Originally Posted by boxweaver
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?
Interesting observations. As I wrote in a prior post, my experience with the free companion ticket was great. And, of course, the issue isn't whether tickets are available at major hubs for less than $379, the issue is whether you can get tickets for half that amount, since the companion is free.
I agree with you about the "any airline" language. I haven't redeemed points for free tickets yet, but I certainly would have interpreted that language as meaning any airline of my choosing. I guess they mean any airline, depending on what's available.
My experience has been that no single rewards program is perfect. But this one has the totally unique feature of earning the cardholder actual miles flown by anyone at all flying on a ticket purchased with the card, along with the double points for gas, groceries and pharmacies. There's also the 15,000 bonus points after any first purchase, and I think they're still waiving the first year's $75 fee. That's a whole lot of bonus earning potential. Until someone convinces me otherwise, I still think this is the best rewards credit card out there.