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The Best Citi ThankYou Premier Signup Bonus
The best points-earning Citibank card is back with its biggest signup bonus, which we haven’t seen much of in a long while.
The Citi ThankYou® Premier Card has a $0 annual fee the first year, $95 thereafter. It’s a stronger points-earning card than the $450 annual fee Citi Prestige Card since it doesn’t just earn triple points on air and hotel (Prestige) but on all travel.
- 3X Points on Travel, Including Gas Stations
- 2X Points on Dining Out & Entertainment
- 1X points on All Other Purchases
And it’s now offering a 50,000 point signup bonus after $4000 in purchases on the card within your first 3 months of account opening. What we’ve seen most of the time has been either a 30,000 point bonus or no signup bonus at all. Last time this offer was available I believe it was only out there for about a month.
Those points transfer one-to-one to a variety of frequent flyer programs or can be spent directly at 1.25 cents apiece towards airfare on any airline or redeemed for 1 cent apiece for gift cards.
Citibank Points Transfer Partners
This card’s Citibank ThankYou points transfer to:
- Star Alliance: Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer, EVA Air Infinity MileageLands, Thai Airways Royal Orchid Plus, Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles, Avianca LifeMiles
- SkyTeam: Air France-KLM, Garuda Indonesia GarudaMiles
- oneworld: Cathay Pacific Asia Miles, Malaysia Airlines Enrich, Qatar Airways Privilege Club, Qantas Frequent Flyer
- Non-alliance: Etihad Airways Guest, Virgin Atlantic Flying Club, jetBlue, Jet Airways JetPrivilege
Etihad A380 First Apartment
My favorite choices here are:
- Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer for better premium cabin award space than is offered to partners, upgrades from premium economy to business, and United domestic premium awards)
- Etihad Guest for Etihad premium cabin awards, American Airlines awards at cheap prices
- Air France KLM Flying Blue for better availability on Air France than is offered to partners and Air France arguably has the best transatlantic business class now
- Cathay Pacific AsiaMiles for distance-based premium cabin awards on Cathay
- Virgin Atlantic Flying Club for ANA first and business class roundtrips to and from Japan
Of course Virgin, Singapore, and Air France are duplicated by both Chase and American Express, and Cathay Pacific and Etihad are duplicated by American Express.
Singapore Airlines A380 Suites
Some Things to Consider With Citi Cards When Choosing to Apply
Citibank doesn’t have a hard limit on the number of their cards you can have though of course how much credit they’ll make available for each person will vary.
After you apply for one card they’ll consider another application from you 8 days later, but you can’t apply for more than 2 cards in 65 days.
Generally Citi will give you the bonus on a new card account if you haven’t opened or closed a card in that product’s family in the past 24 months. If you’ve opened a Citi Prestige card in the past 24 months you won’t be eligible for this bonus. If you get this bonus now you won’t be eligible for a Citi Prestige bonus.
Of course this is the card with a $0 annual fee, an increased bonus, and a far lower spend requirement and better ongoing earn.
“Generally Citi will give you the bonus on a new card account if you haven’t opened or closed a card in that product’s family in the past 24 months. If you’ve opened a Citi Prestige card in the past 24 months you won’t be eligible for this bonus. If you get this bonus now you won’t be eligible for a Citi Prestige bonus.”
This didn’t use to be the case. Of course, they won’t tell you this unless you apply for the card, hit the minimum spend and wait 8 weeks. #experience
It’s like they’re incentivizing closing accounts now. That’s… special.
@Andrew, they do tell you – in the Terms and Conditions of the every offer.
This is a game for the detail-oriented.
Does the open/close rule apply for a product change. i.e. product change to a Citi Preferred no-annual from another Citi card but did not earn the bonus?
@Andrew obviously it’s frustrating to apply for a card and then not get the bonus that you expected. However, citi has imho the most sensible policy versus, for example, the amex once-in-a-lifetime policy. 24 months is enough to discourage churners while still providing the opportunity for customer re-acquisition.
Do you know if Citi has any special bonuses for their Double Cash Card?
I got my Prestige card 25 months ago. It is still open, am I able to apply to the premier card and get the bonus in that case?