March 25th, 2012
Confirmed: Citi ThankYou Points To Be Transferable To British Airways And Singapore Airlines Starting In April!
Update: 3 separate representatives have confirmed to me that point transferring from ThankYou to British Airways And Singapore Airlines will indeed start in April! The exact date is unknown at this point.
You will now be able to transfer points to OneWorld carrier BA from American Express Membership Rewards, Chase Ultimate Rewards, and Starwood Starpoints, as well as ThankYou points. You can transfer points to Star Alliance carrier Singapore from American Express Membership Rewards, Starwood Starpoints, as well as ThankYou points.
Related posts:
-Get A 50% Bonus When You Transfer American Express Membership Rewards Points Into British Airways Avios!
-Flying With An Infant With Miles In Business Or First Class? Start Collecting Air Canada Or British Airways Miles…
-Short-Haul Flights: BA Avios Versus LAN Lanpass.
-BA Miles Are Now Avios…For Better Or For Worse.
According to this DDF thread, starting in April you will be able to transfer Citi ThankYou points over to British Airways at a 1:1 ratio.
I haven’t been able to personally confirm this yet as their offices are closed right now, but if true it’s a nice value being added to ThankYou points.
I’m not fond of points that have a set value, typically a penny each, like ones from Citi, Discover, Capital One, and many other banks.
I prefer true airlines miles and hotel points, (or currencies like American Express Membership Rewards, Chase Ultimate Rewards, and Starwood Starpoints that allow points to be transferred to dozens of other mileage programs) where the value of each point can be 2 cents, 5 cents, 10 cents, heck even 50 cents each if you redeem for an awesome award, like an around-the-world. With real miles the price of the paid ticket has nothing to do with the points required. I’ve redeemed miles for first class flights that would have cost $20,000 (or 2 million Capital One points as those are pegged to the cost of a ticket) but cost less than 150,000 airline miles.
While British Airways isn’t great for long-haul connecting flights it’s an excellent program if you’re traveling with infants or flying on shorter flights. There are no fuel surcharges for flights wholly within the western hemisphere.
With British Airways I can fly round-trip from Cleveland to New York with no advance notice for 9,000 miles plus $5 tax. A paid ticket for a same-day turn like that would cost over $1,100. Or a similar ticket between NYC and Montreal like that would cost over $1,500. So you could fly on that flight for 150,000 Capital One points or 9,000 British Airways miles.
Currently Citi ThankYou points can only be used as points pegged to the cost of a ticket. As I’m sitting on a hoard of them I sure hope this rumor turns out to be true as I’ll transfer them all over to British Airways!
1
March 26th, 2012 at 1:05 am
BA/Avios has now become worse than Delta Pesos. For international- the taxes make it not worth it and now for domestic on AA there is almost no availibilty. Think carefully before wasting amex points on such a pointless transfer!!!
2
March 26th, 2012 at 1:37 am
THANK YOU
Do i get some thank you points?
3
March 26th, 2012 at 8:19 am
Or flying from JFK to London city airport on the all business flight that costs min $6000 for 80,000 avois points +800 tax
4
March 26th, 2012 at 8:38 am
I advise against taking the bank account promo to earn points. They will send you a 1099 for the points. (This has been confirmed)
The credit card promo, on the other hand, is good. (There is a 50k link out there). No 1099 for credit cards.
5
March 26th, 2012 at 8:40 am
Dan, can you still convert your BA miles to American Airline?? thanks for all your information!!!!!
6
March 26th, 2012 at 8:45 am
That would be great for my 130k thankYou points please let us know
7
March 26th, 2012 at 9:46 am
To me the premier thank you card is a great card, I first purchase a few tickets on the card to accumelate flight points (BTW when you pay $50 tax on a mileage ticket to Hong Kong you still get the flight points as if you purchased the full ticket on the card), so then I earn 2 points for every dollar I spend (1 base point + 1 flight point) and their points are worth more than a penny as they give you a 25% discount (e.g. a business class ticket of $3000 would cost me about 230,000 points but I only spent $115k to earn them, and its a cash ticket so its available any time + I earn miles on that trip).
8
March 26th, 2012 at 10:32 am
@FanofDan:
That’s simply untrue.
In fact AA has the best domestic availability of any airline.
