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The Citi ThankYou® Premier Card now offers 40,000 bonus ThankYou Points after $3,000 in purchases within the first 3 months of account opening.
Not to be confused with the Citi Prestige® Card, which has the same sign up bonus but totally different benefits.
Quick Facts
- Sign Up Bonus: 40,000 ThankYou Points after $3,000 in spending in the first three months
- Category Bonuses: 3x on travel and gas, 2x on restaurants and entertainment
- Value of ThankYou Points: Worth 1.25 cents toward the purchase of any cash ticket (or up to 1.6 cents if you also have a Citi Prestige) OR can be transferred to 11 airlines and Hilton for higher value
- Global Acceptance: Chip technology and no foreign transaction fees
- Annual Fee: $0 for the first 12 months, $95 per year afterwards
Sign Up Bonus
The Citi ThankYou® Premier Card now offers 40,000 bonus ThankYou Points after $3,000 in purchases within the first 3 months of account opening.
Thank You points have two primary uses.
- Use them like cash to purchase any flight on any airline with no blackouts.
- Transfer them to miles with 11 airlines or to Hilton points. Then they are whatever miles you chose, subject to those rules.
If you use these like cash toward any flight, you will get 1.25 cents each of value, making the sign up bonus worth $500 toward any flights with no blackouts. However if you have a Citi Prestige® Card in addition to your Premier, you can combine the ThankYou Points from both cards and redeem them at the higher value the Prestige offers. In that case, you could redeem these 40,000 bonus points for 1.33 cents toward any flight.
When you redeem ThankYou Points like cash toward any flight, the operating airline sees you as a cash-paying passenger, so you earn miles for your flights.
Instead of redeeming the points like cash, you can transfer your ThankYou Points to one of the 12 airline and hotel partners. The best partner is Singapore Airlines. In the last few months, I’ve transferred ThankYou Points to Singapore miles to fly United First Class to Hawaii, United economy to Madrid, and Avianca Business Class to Buenos Aires. Or you can use Singapore miles to book Singapore Suites.
For full details on redeeming ThankYou Points, see How ThankYou Points Work.
Category Bonuses
The Citi ThankYou® Premier Card offers 3x ThankYou Points on travel and gas and 2x ThankYou Points on dining and entertainment, with no limit on bonus ThankYou Points earned.
Travel includes everything you’d expect like flights, hotels, and car rentals and even more like parking, tolls, campgrounds, and yacht rentals.
Restaurants include sit down places, take out, fast food, and even bars and nightclubs. Entertainment includes movie theaters, sports tickets, museums, and a lot more.
For a full breakdown on exactly what counts and what doesn’t, check out Citi ThankYou Premier Categories Change Today: 3x Gas and Travel; 2x Dining and Entertainment.
No other card offers both 3x on travel and gas. That’s incredible for travelers. Throw in 2x on dining and entertainment, and this card has among the best categories in the world.
Fees
The Citi ThankYou® Premier Card has no foreign transaction fees. It also has chip technology for global acceptance, so it’s a great card for overseas travel.
The card has no annual fee for the first 12 months and only $95 thereafter, which is lower than the annual fee was when I got the card.
Bottom Line
I got the card when it took 15 months to get the full sign up bonus, there were no airline transfer partners for the points, the annual fee was higher, and gas was not a 3x category. That should tell you how good I think the current offer is!
The Citi ThankYou® Premier Card with 40,000 bonus ThankYou Points after $3,000 in purchases within the first 3 months of account opening.
Just getting started in the world of points and miles? The Chase Sapphire Preferred is the best card for you to start with.
With a bonus of 60,000 points after $4,000 spend in the first 3 months, 5x points on travel booked through the Chase Travel Portal and 3x points on restaurants, streaming services, and online groceries (excluding Target, Walmart, and wholesale clubs), this card truly cannot be beat for getting started!
