ThankYou® Rewards is Citi’s rewards program offered across several of the bank’s credit cards.
The program offers point redemptions for cash back rewards, gift cards, and point transfers to travel partners and competes with other bank transferable rewards programs like Chase Ultimate Rewards and Amex Membership Rewards.
This article is our complete guide to ThankYou Rewards and will help you get the most out of your ThankYou Points.
ThankYou® Rewards at a glance
Citi ThankYou® Rewards is the transferable points rewards program of Citibank. The Citi Double Cash® Card, Citi Custom Cash® Card, and Citi Strata℠ Card all have no annual fee and earn ThankYou Points (even though the Double Cash and Custom Cash are marketed as “cash back” cards.) The Citi Strata Premier℠ Card and Citi Strata Elite℠ Card are premium cards that open up more point earning opportunities and transfers to Citi’s airline and hotel partners at the best transfer rates.
Like other programs, there are some things that the program does well and some things that it could do better.
Strengths of ThankYou Rewards
The ThankYou Rewards program is particularly good when it comes to earning points for your everyday spending and having a good mix of way to earn your rewards:
- When it comes to earning points for spending, Citi ThankYou Rewards is among the best of the best. The Citi Double Cash allows you to earn a total of 2 points per dollar, the Citi Strata card gives you 3x points in useful categories like gas stations and grocery stores, and the Citi Custom Cash can get you 5 points per dollar in a category that you can choose by directing your spending. And that’s before you even consider any cards that carry annual fees.
- With the addition of American Airlines as a transfer partner, Citi offers a good mix of transfer partners that offer both relatively beginner-friendly transfer partners and partners that can get you outsized value for your points. This makes the program a great option if you want to start with cash back rewards and then transition into playing the transferable points game.
Weaknesses of ThankYou Rewards
However, ThankYou Rewards does have some downsides, most notably quirky rules that make the program more complex than it needs to be and the lack of benefits, when compared to competitors:
- Most cards (by themselves) offer less than 1 cent per point for cash back redemptions. The Citi Custom Cash and the Citi Double Cash give you the option to redeem for cash back at 1 cent per point, but all of the cards that feature points offer less, unless you also hold one of the cash back cards and combine your ThankYou Points accounts. This is complexity that adds little value.
- All of Citi’s cards are notably light on consumer insurance and travel insurance benefits. Chase and Amex beat Citi hands-down when it comes to travel protections. And many no-annual-fee cards from mainstream banks carry at least extended warranty, purchase protection, and some form of secondary rental car insurance. Not so with Citi.
- The program is generally more opaque and complex than it needs to be. You can earn points in a single, combined ThankYou Rewards account, but you need to take an extra step to combine your accounts. Cash back rewards aren’t consistent across cards. And rules about which points expire, and when, when you close or convert are annoying and totally unnecessary.
Earning ThankYou® Points
There are only a handful of ways to earn Citi ThankYou® Points. You can earn ThankYou® Points from credit card welcome bonuses or ongoing spending on Citi ThankYou® Rewards credit cards. Occasionally Citi offers bonuses for getting new banking account products. Here’s what you need to know about earning ThankYou® Points.
- Credit card welcome offers. This is one of the fastest ways to earn points, but it is relatively limited due to bonus eligibility rules. See more in our coverage of the current ThankYou Points welcome offers.
- Ongoing spending with credit cards. If you spend a lot on your Citi ThankYou Points-earning credit cards, you can earn a ton of points, especially since most earning opportunities are uncapped.
- Earning points for getting new banking accounts. This is an option that Citi occasionally offers, but Citi’s deposit products aren’t terribly compelling in our view.
- Purchasing points. Citi has offered this option in the past, but doesn’t offer this on an ongoing basis. Unless you’re purchasing a small number of points for a very specific and immediate redemption, this almost never makes sense.
Here’s a bit more on a few of these ways to earn ThankYou points.
Earning ThankYou® Points from credit card welcome bonuses
The fastest way to earn a massive amount of ThankYou® Points is from a new credit card welcome bonus. Check out our dedicate article on ThankYou Points welcome bonuses, or view the current bonuses below.
