Improved: Citi ThankYou Premier Card 50,000 Point Bonus = $500 in Gift Cards = $665 in Airfare
(Update: The Citi ThankYou Premier 50,000 point offer is back and improved, with a $2,500 spending requirement and also the annual fee is waived for the first year. In addition, you can now mix points and cash when redeeming ThankYou points at a 33% premium for travel.)
The Citi ThankYou Premier Card is now offering 50,000 bonus ThankYou Points after $2,500 in purchases within 3 months of account opening. That is enough to redeem for $500 in gift cards or $665 in airfare when you redeem through their ThankYou Travel Center. There is no annual fee for the first year, $125 after that. Let’s take a closer look at how this breaks down.
You can view your redemption options at ThankYou.com. In general, it takes 10,000 ThankYou (TY) points to redeem for a $100 gift card to retailers like Gap, Banana Republic, Barnes & Noble, Bath and Body Works, Bed Bath & Beyond, Cabelas, CVS Pharmacy, Kohl’s, Land’s End, LL Bean, Sears, Lowe’s, Home Depot, Staples, and Walmart. So with 50,000 TY points, you could get five $100 gift cards from different stores.
Want something closer to cash? For a check mailed to you, it costs 8,000 points for $50. For a statement credit, it’s 7,500 points for $50. A check mailed towards your mortgage payment or student loan (made out to your lender) costs 6,400 points for $50. This works out to between 0.63 to 0.78 cents per point. Instead, it would be better to redeem your points for a Walmart gift card and then sell it for cash at a site like PlasticJungle.com that offers you 91 cents on the dollar. That would net you $455 in cash.
Now let’s look at the advertised airplane ticket option. A good question is whether a flight booked through the ThankYou Travel Center costs the same as through any other travel site like Expedia, Orbitz, etc. I have some old ThankYou points laying around, so I went to the redemption site and found that the prices are very closely aligned to what is offered at sites like Expedia.com. I did a few quick searches for random flights, and the cost of the flight matched up with the cost in points in a 100:1 ratio. For example, the exact same flight below that cost $360 including taxes and fees on Expedia would cost 36,000 TY points.
ThankYou Travel Center screenshot:
Expedia.com screenshot:
So the pricing seems fair, no inflated prices or hidden fees. However, with this specific Premier card with the annual fee, you also get 33% more value when redeemed for airfare. Thus, 50,000 points can be redeemed for $665 in airfare, which would typically require 66,500 points. Since you can book any flight that can be found on Expedia, there are “no blackout dates”.
Update October 2011: Let’s say you found a ticket for $250 = 25,000 points, but only have 20,000 points in your account. Citi now lets you pay the difference, so in this case you can get your $250 ticket for 20,000 points and $50. This makes it much easier to use up all of your points at a 33% premium.
Some other highlights of the card:
Citi ThankYou Premier Rewards Card application link
Related posts:
Improved: Citi ThankYou Premier Card 50,000 Point Bonus = $500 in Gift Cards = $665 in Airfare from My Money Blog.
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I’ve updated the post to
(1) reflect the fact that the $50k offer is back with a $2,500 spending requirement within 3 months + the annual fee is waived for the first year, and also
(2) for people who have gotten their points – you can now pay for travel with a combination of points and cash. This way, you can maximize the 33% premium that the Premier card gives you for redeeming your ThankYou points for travel on their Expedia-like travel portal.
@TJ – It’s applied at the end of statement period. My card was issued around middle of June and I’ve got the 50K bonus points in mid July.
anyone know when the points are applied to your account? immediately when $2000 is hit, at end of statement, or 6-8 weeks after? i’m getting close to the $2000 mark. thanks
Why knock the annual fee when the value of the annual companion ticket should be $100-$200 more?
@Daniel – You’re welcome, hope you enjoy your trip to Korea! If the annual fee is too high, you can always cancel down the road after enjoying the card features for a year and seeing how they work for you.
@aa- As of July 2011, yes this deal is still active.
Is this deal still active?
