Best Ways to Redeem Points Thank Citi

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One of the best ways to reduce the cost of a trip is to use tourist attractions earned through credit cards. Luckily, one of our favorites Citi credit card – the Citi Premier® Card – currently giving a record high 80,000 bonus points after you spend $4,000 on the card within the first three months of opening the account.

You can redeem those Citi ThankYou points for gift cards or through the Citi travel portal and get 1 cent each for them, generating 80,000 bonus points worth $800. But there are ways to get even more value by passing them on to some of Citi’s 17 travel partners. While this takes a bit more time and work, it’s well worth it and will help you book your next trip for significantly less.

Not sure where to start? Here are five of my personal favorite ways to spend 80,000 word points Citi Premier cards on flights to destinations around the world.

When it comes to using frequent flyer points, JetBlue is one of the easiest to use, as there were never any days or issues with prize delivery. If there are seats for sale on a JetBlue flight, you can always use your JetBlue points to reserve your seat. You can even use your points to fly in a JetBlue Mint seat and experience the ultimate domestic first class.

The reason is that JetBlue doesn’t have a classic award chart. Instead, the number of points you need to redeem for a seat is roughly tied to the fare – as the cash price rises or falls, the points price follows.

Typically, JetBlue points are worth about 1.4 cents per person. That means your transfer Citi Premier JetBlue destinations are a much better option than booking JetBlue flights directly through the Citi travel portal, as your points will only be worth 1 cent when redeeming directly with Citi.

In fact, if you transfer your entire 80,000 point signup bonus from Citi Premier to JetBlue and redeem them for flights at an average price of 1.4 cents per point, the sign-up bonus will be worth an impressive $1,120 for travel. But there’s no need to transfer all of your points at once – you can transfer ThankYou points in blocks of 1,000 whenever you need to, and most transfers are instantaneous.

Increase your JetBlue frequent flyer balance by transferring points from Citi Premier.

Even though Delta is not a partner in the Citi ThankYou program, you can still use Citi Premier points to book Delta flights. The trick is to instead transfer your points to Virgin Atlantic, which is a partner of both Citi and Delta. From there, you can use Virgin points to book multiple Delta flights.

When it comes to Delta flights within the United States, Virgin Atlantic has a distance-based award ranking for economy class seats that looks like this:

This means that when there is room for the prize, a round-trip Delta flight between Boston and Los Angeles costs 30,000 Virgin Atlantic points. That can sometimes be cheaper than booking the same flight using Delta’s own mileage, which fluctuates depending on the cash price of the ticket.

Just remember that Virgin Atlantic rates reward by adding up the number of miles required for each flight sector. So a route that requires a connection will cost more than a direct flight, because the two connecting flights will be priced separately, then added together.

Also, if you’re wondering if you can switch Citi Premier just go to Virgin Atlantic and exchange them for flights to Europe and the UK, you can – but I wouldn’t recommend doing so. That’s because Virgin charges extremely high carrier surcharges on redeeming their own rewards – up to hundreds of dollars, which often makes your “free” flight not worth it. cost. Luckily, you won’t see those hefty surcharges when redeeming Virgin points for Delta domestic flights.

Redeem points from your Citi Premier card for Delta flights via Virgin Atlantic.

Hawaii is not part of the continental United States, but that doesn’t matter when it comes to Turkish Airlines Miles & Smiles Award Ranking. This airline bundles the Hawaiian Islands with the rest of the 48 mainland states, making it extremely cheap to use Turkish miles to fly to Hawaii.

Of course, you’re probably thinking to yourself that Turkish Airlines doesn’t fly from the rest of the US to Hawaii – and you’re right. But Turkish Airlines is part of the Star Alliance airline partnership, which means you can redeem its miles for flights on United Airlines, which is also part of Star Alliance. And you can switch Citi Premier only to Turkish Airlines, as it is one of Citi’s 17 travel partners.

With just 7,500 miles one way on Turkish Airlines – or 15,000 miles round-trip – you can fly on a United flight from almost any destination in the United States to any Hawaiian island while space is available. Or, if you prefer to sit in the front, you can fly the same route for just 25,000 miles round-trip in business class.

Now, if you’re on the East Coast and Hawaii is a little out of your way, you can instead visit Puerto Rico or the US Virgin Islands with the same 7,500 miles each way, because of these destinations. are also grouped together as part of the US on the Turkish Airlines awards rankings.

Use Citi Premier points to bring your family to Hawaii.

Singapore Airlines has one of the best first class seats – or as the airline calls them “Suites” – in the world, and it recently announced that it will launch for the first time ever. fly your A380 with these Suites to the US. And believe it or not, you can actually redeem your Citi ThankYou points for a Suite for almost nothing.

While Singapore Airlines is a member of the Star Alliance, it only issues its suites bonus space to members of its own frequent flyer program, known as KrisFlyer. Luckily, you can join KrisFlyer for free, and once you join, you can transfer your Citi ThankYou points to KrisFlyer at a 1-to-1 ratio, meaning you can easily earn enough KrisFlyer points to book one of the This wonderful suite.

Currently, Singapore only flies the A380 on one route to and from the US – New York’s JFK to Singapore by way of Frankfurt, Germany. But only between New York and Frankfurt can be booked in advance, meaning you can get from the US to Europe this way and then use any other airline to get to any other country in the world quickly. the continent you want to visit .

Even better, booking an award to Frankfurt will be cheaper than booking the entire trip to Singapore. For a one-way flight from New York to Frankfurt, you could expect to pay 86,000 miles for a Suite seat at the lowest “Economy” rate, but only if Singapore releases bonus space at that level for the day you travel. want to travel . But if you can find the space, 80,000 bonus points on Citi Premier the card will actually cover the entire cost on its own.

Even if you can’t find space at the economy tier and need to reserve at the higher ‘Pro’ tier, which costs 140,000 miles one way, rewards from Citi Premier will get you more than halfway there, and you can then earn more points by using your card regularly, or transfer the extra points to Singapore from one of the other credit card schemes that also work with KrisFlyer, including Chase the ultimate reward, Rewards for American Express members and Capital One mile.

Click here to earn enough points with your Citi Premier card to fly first class to Europe.

While you should not move Citi Premier only going to Virgin Atlantic for flights to Europe due to that carrier’s high surcharge, there is another option for transatlantic trips without the hefty fee.

Avianca is another airline that is both part of the Star Alliance network and a Citi transfer partner, and although its LifeMiles awards rankings may look a bit more expensive than some airlines’ awards rankings other airlines, but it’s one of the few programs that doesn’t have a large partner prize surcharge, although it does charge a small $25 fee for all prize orders.

The number of Avianca LifeMiles needed for an award flight from the US to Europe depends on which route you are flying. LifeMiles divides both the US and Europe into regions, which means there’s a different award chart tier for each region you fly to and from.

For example, if you’re flying on a Star Alliance partner from New York (US Zone 1) to London (European Zone 1), you’ll only lose 20,000 miles one way for the Star Alliance partner. But from Los Angeles (US Zone 3) to Athens (European Zone 3) will cost you 30,000 miles one way. Still, it’s a very reasonable exchange rate for flights across the pond.

Alternatively, you can use Avianca miles to fly domestically around the US on United Airlines, as both are Star Alliance members. One-way flights within the United States are usually 7,500 miles each way, but you can sometimes find routes as low as 3,500 miles one way using LifeMiles.

Learn more and apply for a Citi Premier card now.

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