Citi Double Cash® Card welcome offer
Welcome offer: Earn $200 cash back after you spend $1,500 on purchases in the first 6 months of your Citi Double Cash® card account opening.
This bonus is marketed as cash back, but earned as Citi ThankYou® Points.
Annual fee: $0
Citi Custom Cash® Card welcome offer
Welcome offer: Earn $200 in cash back after you spend $1,500 on purchases in the first 6 months of account opening. This bonus offer will be fulfilled as 20,000 ThankYou® Points, which can be redeemed for $200 cash back.
This bonus is marketed as cash back, but earned as ThankYou® Points.
Annual fee: $0
Citi Strata℠ Card welcome offer
Welcome offer: Earn 20,000 bonus points after spending $1,000 in the first 3 months.
This bonus is awarded as ThankYou Points.
If this is your only ThankYou Points card, you won’t be able to redeem your points for cash back at 1 cent per point. Pair this with a Double Cash or Custom Cash for cash back redemptions or a Strata Premier or Strata Elite for point transfer redemptions.
Annual fee: $0
Earning ThankYou® Points from credit card spending
The way that you’ll likely earn most of your ThankYou Points over the long-term is from spending on Citi credit cards. Fortunately, Citi offers a mix of cards that offer excellent rewards on general purchases, plus bonus rewards in categories. Here’s an overview of which Citi card earns what:
 Citi Double Cash® Card |  Citi Custom Cash® Card |  Citi Strata℠ Card |  Citi Strata Premier℠ Card |  Citi Strata Elite℠ Card |
| Annual fee: $0 | Annual fee: $0 | Annual fee: $0 | Annual fee: $95 | Annual fee: $595 |
| Gas and EV charging | ||||
| – | – | 3x | 3x | – |
| Restaurants | ||||
| – | – | 2x | 3x | 3x 6x on Friday and Saturday night, from 6PM-6AM ET. |
| Supermarkets | ||||
| – | – | 3x | 3x | – |
| CitiTravel.com. Hotels, car rentals, and attractions | ||||
| 5% | 5% | 5x | 10x 3x (Air travel) | 12x 6x (Air travel) |
| Air travel and other hotel purchases | ||||
| – | – | – | 3x | – |
| Select transit. Includes car rentals, ferries, commuter railways, subways, taxis/limousines/car services, passenger railways, bridge and road tolls, parking lots/garages, bus lines, and motor home and recreational vehicle rentals | ||||
| – | – | 3x | – | – |
| Self-select category. Eligible categories include Fitness Clubs, Select Streaming Services, Live Entertainment, Cosmetic Stores/Barber Shops/Hair Salon, or Pet Supply Stores. | ||||
| – | – | 3x | – | – |
| Top eligible spend category each month. Eligible categories include restaurants, gas stations, grocery stores, select travel, select transit, select streaming services, drugstores, home improvement stores, fitness clubs, live entertainment. | ||||
| – | 5% on the first $500 you spend each statement cycle | – | – | – |
| All other purchases | ||||
| 2%: 1% when you purchase, and 1% when you pay | 1x | 1x | 1x | 1.5x |
Note that the Citi Double Cash and Citi Custom Cash are marketed as cash back rewards cards, but they earn ThankYou Points behind the scenes. So if you see “5%” or “2%” above, you can think of that as 5x or 2x points.
Earning ThankYou® Points from bank accounts
In the past, Citi has offered ThankYou® Points for opening bank accounts, but this hasn’t been an option in the recent past. Some people who opened rewards bank accounts that earn ThankYou® Points instead of interest may be able to earn ThankYou® Points this way, but this option isn’t available to new accounts.
Earning rewards points from bank account bonuses usually results in taxable income. Bank account bonuses are treated as interest income, whereas most credit card welcome bonuses are considered a “rebate” and therefore not taxable income. Consult your tax advisor for advice on how to treat bank rewards for tax purposes.
