You Can Transfer Citibank Points to Anyone You Wish, and They Can Transfer to Miles

Citibank made Thank You points useful again, at least if yo have a Citi Thank You Premier, Prestige, or Citi Chairmans card.

That’s because they now allow points transfers to airline miles.

If you don’t currently have Citi Thank You points, the quickest boost to that balance is here.

I really like transfers to Singapore Airlines. They have a good award chart for US domestic flights (including Hawaii) on United, and they offer much much better award availability using Singapore miles for flying on Singapore Airlines in premium cabins than they’ve ever offered to their partners. You can actually book Singapore Airlines first class awards with Singapore miles (I have Singapore Suites reserved for a trip in the near future myself).

You can now transfer points from American Express, Chase, Starwood, and Citibank into Singapore Airlines. Singapore’s program is also a good place to credit the occasional United Airlines flight once United goes revenue-based for earning next year.

And Frequent Miler offers this good reminder about Thank You points:

And, I love the fact that Citi allows people to share ThankYou points with others. While other transferable points programs only allow sharing within the immediate household, Citi allows anyone to share with anyone.

Two important caveats:

  1. Singapore Airlines Krisflyer miles expire three years after they are earned. Validity can be extended for 6 months for a fee (12 months if you have status with Singapore Airlines).
  2. Citibank points transferred to someone else expire if they aren’t redeemed within 95 days.

Don’t transfer Citibank points into someone’s else account until they are ready to move those points to miles.

And don’t transfer points into Singapore Airlines unless there’s a clear use in the near or medium-term, because those points could expire.

Nonetheless, the combination of points transfers to anyone you wish that also has Citibank Thank You Points, and then the ability to transfer points to miles (especially Singapore Airlines) is really useful indeed. And makes me want some.


About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

More articles by Gary Leff »

Pingbacks

Comments

Comments are closed.