Just wanted to come back and thank you for the info. I just purchased my ticket to Korea and saved close to $700 on my airfare. Annual fee of $125 is a bit steep and may get annoying down the line but it could easily get offset by some of the fixed monthly expenses that I’ve began charging on the card.
So, thanks again!
I processsed this app on line and was aghast to see they charge an additional $50.00 for an additional authorized user. I immediately cancelled as the $125.00 fee is somewhat prohibitive but an additional $50.00 is in no way worth the hassle for me. However I do really appreciate all the notifications of deals — as senior it has helped considerably.
I applied for this card and I got a query. I have not been rejected a card in years by any bank. I used to couple of few Citi cards recently and cancelled them last year as I was not using them. The funny thing is Citi sent email without any way to contact them back except posting the following details back to them:
1) Original Telephone bill – no copies accepted. I wonder what they mean by original in the age of electronic bills and people carrying only mobile phones
2) Copy of bank statement/credit card statement or non telephone utility bill
3) Pay stub or brokerage statement
Though the email address seems to be legit, I am not going to send all these documents to some address mentioned in an email. if Citi cannot verify one of their old customers without getting above mentioned documents, no wonder they are in big mess.
I’m planning to travel to Korea via Korean Air or Asiana Airline. Are they applicable to airfare option?
Also, is paying my bill (mortgage, utility, etc.) considered credit card purchase or cash advance?
Is the airfare option also applicable for international flight?
@Eric: I can vouch for the Amazon Payments process. I used this process to rack up spending for the British Airways Chase card and Chase did not treat this as a cash advance. It shows up as a regular credit card transaction.
Use the pulldown menu if you only see the $25 for 3,500 point option, and you’ll find the $100 for 10,000 points. I only have 300 ThankYou points in my account and I can still see it.
If you currently have this card, can you contact CITI and receive the 50,000 bonus points?
I’ve used this card for 3 years. I purchase all our company airline travel with it and rack up some serious points.
FYI – The thankyou gift cards availability change once you log in to your account. Its kind of a bait and switch. For example when I log in I do not get the $100 walmart gift card option, the only denomination I am offered is $25 for 3500 points.
yea I think we’ll see more of these types of offers soon…
businesses are doing bad and they want to lure you in, just watch the terms and conditions..
Yes, Walmart, Home Depot, etc do offer $100 gift cards. I just confirmed again. Screenshot below. $100 = 10,000 points.
http://www.mymoneyblog.com/wor…..5/hdty.gif
This article is very misleading (not intentionally I assume). CVS, Wallmart, best buy, home depot, etc. do not offer $100 giftcards. Citi actually has a real **** rewards program if it wasn’t for the bonus points.
Prorated annual fee should be refunded when cancelling….
No, the annual fee is not waived for the first year for this particular offer. The old offer was 20,000 bonus points with annual fee waived the first year. This improved one adds 30,000 points (worth an additional $400 in airfare) but with the $125 annual fee. I would have been nice for the fee to have been waived, but it’s still a good offer.
Is there any way to get around the annual fee? Does it get charged when you receive your card or at the 1 year mark? TIA
I wouldn’t advise attempting that Amazon “scheme” as it wouldn’t surprise me if Citi classified that type of transaction as a cash advance.
do they waive the fee the first year?
Fellow blogger 2million says he used Amazon Payments (kind of like PayPal) to send $1000 a month between his wife and himself and charging it onto a credit card with no fees to satisfy purchase requirements.
http://www.2millionblog.com/20…..million%29
Other ideas for meeting the purchase requirements here:
http://www.mymoneyblog.com/cha…..l-fee.html
I just bought airfare using some old TYP and I found the pricing to be dead-on with the big travel sites. Slightly smaller selection of available flights though.
I’m really tempted by this, but the gift-card only redemption and annual fee are deal breakers for me (plus I have already applied for 3 CCs this year and am totally stocked up on grocery gift cards!)
Shoot. Changed my mind. In for one! Thanks Jonathan!