Aug 5, 2014, 12:17 pm
Last edit by: mia
Q. Can I transfer Thank You points to airline programs?
A. Yes, but only from a TYP account tied to one of the following premium (fee-based) Citi cards:
Exception: Citi Preferred or Rewards+ cardholders can transfer to JetBlue at a less favorable rate (1000:500). They cannot transfer to other airline or hotel programs except as explained in the next paragraph .
Points earned through other cards -- such as the Citi Preferred or Rewards+ -- are eligible for transfer to airline programs, provided you also hold one of the premium cards listed above.
ThankYou Points earned through banking and customer service adjustments are called Taxable Points. Citi reports them as taxable when they are redeemed, not when they are earned. Citi does not allow Taxable Points to be Shared or Transferred, because they cannot determine a monetary value for those redemptions. However, the IT implementation of this policy may be imperfect. In 2015 one member was able to Transfer points earned through banking shortly after combining two ThankYou Rewards accounts. See posts 207-210, but no one has replicated this success.
Q. Which airline programs can I transfer TYP into?
A. TYP may be transferred 1:1 to these airline programs:
OneWorld
SkyTeam
Star Alliance
Independent
and to these hotel programs:
and to this retail program:
Q: After I transfer, when will my miles expire at that airline/hotel program? Is there anything I can do to avoid expiration there?
The Miles/Points that Do and Don't Expire wiki now lists all of the above Citi TYP airline/hotel transfer partners and their respective expiration policies.
Q. Are transfers instant?
A. Not necessarily. Although Citi's FAQ states that it may take up to fourteen days for the ThankYou Points to post to your participating travel loyalty program member account, anecdotal evidence suggests that many transfer times will be much shorter. A summary:
Q. Can I transfer to another person's airline or hotel program account?
A. Per the Citi FAQ,
We do not have many reports describing how strictly this rule is applied/enforced, nor any reports on workarounds. One FTer, in his first post ever, claimed success in transfering TYP to another person's Etihad (EY) account.
Keep in mind that TYP may be freely Shared with another TYP member's account (with the points expiring 90 days after transfer). If the recipient member has a transfer-eligible card (as described above), s/he can Transfer points to airline or hotel partners.
A. Yes, but only from a TYP account tied to one of the following premium (fee-based) Citi cards:
- Premier
- Prestige
- Chairman
Exception: Citi Preferred or Rewards+ cardholders can transfer to JetBlue at a less favorable rate (1000:500). They cannot transfer to other airline or hotel programs except as explained in the next paragraph .
Points earned through other cards -- such as the Citi Preferred or Rewards+ -- are eligible for transfer to airline programs, provided you also hold one of the premium cards listed above.
ThankYou Points earned through banking and customer service adjustments are called Taxable Points. Citi reports them as taxable when they are redeemed, not when they are earned. Citi does not allow Taxable Points to be Shared or Transferred, because they cannot determine a monetary value for those redemptions. However, the IT implementation of this policy may be imperfect. In 2015 one member was able to Transfer points earned through banking shortly after combining two ThankYou Rewards accounts. See posts 207-210, but no one has replicated this success.
Q. Which airline programs can I transfer TYP into?
A. TYP may be transferred 1:1 to these airline programs:
OneWorld
- Cathay Pacific Asia Miles (CX)
- Malaysia Airlines Enrich (MH)
- Qantas Frequent Flyer (QF)
- Qatar Airways Privilege Club (QR)
SkyTeam
- Aeromexico Club Premier
- Flying Blue: Air France (AF), KLM (KL) and others
- Garuda Indonesia GarudaMiles (GA)
- Virgin Atlantic (VS)
Star Alliance
- Avianca LifeMiles (AV)
- EVA Air Infinity MileageLands (BR)
- Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer (SQ)
- Thai Airways Royal Orchid Plus (TG)
- Turkish Airlines (TK)
Independent
- Etihad Guest (EY)
- Emirates Skywards (EK)
- Jet Airways (9W)
- jetBlue (B6) (TYP 1000 = 800 B6)
and to these hotel programs:
- ALL - Accor Live Limitless ( TYP 1000 = 500 ALL)
- Choice Privileges (TYP 1000 = 2000 Choice)
- Leading Hotels of the World Leaders Club (TYP 1000 = 200 LC)
- Wyndham Rewards
and to this retail program:
- Shop Your Way (Sears) (at ratio 1 TYP: 12 SYW)
Q: After I transfer, when will my miles expire at that airline/hotel program? Is there anything I can do to avoid expiration there?
