Happy

Read the poster's story in the 1099 thread in this very forum. You can learn a lot of the details, esp what had transpired from the most recent happening to daveland's account.

TYPs from banking products are deemed taxable, but the reporting period is the year they are redeemed (within the program naturally as it cannot be transferred to 3rd party.)

AA miles from banking products are deemed taxable, but the reporting period is the year they are received (earned).

Why such discrepancy in the reporting period, nobody knows other than obviously it is allowed to be determined by the reporting entity as Citi has been doing such reporting from 2008.

haslipe

So help me decide. I was about to redeem 50k thank you points for $500 in Carnival Cruise Certificates. That is what I have mainly done in the past for redeeming TYP. But now I'm wondering if I should think about this conversion to BA.

We do go cruising a lot, so the certificates have been a great thing for us. We currently have 350k with delta, 220K with Southwest, 180K Ultimate Rewards, 140K Hawaiian Airlines, 90K UA, and 60K Virgin Atlantic. Since we will be getting two companion passes for our children, I believe that we are going to be focusing on using our Southwest Airlines miles for the next couple of years. From what I've read, I guess there are huge fuel surcharges for international flights with programs like BA and VA, so where is the best use of BA miles?

longhorn11

Premium classes to Europe, short haul flights domestically, and flights to South America. A domestic example would be LAX-HNL RT is only 25k avios in coach, compared to 17.5k each way on an AA saver award.

CVG_Kid

The taxable event occurs on Citi's books when they must pay for the prize.

For American it occurs at the time the bonus is transferred to American. Those points are purchased from American (not necessarily at that juncture but at that time their value is particularly yours).

For ThankYou the taxable event occurs when the redemption is made and the vendor paid for gift cards, travel, etc.

jeelele

Just checked the ThankYou website and nothing has changed on there and there is no indication anywhere that suggests that this new benefit is going to be added.

Has anybody else gotten any more info since April rolled in?

FOX85

Did anyone stop and think that this might be another bad april fools joke???

jeelele

I did think about it. But if someone really wanted to make a joke out of this, s/he would have suggested AA to be a transfer partner and not BA and SQ. Citi has a really strong tie-up with AA and logically speaking, one would expect AA to be the first transfer partner for Citi TYP.

duc1986d

Argg, nothing happened to me either
So mad at Citi thank you point now

TorontoSingh

Just called Thank You Points Service Center and was told that the conversion program to BA and SQ 1:1 was earlier confirmed to be effective on April 1st. But now there is a delay but it will still be in April with the exact date to be announced. I hope that the delay is due to the last minute attempt to woo AA to agree to be a part of this program as well, without which they can`t really compete against Amex MR Premier Rewards Gold (with Delta as the anchor conversion) or the Chase Sapphire (with UA as the anchor conversion).

In a nutshell, they need a unique selling point to win back the lost business from Amex and Chase and BA and SQ alone will not cut it with hefty fuel surcharges, fees and taxes on award tickets not to mention that they are already available as conversion options through Amex and Chase. AA convertability will offer them that uniqueness.

taliesin

It would seem really weird to me if they would have just three airline transfer partners and two of them were oneworld. It would also seem kind of weird if they went to the trouble to beef up the AA card and then immediately eliminated any reason to use it.

That said, I'm torn as to how I'd feel about adding AA. I'd like earning the miles, but it seems like a devaluation would be inevitable in that case. Then again, who knows? I think the vast majority of people don't currently make use of MR and UR transfer partners, so perhaps it wouldn't be a big deal.

TorontoSingh

I sure hope they would add more transfer partners down the line but it would take time. But Citi is in a strong negotiating position with AA and has a clout over them for a quick turn around time for a buy-in as they practically bought mega tons of AA miles and literally finance them. As Citi has just beefed up their AA card benefits similar to what United did with their explorer card, I hope this is a sign that there is more likelihood for them to be part of Thank You points conversion options. United hasn`t really been devalued with the Sapphire`s transfer option and I think AA should be ok with the Thank You conversion option especially now that they have increased benefits to the original AA card.

mia

You are mad at Citi because a rumor is not confirmed ?

MilesTalk

^ This is (one reason why) companies don't like info disseminated here before they publicly disclose.

taliesin

dansdeals.com is now reporting that this is official. Apparently it only works with certain TYP cards, eg Premier. Supposedly more airlines will be coming online in the very near future.

http://www.dansdeals.com/archives/20748

http://forums.dansdeals.com/index.ph...8269#msg208269

Edit: Ur, maybe.... Some in the DDF are reporting that they cannot see the transfer. I don't have any TY card, so I can't test personally.

tomy77

I have premiere, and i don't see the option.
Supposedly it's under here: Rewards > Thank You Points Exchange > Exchange
I don't see "TYP Exchange" option