Redeeming ThankYou® Points
Citi ThankYou® Points can be redeemed for a variety of rewards. But not all rewards have equal value. For most people, cash back redemptions are the easiest and transfers to travel partners have the opportunity to add the most value.
Here are the redemption options we like:
- Cash back redemptions. If you have a combined ThankYou Points account that includes either a Citi Double Cash® Card or a Citi Custom Cash® Card, you can redeem points for 1 cent per point.
- Transfer to travel partners. This option can get you outsized value for your points, but there is a learning curve and you need to hold a premium ThankYou Rewards card like the Citi Strata Premier℠ Card or Citi Strata Elite℠ Card for this redemption to make sense.
And here are the options we’d recommend you avoid:
- Gift cards. You can get more than 1 cent per point of value from your Citi ThankYou Points® when you purchase gift cards that are on sale. Purchasing gift cards that are not on sale offers less value than cash back redemptions.
- Travel redemptions through Citi. You’ll only get 1 cent each for your points this way. Since you can redeem your points for cash back at 1 cent each, there isn’t a compelling reason to redeem your rewards for travel redemptions.
- Charitable contribuitions. You’ll get 1 cent per point of value, but there isn’t an opportunity to increase the value you get from your points over a cash back redemption. Making a charitable donation directly likely offers more tax advantages.
- Pay with ThankYou Points/Shop with points. Pay with points redemptions typically offer less than you’ll get with a simple cash back redemption.
Here’s a bit more on each of the redemption options offered with Citi ThankYou® Rewards that are worth considering.
Cash back redemptions
Citi ThankYou® Points can easily be redeemed for cash back. And you have three options for redeeming your points for cash back:
- Statement credit
- Direct deposit
- Check by mail
Cash back redemptions for statement credits and direct deposits can be made with as little as one point. A check by mail requires a minimum $5 redemption.
Most of the time, redeeming for either a statement credit or a direct deposit will be best option for you.
Different cards, different rates
Not every card that earns Citi ThankYou Rewards gives you the same value for your cash back redemptions, but redemptions from combined ThankYou Rewards accounts will receive the most favorable point value offered from among all of the cards you hold.
First, here’s the table showing cash back redemption values:
| Card | Cents per point cash back redemption | |
|---|---|---|
| Citi Custom Cash® Card | 1 |
| Citi Double Cash® Card | 1 |
 | Citi Strata℠ Card | 0.75 |
| Citi Strata Premier℠ Card | 0.75 |
| Citi Strata Elite℠ Card | 0.75 |
| Legacy ThankYou Rewards cards: Citi ThankYou® Preferred Card | 0.5 |
Here’s how redeeming cash back works in practice: As an example, if you held a Citi Strata℠ Card alone, you would receive 0.75 cents of cash back for every point (10,000 points = $75 cash back). But if you also held a Citi Double Cash® Card and combined your ThankYou Rewards accounts, you’d receive 1 cent if cash back for every point (10,000 points = $100 of cash back).
Practically, if you are redeeming points earned on one of the Strata cards for cash back, you’ll want to have at least a Citi Double Cash® Card or a Citi Custom Cash® Card in a combined ThankYou Rewards account to access 1 cent per point cash back redemptions.
Gift cards during sales
While gift cards aren’t usually a good use of Citi ThankYou® Points, Citi does occasionally offer some gift cards on sale.
If you can get more than 1 cent per point out of a gift card redemption, using your ThankYou® Points for gift cards might make sense. But if you’re redeeming your points for 1 cent each toward gift cards, you’re better off simply redeeming for cash.
Remember, most gift cards can be purchased at a discount or at places where you can earn 5x with your Citi Custom Cash.
Citi runs gift card sales throughout the year, but the gift card sales offering the biggest discounts on premium cards like Apple have historically been held annually around Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and the first week in January. We’ve seen discounts on these brands up to 20%.
Transfers to travel partners
Redeeming ThankYou® Points for point transfers to travel partners is by far the best opportunity to increase the value of your ThankYou® Points. You won’t get much more than 1 cent of value out of each of your points when you redeem for cash back or gift cards, but sometimes travel transfer partners offer redemptions for flights or hotels that offer incredible value.
