million) and I also have chase sapphire reserve. And points can be transferred to these partners. Seems like not all partners are equal for instance sounds like the sweet spot is using Alaska Airlines points to book trans-pacific award flights, Eva Air for within Asia.

Is it worth it to use points to book flights themselves because I do get miles from flights and depending on fare class there’s some decent booking class bonuses for them. My intuition tells me that go with the option that gets more cents/mile which is the redemption option but wanted to check since some articles online does do the math on when to actually use points to book a flight vs redeeming. Wanted to get your two cents.

Thanks!

Hi Joe,

Citi transfer partners that are not available with American Express or Chase include Garuda Indonesia, Malaysia Airlines, EVA Air, Qatar Airways, Thai Airways, and Turkish Airways.

Keep in mind that some of these can be booked with Capital One or Marriott Bonvoy points, but none of them can be booked with Amex Membership Rewards or Chase Ultimate Rewards.

Thanks for reading!

Hi Joel,

Credit card offers change periodically and sometimes without warning.

Hi James,

While it is true that Citi does not offer any hotel transfer partners, you can still use Citi ThankYou points to purchase hotel stays through their travel portal.

Apparently, they don’t partner with hotels, and if they do its only 5 bucks off and you pay more than if you purchased directly from the website.

Hi Jeff and thanks for the question. Most airlines let you book tickets for others. I have booked several tickets for friends and family using miles on both domestic and international airlines. You can also book paid flights for others. The only airline I know of that has any restrictions is Korean Air which in the past has required documentation be sent to them.

Thanks!

Gary,

Thanks for reading. You can consider opening either the Citi Prestige or Citi Premier card to be able to transfer to airlines. Besides that, you can pretty much only redeem for gift cards or statement credits at 1 cent per point.