After a year of speculation, Citibank finally introduced its first transfer partner to the Thank You Points program: Hilton back in January.
Citi Thank You Points are worth a penny or 1.25 cents apiece.
The transfer rate to Hilton is normally 1 Citi point to 1.5 Hilton points. Even before the March 28th Hilton HHonors devaluation massacre, I valued Hilton points at half a cent apiece.
So I considered this to be a bad value – instead of getting at least a penny in nvalue, a transfer under most circumstances meant getting three-quarters of a cent. Of course topping off accounts for certain high value awards you could exceed that.
Transfer partners are useful, more options are good, and the hope was that this would be the first of several transfer partners. But 10 months later that hasn’t happened.
Citibank is running a one-third transfer bonus through December 31. 10,000 Citi points normally yields 15,000 Hilton points. During the promo you get an extra 5000 HHonors points, so 10,000 Citi points means 20,000 Hilton points.
The extra 5000 Hilton point bonus applies only to multiples of 10,000 Citibank points you transfer.
Unfortunately the bonus doesn’t post instantly, they only promise it “will be posted to your Hilton HHonors Member Account within 30 business days.”
I don’t see the bonus as worth it, but of course the transfer option is better with this bonus than without it!
(HT: MileCards)
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too many hoops, not jumping in
citi thank you question please..
-if i have a “premier” card.. i CANNOT get the bonus for the “preferred” or “business” cards?
-do i have to wait 18mos after closing the ‘premier” to receive the bonus for the “preferred” or “business”
thanks!
I have a good use for the transfer..going to kuala lumpur, hilton there is 10k a night (3 guys, 2 rooms, 1 night) so we transfer 10k Thankyou points to hilton (20k hilton) and book the room.
I would rather pay my friend around 1-1.25cpm than pay hilton anyway
Where is the transfer link? Citi has done an excellent job of obscuring it. Hilton site links back to Citi site.
@Doug – you have to log into your Thank You account
I was logged into my TY account and wasn’t able to find.