Here are the current regular transfer ratios:
| Transfer rate for premium cards | Transfer rate for most other ThankYou Rewards® cards | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Citi Strata EliteSM Citi Strata Premier® Citi Prestige® AT&T Access More | Citi ThankYou® Preferred Citi StrataSM Card Citi Double Cash® Card Citi Custom Cash® Other AT&T-branded cards | ||
  |    | ||
 | AeroMexico Rewards | 1,000 points = 1,000 points | 1,000 points = 700 points |
 | Air France KLM Flying Blue | 1000 points = 1,000 miles | 1,000 points = 700 miles |
 | American Airlines AAdvantage® | 1000 points = 1,000 miles This transfer partner is unavailable to AT&T-branded cards. | 1000 points = 700 miles This transfer partner is unavailable to AT&T-branded cards. |
 | Avianca LifeMiles | 1,000 points = 1,000 LifeMiles | 1,000 points = 700 LifeMiles |
 | Cathay Pacific Asia Miles™ | 1,000 points = 1,000 Asia Miles | 1,000 points = 700 Asia Miles |
 | Emirates Skywards | 1,000 points = 800 miles | 1,000 points = 560 miles |
 | Etihad Guest | 1,000 points = 1,000 miles | 1,000 points = 700 miles |
 | Eva Air | 1,000 points = 1,000 miles | 1,000 points = 700 miles |
 | JetBlue TrueBlue | 1,000 points = 1,000 points | 1,000 points = 700 points |
 | Qantas Frequent Flyer | 1,000 points = 1,000 points | 1,000 points = 700 points |
 | Qatar Airways Privilege Club | 1,000 points = 1,000 Avios | 1,000 points = 700 Avios |
 | Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer® | 1,000 points = 1,000 miles | 1,000 points = 700 miles |
 | Thai Royal Orchid Plus | 1,000 points = 1,000 miles | 1,000 points = 700 miles |
 | Turkish Airline Miles&Smiles | 1,000 points = 1,000 miles | 1,000 points = 700 miles |
 | Virgin Atlantic Flying Club | 1,000 points = 1,000 points | 1,000 points = 700 points |
 | Accor Life Limitless | 1,000 points = 500 points | 1,000 points = 350 points |
 | Choice Privileges® | 1,000 points = 2,000 points | 1,000 points = 1,400 points |
 | Leaders Club | 1,000 points = 200 points | 1,000 points = 140 points |
 | Preferred Hotels & Resorts | 1,000 points = 4,000 points | 1,000 points = 2,800 points |
 | Wyndham Rewards* | 1,000 points = 1,000 points | 1,000 points = 700 points |
How I’ve used Citi’s transfer partners
Lots of influencers and blogs hype “sweet spot” awards in various programs that make you think that getting a credit card will easily get you into Emirates First Class so you can take down expensive champagne and take a shower on the plane.
Ultimately, very few people end up booking these sweet spot awards because they’re hard to find and, frankly, many of them don’t exist anymore, despite being published in updated guides by major sites.
Personally, I think that showing you how I have personally used these programs to book travel is much more interesting, because it reflects how you might actually use your points. Here’s how I’ve used Citi’s transfer partners to book trips I’ve actually taken (or will take in the coming year).
Air France KLM Flying Blue
Air France/KLM Flying Blue miles are great for the program’s monthly promo awards, which offer discounts on certain routes, the most relevant to me being flights between North America and Europe. Typically Flying Blue will discount economy tickets to Europe from several North American Air France and KLM gateway cities, plus premium economy and business class from one or two cities.
While I’ve typically used Flying Blue miles for international business class tickets, I do think that the real sweet spot is premium economy awards. These awards are widely available, making them a good option if you can’t plan your trip around award availability.
Flying Blue miles have also been useful for domestic coach tickets on Delta when Delta has inexplicably opened up award space to partners, but has stratospheric pricing on a particular route. Admittedly, this is a fairly niche use case, but it comes in handy for me a few times a year.