And I’m flying to Argentina in First Class with my infant using BA miles for almost no taxes at all, saving almost $1,000 compared to what AA wanted for the same trip.
Plus domestic tickets are ridiculously cheap. So much so that it can even make sense to book business class just for the 3 free bags as the bags in coach would cost more than the miles it takes to fly in business!
@Brit:
Yup, that’s not bad if you want that flight from London City Center, but otherwise I’d probably redeem 100K miles on United without fuel surcharges.
@savta:
No, but BA will be happy to book you on AA.
@shu:
You’ll be able to transfer them in April!
@Isaac:
Or 60,000 Starpoints transfers into 112,500 USAirways miles right now and they only charge 90,000 miles for that business class flight (or 110,000 to fly in business all the way to Australia with free stopovers in Europe or Asia)
Plus with Citi you need to spend money to unlock flight points as far as I know. In other words you need to have spent $20,000 to unlock 20,000 flight points.
9
March 26th, 2012 at 10:32 am
that’s great for me ba points are worth 2 cents each. Jfk-yvr is $600. BA miles on Cathay 25k + $100 taxes. total mile value 2 cents each.
10
March 26th, 2012 at 10:36 am
@tt:
Or fly in business or first on Cathay Pacific to Vancouver and you’ll be in for a real treat! You’ll want to stay on the plane continuing to Hong Kong!
11
March 26th, 2012 at 10:46 am
How can I earn points by having a cit checking account?
12
March 26th, 2012 at 11:09 am
How much does BA charge for bagage from jfk-yyz?
13
March 26th, 2012 at 11:17 am
@Oompaloompa:
https://online.citibank.com/US/JRS/pands/detail.do?ID=CBNATYRNRewards
@hudi:
BA doesn’t fly that route, but partner AA does.
They charge $25 for one bag, $35 for a 2nd bag, and $150 for a 3rd bag, each way.
Business passengers get 3 free bags.
14
March 26th, 2012 at 11:19 am
@Dan:
It doesnt look like you understood the benefits of thank you I was trying to bring out (maybe you should study it to help us with more technics), US airways is a great offer indeed but its a mileage ticket, thank you tickets are cash tickets, mileage tickets you often have to book well in advance and sometimes even in advance they dont open seats (like weekends), + you earn points on these tickets.
and I dont quite understand what you wrote about unlocking the points, if you purchase a ticket with your thank you card e.g. from NY – TLV (or even only the taxes of a mileage ticket from NY – TLV) you get about 12,000 flight points, now, every time you spend a dollar you earn 1 base point per dollar + they pull another point from your flight points savings for a total of 2 points per dollar (no need to unlock them, it works automatic) now once you spend 12,000 dolars all you have to do is to purchase another ticket and get another few thousand flight points.
+ sometimes they have bonus offers like another 20% bonus, plus I once called to cancel and they offered me additional 5 bonus points per dollar (total of 7 points) for a few months.
again, mileage tickets have a lot of benefits too, but its deffinately worth having both.
15
March 26th, 2012 at 11:31 am
@Isaac:
I’ve never had a problem booking a mileage ticket, sure you may need to be a little flexible, but if you know how to properly search for availability on partners it’s not that difficult.
You said you get a free ticket in business class to Hong Kong after spending $115,000 and after flying 115,000 miles in a plane for a total of 230,000 miles.
I’m saying spending just $60,000 on a SPG card (or opening a couple of them and spending $10,000) will have earned a free business ticket to Hong Kong and you’d still have enough change for another free flight.
That’s besides that $3,000 is unusually cheap for a business ticket from NYC to Hong Kong, I can’t find anything like that after a few searches. Normally that ticket is about $7,500, which would cost you 562,000 points (or cost Capital One folks 750,000 miles), way more than 60,000 Starpoints.
Sure, the Citi cards are fine for opening for the bonus, but I don’t see the point of spending money on them after earning a bonus.
To each their own though, if it works for you then great! But it’s not my game.
16
March 26th, 2012 at 12:09 pm
Dose Singapore Airlines charge fuel fee?
17
March 26th, 2012 at 12:12 pm
IMHO the best value of BA points are between YUL-NYC (JFK or LGA). You can find availability very easily and they give you two free checked bags!! The taxes are about $58 per ticket + 9000 points.
