Citi Prestige and Premier Cards

Dear Annabelle,

I am enjoying learning about all these points, credit card, currency land.  I rarely (now that I am not working) have the opportunity to really try and get my mind around such a complex space.  I am still not there yet, but I am enjoying the process.

For example, when I was looking here at just the Citi ThankYou Points they didn't really seem like that good an option since they didn't have the best partners.  But now that I am starting to understand how the earning multipliers work I see the value in different card/point combinations more.

This post by Travel Codex really highlights for me why the Citi Prestige Card could be useful specifically for its 1.6 cents per point when booking on American and US Airways (1.33 on other airlines).  I knew this was a good use of the points from previous reading but this card has a $450 fee and as I have said that is not what I want.  BUT it comes with a $250 per calendar year annual airline fee credit, so if you are going to use the credit it is more like a $200 annual fee.  Plus the fact that you can use the credit every calendar year so you could come out ahead in your first year of card ownership (calendar vs. ownership year overlap).  Also this blog indicates that the 1.6 cents bookings also work on codeshares with American so that might open up the options.

This card has 2X on dining (same as the Chase Sapphire Preferred) and 3X on travel, which is 1X higher than the Chase (CSP) card.  I thought based on my reading that gas stations were included in the travel category but I am not seeing gas stations count when I am looking at the card on Citi's website.  It looks like the 3X on travel including gas stations is actually for the Premier card (I read the blog post wrong at first).  Now if you own the Prestige card you can use the Premier earned points at the Prestige level (of 1.6) but this means you would have to own both cards.

To be clear the Prestige card (the one with the 1.6 cents per point on American and US Airways and 1.3 on others) earns:

• Earn 3 ThankYou® Points per $1 spent on air travel and hotel
• Earn 2 ThankYou Points per $1 spent on entertainment
• Earn 2 ThankYou Points per $1 spent on dining out
• Earn 1 ThankYou Point Per $1 spent on other purchases

The Premier card points can be redeemed at 1.25 cents and are earned at

• 3 ThankYou Points for every dollar you spend on purchases at airlines, hotels, car rental agencies, travel agencies, gas stations, commuter transportation, taxi/limousines, passenger railways, cruise lines, bridge and road tolls, parking lots/garages, campgrounds and trailer parks, time shares, bus lines, motor home/RV Rental and boat rentals;
• 2 ThankYou Points for every dollar you spend on purchases at restaurants and on select entertainment merchants, including sports promoters, theatrical promoters, movie theaters, amusement parks, tourist attractions, record stores and video rental stores; and
• 1 ThankYou Point for every dollar you spend on other purchases.

Both cards currently have a 50K bonus with a 3K spend.  The annual fee on the Prestige is $450 (plus $50 authorized user) and $95 waived first year on the Premier (with $0 authorized user).

Definitely cards to consider once I better understand which frequent flyer points/airlines I want to use for the routes I am the most interested in.

Hugs,
Jen

AAdvantage

Dear Annabelle,

Andrew has taken the girls to the zoo today with his sister.  It is their anniversary today and it is hard to believe all that has happened since we were in Portland for the wedding a year ago.  I need to pack for my trip to Ottawa but I am enjoying taking some time with my coffee to try and summarize a bunch of these tabs I have open!

The Citi AA Executive Card is currently offering a 75K bonus with a $7500 spend in first 3 months.  It is discussed here (says "get it" although I am pretty sure they get a cut).  Normally this would be too high a spend for us BUT if we do have the trees taken down AND they take credit then this might be useful.

However, it has an annual fee (not waived) of $450 and I am hesitant to get any card with a really high fee at the moment unless I am super clear on how those points are going to be used.  Also it doesn't have great bonus categories and it is giving Admiral's Club Membership but that doesn't matter that much to me.  Doctor of Credit recommends giving it a pass for not having enough value for the fee.

Hugs,
Jen

Credit Card Point Program Match Up

Dear Annabelle,

I keep having to look up which credit card point programs go with what frequent flyer (or hotel) program so I have summarized it in this post.

These point programs let you transfer the points into the airline or hotel programs of your choice (within their list) or use the points directly to pay for travel in a set way.

After doing the work below I found a full chart that is super helpful.  It is shared as a Google Doc here.

My original chart:

Updated: July 2, 2015
All transfers at 1:1 unless specified. Generally minimum of 1000 needed to transfer.
	Chase Ultimate Rewards	American Express Membership Rewards	Citi ThankYou Rewards
Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer	X	X	X
Virgin Atlantic Flying Club	X	X	X
British Airways Executive Club	X	X
Air France/KLM Flying Blue		X	X
Cathay Pacific Asia Miles		X	X
Aeroplan Air Canada		X
ANA		X
Club Premier AeroMexico		X
Delta SkyMiles		X
EL AL Isreal Airlines		X (20: 1000 AMEX)
Emirates Skywards		X
EVA Air Infinity MileageLands			X
Etihad Guest			X
Garuda Indonesia Frequent Flyer			X
Hawaiian Airlines		X
Iberia Plus		X
jetBlue		X (200 TB: 250)
Korean Air SKYPASS	X
Malaysia Airlines Enrich			X
MilleMiglia Club Alitalia		X
Qantas Frequent Flyer			X
Qatar Airways Privilege Club			X
Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards®	X
Thai Airways Royal Orchid Plus			X
United MileagePlus®	X
Virgin America elevate		X (100: 200 AMEX)

Chase Ultimate Rewards:
- Transfer partners are listed here.