The Miles/Points that Do and Don't Expire wiki now lists all of the above Citi TYP airline/hotel transfer partners and their respective expiration policies.
Q. Are transfers instant?
A. Not necessarily. Although Citi's FAQ states that it may take up to fourteen days for the ThankYou Points to post to your participating travel loyalty program member account, anecdotal evidence suggests that many transfer times will be much shorter. A summary:
- AF/KL: As of March 2016, instant. (Was previously 1-5 days.)
- AM:
- AV: Instant to ~5 days - mixed reports: https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/citi...r-partner.html
- B6: Instant
- BR: One business day in theory, but see post 417
- CX: One business day
- EY: Reports and discussion HERE.
- FB: less than 4 hours (11/16/17 after I added 00 to the front of my FB number) Make sure you have a 12 digit number or transfer will die.
- GA:
- MH: Two days
- QF: Two days (per post 273). Eight per post 368. 36 hours per post 440. 23 hours per post 512. Less than 24 hrs per post 547.
- QR: 2 days per post 418
- SQ: Variable--anywhere from two business days (per post #120) to 2.5-3 calendar days (per post 382) to next day per post 287
- TG:
- TK: Took 16-24 hours to transfer (12/28/17). No fees.
- VS: As of March 2016, instant. (Was previously done overnight: report 1; report 2).
Q. Can I transfer to another person's airline or hotel program account?
A. Per the Citi FAQ,
No. The first and last names on both the ThankYou Member Account and the participating travel loyalty program member's account must match in order to transfer points using the Points Transfer feature.
Keep in mind that TYP may be freely Shared with another TYP member's account (with the points expiring 90 days after transfer). If the recipient member has a transfer-eligible card (as described above), s/he can Transfer points to airline or hotel partners.
Citi ThankYou Points (TYPs): airline and hotel transfer partners
Jun 15, 2015, 3:10 pm
#241
Join Date: Jun 2012
Location: ATL
Programs: DL, Marriott
Posts: 728
When people say that TYP won't take AA as a transfer partner b/c it will make the AAdvantage cards less valuable...how does that logic apply to other airlines? Like MR with Delta and UR with UA...Amex handles Delta branded cards and Chase handles United branded cards, but they still have them as transfer partners, so why not Citi and AA? If it makes the co-branded card less valuable, well the other co-branded cards for Amex/Chase still seem to be doing alright?
Jun 15, 2015, 4:13 pm
#242
Join Date: Jul 2009
Location: DCA/IAD
Programs: AS, US, Hilton, BA, DL, SPG, AA, VS
Posts: 1,628
Nobody at Citi/AA who really knows is going to post here, so all we can do is guess. That being the case, my guess would be $$ - Citi and AA haven't been able to agree on the price of the miles or something like that. I don't buy any arguments about not wanting to devalue the co-branded credit cards, since they give benefits that the TY cards don't (free checked bag, priority boarding, Priority Access in the case of the Executive). But I doubt we'll ever really know.
Last edited by LETTERBOY; Jun 15, 2015 at 4:14 pm Reason: punctuation
Jun 26, 2015, 1:03 pm
#244
Join Date: Jul 2014
Location: Western US
Programs: Costco Executive Member, Amazon Optimus Prime
Posts: 1,251
Buying the AA/US domestic flights via TYP may - on net - be easier to actually harvest value than just fruitlessly searching for sAAver level flights.
Getting 1.6c of value domestically is functional, versus getting 1c or worse for anytime in my experience.
I grant that those who do long haul / intl / front of the cabin are getting better/more value from transfers.
Getting 1.6c of value domestically is functional, versus getting 1c or worse for anytime in my experience.
I grant that those who do long haul / intl / front of the cabin are getting better/more value from transfers.