American Airlines AAdvantage
My use of this program has centered around US-domestic coach award tickets. But this program has so much value with partners that I’m probably underutilizing AAdvantage.
While American has moved, to dynamic pricing for most flights, it still very-much has a traditional award chart behind the scenes. This means that I’ve been able to find low-priced award tickets on undersubscribed routes where prices are typically high. Think flights to Des Moines, IA or Waco, TX.
For me, AAdvantage often comes in handy displacing a lot of cash that I would otherwise spend on tickets that I need to buy anyway.
Avianca LifeMIles
I’ve used Avianca LifeMiles for Star Alliance flights in business class. Because of the way Avianca prices awards, it can be a great program for booking a mixed cabin award, since it will prorate your ticket according to the portion you flew in each cabin. (Think flights to Europe where intra-Europe “business class” amounts to a blocked middle seat.) You can save a ton of miles by just booking your intra-Europe flight in coach.
The best part of Avianca’s program is that the airline doesn’t pass on many of the fees that airlines tag onto their award tickets. This can save you a ton, depending on the airline. But there’s as Mr. Hyde to this Dr. Jekyll…
Everyone has their horror stories about LifeMiles customer service. The program is kind of like Google. If you’re on the happy path, you are fine. But Lord help you if anything unusual happens to your ticket. Flight cancellations, reschedules, or other irregular operations will often land you in airline purgatory, where Avianca and the airline you’re flying on will point fingers at each other. I’ve had this happen to me…and it sucks.
If your flight departs as planned, you make all of your connections, and there are no schedule changes, you’ll be happy you booked with Avianca. If not, you will forever curse the program.
Finally, Avianca’s award search engine is quirky… If you spend time to learn how to use it, it can be a powerful tool, but it has a steep learning curve.
Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer
This is, of course, where I talk about Singapore Airlines First Class Suites. But the truth is that I haven’t ever booked that award… and the reality is that most other bloggers talking about that as a sweet spot haven’t booked it either. They’re just plagerizing something they saw elsewhere online.
What KrisFlyer has been really useful for is medium-haul flights in coach on Singapore’s own metal. This is a decidedly unsexy redemption story, but it has enabled me to piece together flights to Singapore (where I have friends) with business class flights booked through other programs across the Pacific.
Turkish Airlines Miles and Smiles
Turkish Airlines Miles and Smiles offers decent pricing in business class on its own metal. Recently, I used the program to book business class tickets from the United States to Kenya. This redemption was, admittedly, expensive in terms of Turkish Airlines miles. But a transfer bonus made the price palpable and comparable to what I would have paid in cash for a coach ticket, if you consider the value of ThankYou points to be their cash back redemption value of one cent each.
Honestly, I think that Turkish Airlines is a program that I’m not using enough. You can certainly get almost everywhere on Turkish metal. And if Istanbul is a reasonable connection point, it might be worth pricing out an award with Turkish.
Virgin Atlantic Flying Club
I’ve been pleasantly surprised by Virgin Atlantic Flying Club in the last few years. It has been a program that has been useful for both business and coach tickets internationally.
The redemption that everyone always talks about with Virgin Atlantic Flying Club, of course, is using the miles for Delta One across the Atlantic. But I’ve never actually booked that. Here’s what I have booked with Virgin Atlantic Flying Club:
- Later in 2026, I’ll be flying back to the U.S. from Kenya on Kenya Airways for 140,000 points and $612. That’s a bit more than I’d like to pay, but flights to/from Africa are expensive and hard to book, so I consider this a win. And I’m getting to fly the flag carrier of the country I’m visiting for about the same price as a coach ticket, when you consider cash back redemptions as my alternative.
- In 2025, I took my family of 5 to Europe, including a flight within Europe, for about 180,000 Virgin Atlantic Flying Club points, plus about $1,100 in cash. Admittedly, this was a transfer from Ultimate Rewards, since that program had a transfer bonus at the time, but I ended up using about 140,000 bank points… not bad, considering what I got.
