I've had this card for a few months and this has been my experience:
Companion ticket is pretty worthless if you are traveling from a major market. For me, I go in and out from LAX where the best available fare is almost always below $379. You can't use a higher fare class to get a companion ticket either. Tried this twice and I was denied, although they then try to sell you a ticket at the best available price plus a small markup.
When I signed up for the card, I cared more about this benefit:
"Redeem for flights on any airline with no blackout dates."
In my experience, this claim is borderline fraud and at the very least should be extensively clarified by Citi. I recently tried to redeem points for a trip to Europe all the way out in August. To their credit they did have availability, but only on AA. When I inquired about NWA, they said only AA was available on these dates. This is not a special weekend and the flights are definitely not sold out. I felt cheated as I wanted to earn EQMs, and use NWA miles for a companion. Instead I'll use all NWA miles for my trip.
Still not a bad card if you view it as the 2% Thank You Gift Certificate card. Travel is probably OK, if you don't care what airline you fly and aren't particular about times.
Has anyone had better experiences redeeming ThankYou points for Air travel?