To share a recent experience: I made a flight for someone in the morning for a 12:30 flight that same day. They could not make that flight so I called to cancel and got them to refund the taxes and points. Two hours later I made a new ticket on the next flight!! I don’t know of another airline that will do that.
Beware: It supposedly states on their terms that if you make a mileage ticket for someone else, you need to pay the taxes with the account holder’s CC. It seems there has been a new business that sprouted from BA’s move to Avios but you need to be careful. I know that there are some account holders which have their accounts flagged in the system and if you purchase a ticket from them and they make you a mileage ticket, you may not be allowed on the plane. This happened to someone last week and they were not allowed on the plane. Period.
18
March 26th, 2012 at 12:35 pm
@dan yes i can go to yvr in biz. class which i did last year for 35k amex. with bonus.
19
March 26th, 2012 at 2:59 pm
Is it true that you can only borrow MR points if you had a MR acc. for 6 months?
20
March 26th, 2012 at 3:01 pm
[...] Citibank ThankYou Points To Be Transferable To British Airways And Singapore Airlines document.write(''); Per Dan's Deals…… Citibank ThankYou Points To Be Transferable To British Airways And Singapore Airlines Starting In April! Here is a link to his blog discussion of the transfer. http://www.dansdeals.com/archives/20699 [...]
21
March 26th, 2012 at 3:02 pm
@Dan:
I see its not your game.
I’ve tried many times to book on weekends and I’ve tracked them way in advance up to the flight and they were never opened especialy on continental / united, (actulay I just came back BA from London to NY last march 16 but I booked it a few hours before the flight, the flight was completely open all the time but no mileage seats up to then).
My example was to TLV not to HKG where tickets are around $3000, but how do you get to HKG with 60k spg, thats only 75k AA they require 110k?? if you are adding the one time bonuses you can add my 50k TY bonus too one 50k for opening the card and another 50k for opening a checking account.
and again, you dont have to fly to earn flying points, you just have to charge anyones ticket on your card (he earns his points from airline) and you earn the total amount of his flown miles in your flying points account, and I also pointed out that even if you just charge taxes of a mileage ticket on your card (e.g. $50), citibank will credit you all the flown miles of the trip as if you charged a regular ticket to the card.
so what I do is, I charge a few tickets on my card, and then I earn 2 points on every dollar which is worth at least 2.5 cent for every dollar I spend, and now you say I can transfer to BA too!
22
March 26th, 2012 at 3:10 pm
@Isaac:
You had mentioned Hong Kong in comment 7.
Currently 60K SPG transfers into 112,500 USAirways miles. I still don’t see hot a ThankYou card can compete with that. I do admit that TLV can be a difficult mileage ticket, though I helped a few people go to TLV for Pesach in coach nonstop with miles and in business via Zurich on Swiss’s excellent A333 product, so it’s definitely doable.
23
March 26th, 2012 at 3:25 pm
can someone explain option of using BA for cathay pacific? if you have a 50k link please post? a friend got a 100k offer about a year ago. Is it still available?
24
March 26th, 2012 at 3:28 pm
@thingywingy:
You can use BA miles for travel on any OneWorld carrier, including AA and Cathay Pacific.
There is no current 100K link, though I have heard rumors that it will return, so I’d wait for that to come around before applying for a BA card.
25
March 26th, 2012 at 5:06 pm
BUT if you want to use Avios for CX keep in mind that BA’s chart is distance based. So if you want to go North America to Asia it will cost you a boatload of Avios. You can use them intra-Asia very cheaply though on CX flights.
So, are TYP’s only good for those two airlines? Do they have hotel partners too like Chase UR or Amex MR?
26
March 26th, 2012 at 5:17 pm
@RakSiam:
Actually if you just want to go from JFK, LAX, ORD, SFO, YVR, or YYZ to HKG then using BA Avios to fly on Cathay Pacific isn’t bad, in fact it’s very good if you’re also flying with an infant.
For now TYP will just be good for BA and SQ. Hopefully they’ll add hotel partners and more airlines in the future.
27
March 26th, 2012 at 5:17 pm
@Dan:
How do you help, with your elite status?
I’m looking to fly NY – LWO prefer through Munich on Sep 12 one way in business, united is only showing their flight and only for double miles, but there are another 2 flights with lufthansa but not coming up.
