Over the summer Citibank drastically improved the value proposition of its Thank You Points program, making the points transferable to a variety of airline mileage programs.

Two years ago they introduced the program’s first transfer partner — Hilton. But transfers to Hilton are normally a really poor value at 1:1. Doubly so because Hilton massively devalued their program a mere month later.

Current transfer partners are:

• Air France-KLM
  
• Asia Miles
  
• Etihad Airways Guest
  
• EVA Air Infinity MileageLands
  
• Garuda Indonesia GarudaMiles
  
• Hilton HHonorsTM
  
• Malaysia Airlines Enrich
  
• Qatar Airways Privilege Club
  
• Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer
  
• Thai Airways Royal Orchid Plus

The Air France KLM Flying Blue program is useful, and so is Asia Miles… their distance-based chart though gets expensive for long distance premium cabin flying. Singapore Airlines is my favorite option here — for cheap US domestic and Hawaii awards on United, and for excellent availability on Singapore’s own flights.

I wouldn’t transfer points to Hilton, normally, and have a hard time conceiving of a time ever doing it at a 1:1 ratio especially now that there are airline transfer partners that transfer 1:1 as well.

Through January 8, though, Citi Thank You Points transfer one-to-two into Hilton.

For a limited time, enjoy 2 Hilton HHonors™ Bonus points for every Citi ThankYou point you transfer. Offer ends 1/8/2015.

I value a Hilton point at a little less than half a cent per point. So this transfer bonus gives you in my view and on average a bit less than one cent a point in value… you’ll still do better using your points to pay for airfare directly (let alone transferring to an airline frequent flyer program).

Nonetheless there are times when – at the margin – Hilton points can be worth more than that. If you need to top off your HHonors account for a specific award, this can make sense.

(HT: MileValue)

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