- In 2023, I used Virgin Atlantic points to book Auckland, New Zealand to Houston in business class. The receipt in my email looks like I paid 125,000 points + $92 for two tickets. That might win the award for the best redemption I’ve ever done.
Choice and Wyndham
I’ve found both of these programs useful for the occasion stay at one of their value brands. (Think airport hotel or a place in rural Utah on a road trip.) There aren’t any really exciting stores to share here, but I wanted to make a note that I have actually used these programs for relatively boring hotel stays.
Most of my exciting hotel stays are either with Hyatt or (surprisingly) Marriott and IHG.
Combining your ThankYou® Rewards accounts
Citi allows you to combine your ThankYou® Rewards accounts, enabling you to earn and spend from a single pool of points. And you very likely want to do this. Here’s why:
- You can earn ThankYou points in a single account. Having a single pool of points makes them easier to use.
- Your cash back cards in your combined account enable redemptions at 1 cent per point. All of the Strata branded cards will give you less than 1 cent per point for cash back redemptions. Combining your accounts boosts the cash back value of all of your points.
- Your premium ThankYou Rewards cards enable transfers to partners at Citi’s best transfer rates. So you can use the points you earn with the Citi Double Cash or Citi Custom Cash for Citi’s most lucrative redemption option—transfers to airline and hotel partners.
The downside of combining your ThankYou Rewards accounts is that you can’t see which card earned the points if your account. This becomes important if you’re going to cancel a card, as points earned on that card expire 60 days after you cancel. Citi keeps track of which points you’ve earned from which card behind the scenes… and if you have points in your combined account from a card you’ve cancelled, they’ll go *poof* after 60 days.
How to combine your ThankYou accounts
All you need to do is go to Combine My Account when you are logged in online. When you combine your accounts, you will be able to access all of your points for any redemption option offered by your ThankYou® Points-earning cards.
You can also combine your ThankYou Rewards accounts by calling 1-800-THANKYOU.
Point sharing: Sharing ThankYou® Points with a partner or friend
Citi ThankYou® Rewards is one of the most generous programs with it comes to sharing your points with a partner or friend. That’s because you can send up to 100,000 ThankYou® Points annually to any person that has a Citi ThankYou® Rewards account. You may also receive up to 100,000 points annually. The best part? Sending points will cost you nothing.
Sharing points typically only makes sense if you are transferring points to someone who is going to then immediately transfer the points to an airline or hotel transfer partner. Points expire 90 days after they are received, so be sure that the person receiving points has a plan to use them before they vanish.
Points expiration and how to keep your points alive.
Citi ThankYou® Points generally won’t expire as long as the card you earned them with is open and in good standing. However, if you close a card, have a card closed, or transfer points, those points will expire.
Here’s when your ThankYou points might expire:
- Points earned on a credit card expire 60 days after that account is canceled. This applies even if you have a combined ThankYou® Rewards account. Rather than canceling an account, consider downgrading to a no-annual fee card. (This is a great opportunity to get multiple Citi Custom Cash℠ cards.)
- Points that have been transferred to your account expire after 90 days. If you’re going to transfer (or receive) ThankYou® Points, be sure to have a plan to cash out any transferred points before this expiration date.
- Some older credit cards and bank accounts have additional rules. If you have an older ThankYou® Rewards credit card, see your card’s Guide to Benefits for expiration rules.
- If Citi terminates the ThankYou® Rewards program, points can 90 days after the program is terminated. If this happens, use your points as soon as possible.
Frequent Miler points out that Citi does use points for redemptions in the order that they are going to expire. If you have points in your account that are slated to expire any redemption you make should use those points first.
Bottom line on ThankYou Rewards: A great program with travel and cash back flexibility
A few years ago, Citi ThankYou Rewards played second fiddle to Chase Ultimate Rewards and Amex Membership Rewards. But the addition of American Airlines as a transfer partner and the refresh of Citi’s card lineup changed that. Today, it’s a program that offers plenty of opportunities for both cash back and travel redemptions and probably the best opportunities for earning points from spending of the major programs.