28
March 26th, 2012 at 5:30 pm
Dan are you refering to the BA card or the Citi TYP card.? The friend got 100k TYP.
29
March 26th, 2012 at 5:32 pm
@TYP If you have a 50k link please post it.
30
March 26th, 2012 at 5:41 pm
the BA Avios V LAN link at top of post does not work
31
March 27th, 2012 at 12:13 am
Dan, two questions:
1) in your opinion do you think this will lead to eventual transfers to AA too?
2) Do you think BA will soon start charging fuel surcharges in the western hemisphere too??
32
March 27th, 2012 at 12:21 am
@thingywingy:
I never heard of a public 100K TYP offer.
@thingywingy:
Works for me.
@question:
1. No, as that would kill their AA card.
2. I don’t see how anyone could possibly answer that question unless they are in Avios upper-management or are a prophet.
33
March 27th, 2012 at 10:36 am
@Dan:
I do think they will start with AA just like chase transfers to United, to me it looks like they are all fighting to be the best credit card out (of course as long as they fight we’ll all benefit), it looks like chase wanted to match up with membership rewards and now citi wants to match up with chase (as you see they also took one star alliance and one one world partner), on the other hand they may not team up with AA as you mentioned, we’ll wait & see.
34
March 27th, 2012 at 1:29 pm
@Dan:
1) Why would this “Kill’ the AA card?? do amex transfers to DELTA “kill” they’re delta card?? I don’t think so, because if that was the case they would never have allowed MR–>delta transfers.
2)Obviously we’re not asking for a straight/perfect/correct answer, but just wondering what your thoughts were since your much more knowledgeable/experienced than most
35
March 27th, 2012 at 1:38 pm
The Delta AMEX and the United Visa offer other benefits besides for the miles like free bags, priority boarding, bonus miles for purchases from Delta/United, threshold bonuses, and other things that make them compelling.
The AA card has none of that. If the Citi TY cards offered AA miles there would almost be no point of having an AA card.
That’s my take as to why they’re not launching with AA and why I don’t see them adding AA in the near-term.
36
March 28th, 2012 at 8:37 pm
Well if Citi is serious about being competitive which I think is what they are trying to do hear, there is a possibility they might add perks like free bags, priority boarding and etc to their existing AAdvantage cards and then also add AA as a transfers partner to the Thank You program. It would at the very least level the playing field and Thank You card preferred would be neck to neck with Chase Sapphire Preferred or Amex Premier Rewards Gold. As is, if it’s only Singapore and British as transfer partners, Citi would not have much unique selling point to gain business back from Amex and Chase since BA and SIA miles are not as vaulable for long haul international flights which AA miles would work wonderfully for flying on Cathay and Japan as AA doesn’t slap huge fuel surcharges like BA and SIA.
AA would be the anchor transfer choice to Thank You card holders the same way United is to Chase. Let the game begin!
37
May 1st, 2012 at 6:20 pm
So…it’s May. Any more rumor / speculation on what the hell Citi is going to do?
38
May 1st, 2012 at 6:21 pm
@ArizonaGuy: For I very much wish to use my ThankYou points and I pray for the eventual inclusion of AA!
39
May 7th, 2012 at 4:49 pm
Another week gone by and nothing on this… hmmmm……..
40
May 14th, 2012 at 9:53 pm
I’m wondering too. Or wondering if there’s something else useful I can use my nearly $25K ThankYou points for (booking travel through the site doesn’t seem to get me a very good value).
41
June 3rd, 2012 at 7:39 pm
Any updates Dan?
42
June 8th, 2012 at 12:14 am
Just got mail offer 50K thank you Citi points, do we know yet whether transferable to BA?
43
August 1st, 2012 at 10:54 am
Hello?
44
September 2nd, 2012 at 12:50 pm
Have over 100k TY points I need to unload. Are they transferable or not?
45
September 2nd, 2012 at 12:54 pm
@Dani:
Not currently, but I’d still hang onto them…
46
September 25th, 2012 at 7:26 pm
i know this is late in the thread, but what is an SPG card/program?
47
January 5th, 2013 at 7:50 pm
works to hilton
48
January 10th, 2013 at 5:20 pm
i tried to transfer Citi points to BA.com, but wouldn’t allow me to do so
49
January 15th, 2013 at 11:54 am
is it transferable @ the end i have 225K points to transfer out