Citi ThankYou Rewards:
- Transfer partners are listed here.

American Express Membership Rewards:
- Transfer partners are listed here.
- "Time to transfer points: Generally instant for Delta, Air Canada, British Airways, JetBlue; others vary up to a week." (here)

SPG rewards have many partners that are listed in the master table linked to above.

Hugs,
Jen

Citi ThankYou Points

Dear Annabelle,

I was reading about how Citi points are becoming more valuable because Amex is limiting how many times you can get a bonus on a card (once in a lifetime for the card I think) and Chase is limiting how many cards you can apply for (I think 5 in 2 years).

Update: After getting my head around these points below, Lucky posted this today on how to use ThankYou Points.  He emphasized using them directly for American Airlines especially if you have the Prestige Card as well as transferring them to KrisFlyer.  Travel Codex agrees that those are the two main usages.

As I was going through this list I was really learning about the different frequent flyer programs that are out there, being new to this game.

Citi Thank You Points transfer to the following (all 1:1 except for Hilton where 1 gives you 1.5):
- Hiton HHonors

- Asia Miles: program of Cathay Pacific, which is part of Oneworld.  I am a little confused though, because the airline partners that Asia Miles lists are somewhat different than the Oneworld list.  I wonder if the Aer Lingus would help us with getting a trip to Ireland as it is listed as one of the partners. We are hoping to go in Summer of 2016 so not sure if any of this could happen soon enough.

- EVA Air Infinity MileageLands: Seems to be based out of Taiwan and flies into LA, Seattle, NY, SFO. Is a Star Alliance Member.

- Ethihad Guest: second largest carrier of UAE with partner airlines:

Etihad Airways has codeshare agreements with the following airlines (as of January 2015):[53]

Aegean Airlines[56] Aer Lingus[57] Aerolineas Argentinas Air Astana Air Berlin Air Canada[58] Air Europa[59] Air France[60] Air Malta Air New Zealand Air Seychelles[61] Air Serbia[62] airBaltic[63] Alitalia All Nippon Airways American Airlines Asiana Airlines

Bangkok Airways Belavia[64] Brussels Airlines China Eastern Airlines[65] Fiji Airways[66] Flybe Garuda Indonesia[67] Hainan Airlines[68] Hong Kong Airlines[69] Jet Airways JetBlue Airways[70] Kenya Airways[71] KLM[72] Korean Air[73] Malaysia Airlines Middle East Airlines

Niki[74] Pakistan International Airlines Philippine Airlines Royal Air Maroc S7 Airlines Saudia Scandinavian Airlines[75] SriLankan Airlines South African Airways[76] TAP Portugal Turkish Airlines Vietnam Airlines Virgin Australia

Blog here indicates that link with AA is most beneficial, and AA is better value than the Etihad, but that Etihad has a family membership that lets you pool your points.  Interesting to think of what frequent flyer program has the most value within the different partner programs.

- Flying Blue: Air France, KLM and other Airline partners listed here.  The partners include Alaska Airlines, Delta, as well as bunch of other airlines I haven't even heard of.

- Garuda Indonesia: One of only 7 5-star airlines in the world. Member of Skyteam: "While SkyTeam does not have a separate program, a member of the frequent flyer program of any airline in the alliance can earn and redeem frequent flyer miles on all SkyTeam carriers through that account." Skyteam includes Delta.
- Malaysia Airlines:  Member of Oneworld.  Partners include American Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Bangkok Airways.

- Qantas: Australian airline.  Oneworld member.  Partners here.

- Qatar: Oneworld member.  Partners here.

- KrisFlyer: Singapore Airlines program.  Star Alliance.  Partners here include: Air Canada, United, Thai among others.

- Royal Orchid Plus:  Thai Airways.  Star Alliance.

- Virgin Atlantic Flying Club:
There is a Virgin America but they don't fly to Denver.  Does seem to have some good domestic point values if they did fly out of here.  This is a blog post about how they aren't great miles to have but it lists some of their uses.

I am not sure how useful the Citi ThankYou points are for the types of North American trips we are looking at doing.  In terms of looking at American Airlines the Points Guy had this to say:

"Four of these partners (Qantas, Asia Miles, Malaysia Airlines and Qatar) are in Oneworld, so you can redeem for flights on American Airlines. Etihad is also a partner, and has some reasonable inter-U.S. rates. Depending on the routes you’re interested in, check those partners, their availability, and what taxes and fees they charge. ... Starwood Preferred Guest is the clear winner if you want points that transfer to American Airines, since 20,000 Starpoints transfer to 25,000 AAdvantage miles, so consider getting the Starwood Preferred Guest Amex card. If you’re hooked on ThankYou Rewards, your best option is to dig deep into the Oneworld partners and see if you can make it work for the routes you want to fly, or look into Citi Prestige for the ability to redeem points through the ThankYou Travel Center for 1.6 cents apiece on American." (Read more: here)

Here are some reviews on how to use Citi Thank You Points in general:
- This one pointed out an interesting feature: "Combine your points with anyone through the Share Points option on ThankYou.com. It’s a great option since (unlike Chase Ultimate Rewards) you can combine with any other ThankYou Rewards member. The catch is that shared points expire 90 days after transferring, so ensure you have an immediate use for the points. Point transfers occur instantly.  This means that as a ThankYou Preferred cardmember, you can share your points with a Prestige or -Premier cardholder in order to redeem at a better rate."

- This one spells out nicely using the ThankYou Point system to book flights versus transferring. Of note is that when you book with them the flight still earns miles.

Hugs,
Jen