Citi Prestige card companion ticket
 

does citi premier ty card really offer true companion ticket as advertised?
How much is the cost?
do you get the desired trip you would like to have?
any inputs are greatly appreciated

In my experience, it's not really a 'free' companion ticket. I've used twice I think, ended up saving about $100 total each time. Won't always have the flights you want, but sometimes will. If you can get a ticket for $300, you can call and probably will have to pay $500 for that same ticket, but will also get the free companion ticket.

YMMV, but I think it's a perk that you'll probably be able to value around the cost of the annual fee (maybe less now that it has been raised to $125). I think now they are also offering unlimited tickets purchased through them at $50 off what you could get anywhere else.

Also, you won't accumulate any flight points for tickets purchased through their travel agency in my experience.

Hope this helps.

flyerjay,
Thanks so much for your kind reply.
I recently got the card approved.
I'm a bit puzzled. You said that you can get your ticket $50 less if you purchase via spirit incentives. if so, why would the ticket cost more if you are paying for a companion ticket? is it becaue for the sake of 'companion ticket', they have to raise the ticket price. thanks for clarification.
by the way, the bonus thank you points 50K you get from making certain amount of purchase within 3 months. does that also qualify you for 50K flight points to redeem? if not, you roughly get 2% travel reward.
the perks of this card in my personal opinion
1. bonus ponts
2. using ty points to buy travel tickets (additional 33%)
3. discount to purchase tickets via spirit incentives

thanks again:)

Yes, we've used it twice. Just recently booked a fare that was $350pp via AA.com for $479. So, a savings of $220. Don't expect a lot of options though- But I guess that comes with the territory. good luck

The companion program you can use once per year (as I recall). You get 2 tickets for the price of 1 (but the one is more expensive than you could normally get) - as described.

The $50 off I mentioned is separate - it is unlimited and as long as you purchase the tickets through Spirit Incentives. May not be $50, but somewhere in that ballpark ($25-$50).

I don't know if you can earn flight points against the bonus points (search some other threads - I'm sure that has been answered somewhere). I signed up about 5 years ago, and at that time you could get flight points against the bonus points. For some reason I think I read that is no longer the case. I've never worried too much since I have more spend than flight points each year.

Huge bonus of the card in my eyes is that when you travel on 'reward' tickets, you acrue ff miles that also qualify for elite status because you are flying on a purchased ticket. With an airline cc, you don't get miles when you fly on an award ticket.

Good luck - enjoy the card!

Just to correct you, $50 off that you are referring to is not $50 off but is in fact 15% off the base fare before taxes.

Is this correct? I know you do not get flight points for a reward ticket, however, I thought you get flight points for tickets purchased through SI (and a 15%reward discount).

I was under that impression too.
TYN redeemed tickets will only acrue your airline's ff points but purchased tickets should always be able to acrue both TY flightpoints and the airline's points.

The main benefit for this card for me is the ability to acrue points for miles flown, not just the cost of the ticket. I don't know any other card that does that.

I am consider converting from another Citi card. I am interested to know of the TY Premier Card requires you to match flight points with purchase points before they will be deposited, as my other card does.

Yes.

I booked two JetBlue tickets this past labor day using the 15% reward discount. I entered our JetBlue TrueBlue program account numbers online before we took the flights, so they were in the "system" and I was able to choose seats. To date I have not received the TrueBlue points for the flights I took. This discussion reminded me, so I went back and requested the missing points. I'll let you know if I hear anything in the coming weeks.

OK, so I just got my Citi ThankYou Premier Card (for the 50K sign-up bonus), and the pamphlet mentions the "complimentary domestic companion ticket" supposedly available by calling Spirit Incentives at 1-866-428-4078.

So I'm curious as to how this will go down. Most of my domestic ticket purchases are on mileagerun-type fares -- really cheap stuff, usually at around 4 cents per mile. Paying $250 for a transcon is a lot for me. :) So when I call Spirit, am I correct that I won't be able to book a free companion at this fare level? Are there fixed rules involved here: like do we know their booking bucket and can look for affordable fares in that bucket to maximize the value of this companion ticket?

Or is it not even worth the effort to figure this out?

Basically for the same $250 ticket you can buy direct, you would pay probably $350 to $400 for the SAME flights then you get your companion ticket. With your cheapo fares you may save even less than $100 on the companion ticket.

I would venture to say, almost all free companion ticket schemes work this way - same mechanism with the AMEX program. Both this and AMEX programs are opaque.

Citi's AAdvantage card used to have this feature too - however AAdvantage card's program was clear-cut - that scheme requires the ticket booked into higher fare buckets (not just $ threshold), so basically you will NOT save the full amount on the companion ticket. Sometimes you dont save anything at all with the fare bucket requirements.

Yeah, that's been my experience with these "free ticket" schemes, too. This being Flyertalk, though, I was hoping that perhaps somebody has figured out a way to game it to be more worthwhile. :)

Success....I got the TrueBlue points, so I was able to get FF miles using the 15% discounted ticket through Spirit Incentives.

OK let's say you've got a family of 4, domestic trip to grandmas or Disney, and the 50K / $625 or whatever the TY bonus is. Normal low-bucket price per ticket is $250-$300.

What's the best scheme to minimize cash outlay? Pay cash for cardholder & "companion" ticketing scheme, for (hopefully) $400-$500, then use the TY points for the other two tickets?