Jun 30, 2015, 7:32 pm
#245
Join Date: Feb 2014
Location: 10023-Central Park West
Programs: CHASE UNITED CLUB; CITI PRESTIGE； IHG SPIRE AMBASSADOR; RITZ-CARLTON GOLD; Global Entry
Posts: 227
I hope TYP will add Asiana as a transfer partner. Asiana and CITI/AA will serve me better. I have too many TY points, more than I know what to do with.
Please add Asiana.
Please add Asiana.
Jul 3, 2015, 3:32 pm
#246
Join Date: Dec 2012
Posts: 76
Buying the AA/US domestic flights via TYP may - on net - be easier to actually harvest value than just fruitlessly searching for sAAver level flights.
Getting 1.6c of value domestically is functional, versus getting 1c or worse for anytime in my experience.
I grant that those who do long haul / intl / front of the cabin are getting better/more value from transfers.
Getting 1.6c of value domestically is functional, versus getting 1c or worse for anytime in my experience.
I grant that those who do long haul / intl / front of the cabin are getting better/more value from transfers.
Jul 13, 2015, 5:55 pm
#248
Join Date: Jul 2014
Location: Western US
Programs: Costco Executive Member, Amazon Optimus Prime
Posts: 1,251
In addition the usage is kind of weird.
For some uses, like flight redemptions via the TYP travel portal, they can be used interchangeably.
But for use cases like transfers to partner loyalty programs, like Hilton, the points are segregated into transferable and non transfer points. In addition they also have points with expirations.
The way their algorithm decides which points to collect from your account is
*expiring
*non transferable (if allowed)
* transferable
I had them explain this to me on the phone....but who knows it that is really correct. the CSR insisted all this was somewhere on the web site, but I've never been able to find it.
TYP used to be fairly limited in their usefulness, but are becoming much more interesting for us. If I had more faith / confidence in FlyingBlue, TYP would get even more attention from us.
Jul 19, 2015, 1:35 am
#249
Join Date: Feb 2012
Posts: 599
If I'm interested in premier travel (F or J) redemptions and have already tried SQ which TYPartner would be the best sweet spot/value?
Basically, besides SQ suites, are TYPartners good for any other first/business class redemptions with good value? Etihad recently devalued massively so that's no good.
Basically, besides SQ suites, are TYPartners good for any other first/business class redemptions with good value? Etihad recently devalued massively so that's no good.
Jul 20, 2015, 6:24 pm
#250
Join Date: May 2013
Posts: 95
Initiated a transfer to VS Saturday July 18 right before midnight. Points posted Monday July 20 around 7 or 7:30am with the 25% bonus. Used 84k TYP to book 3 round trip from DTW to London May of next year. Too bad the taxes and fees are so high, but still a decent deal.
Last edited by Mihiker; Jul 20, 2015 at 6:32 pm
Jul 24, 2015, 12:53 pm
#251
Join Date: Jul 2014
Location: Western US
Programs: Costco Executive Member, Amazon Optimus Prime
Posts: 1,251
Haven't done any of this just thinking out loud....
Jul 24, 2015, 9:50 pm
#252
Join Date: Sep 2012
Posts: 4,431
I've been reading about taxable points and now I need clarification. So points earned from a bank sign up or bonus are not transferable to airlines and hotel points... what about points earned from credit card sign up? Or points transferred from one person's TY account to a family member's TY account? I have 400k TYP from the TYP card bonus categories, but my wife has the Prestige card. Can I transfer to her and then she transfer those points to SQ, for example?
Jul 25, 2015, 2:03 am
#253
Join Date: May 2015
Location: LAX, BUR
Programs: AS,AA,JB, HH Gold, Starriott Titanium Elite, Hyatt Explorist, Global Entry
Posts: 1,933
I've been reading about taxable points and now I need clarification. So points earned from a bank sign up or bonus are not transferable to airlines and hotel points... what about points earned from credit card sign up? Or points transferred from one person's TY account to a family member's TY account? I have 400k TYP from the TYP card bonus categories, but my wife has the Prestige card. Can I transfer to her and then she transfer those points to SQ, for example?