Editorial Disclaimer: The editorial content is not provided or commissioned by the credit card issuers. Opinions expressed here are the author’s alone, not those of the credit card issuers, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the credit card issuers.
The comments section below is not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved, or otherwise endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser’s responsibility to ensure all questions are answered.
Scott,
How is this offer better than the Arrival card. You have to pay second year fee and spend 5k to get that amount. Plus most people would forget about it after one year.
Arrival has a bonus of $444. This has a net bonus of $500 after the second annual fee.
Arrival has a 2.22% return on all spending. This has a 3.75% return in dining and entertainment, 2.5% return on airfare and hotels, and 1.25% return on all else.
Arrival has zero annual fee for the first year, then $89. TY Premier has zero annual fee for the first year, then $125.
Both cards are better for certain people and worse for others. Getting them both lets you get both sign up bonuses and take advantage of whichever card has a better return on the purchase you are about to make.
As to forgetting: enter it into your calendar’s smart phone for November 2014 or be reminded when the annual fee hits. This game certainly requires paying a bit of attention to all the promos. In return for a little attention, the rewards are rich indeed.
I like ur blog but u recommending this card is wrong. Why recommend a card that has very high fees and have to hold for over a year? Thre are much better options.
What cards are better than this for every single person? We’d love to know, so that we can get that card instead. This card has a better sign up bonus than comparable cards even though you have to pay one annual fee to get it all.
In the past I’ve also positively covered the Platinum Card from AMEX, which has up to a $475 annual fee. Sometimes the annual fee is worth paying.
I’d personally use United card for dining, it gets 2x miles and I can juice 3-4 cents of value out of United miles usually.
The Sapphire Preferred? To get those values from United miles, you must be traveling in a premium cabin. As I said in the post, folks who want to use miles/points for premium cabin travel should definitely use other cards including the Sapphire Preferred.
The United biz card gives 2x on dining as well, plus 10k mile bonus for those of us who can manufacture $25k spending.
I can get better value out of coach. A RTW trip with stops in Asia and Europe costs $2000-2500 or 70k miles, or a trip to Australia with free one-way in the US costs $2000+ or 80k miles. I’ve been able to get 3 cents consistently, and even close to 4 in some rare cases, compared to what coach would cost.
In any case, UR points are usable in exactly the same ways as TYP. They have the exact same portal where you get 1.25 cents of value for booking travel, except UR points have much better other uses, so why bother with TYP? I only collect them from heavy manufacturing on my 5x Preferred promo and immediately cash them out.
I agree with everything you’ve said except it’s a false dichotomy. This isn’t either/or. You can get United miles AND TY Points. TY Points would be ideal for the return half of the free oneway you tacked onto the Australia flights among other things.
Yes for the bonuses that’s true. For daily spend I wouldn’t waste it on TYP.
I was just about to sign up for a CitiBusiness AAdvantage World MasterCard (50,000 miles sign up bonus, $95 annual fee waived first year, 5% AAdvantage mileage bonus after annual renewal, first checked bag free on American AL, etc), but this Citi Premier Visa appears to offer greater flexibility in using accumulated miles. Thanx for the post.
Enjoy the points!
Why don’t you do both? You can get a business and personal card.
Any idea how long the offer is around for?
No, but I get the sense that Citi wants to finally compete with some of the other great offers, so this might be the new “normal” offer.
Each point is worth 1.20 cents (not 1.25) when redeeming for travel. [Scott: This is incorrect. The points are worth 1.25 cents toward airfare as stated. Anyone can verify by clicking the card’s link.] You mistake this for the CSP. Also, the annual fee eats up the extra point on dining and entertainment. You’re better off getting the no annual fee Citi TY card. Come on – I expect more from you!
Each point is worth 1.25 cents when redeeming for travel. Click the link and verify for yourself. The one annual fee you have to pay to get all $625 in free travel is amply justified. Beyond that, I am not necessarily advocating paying more annual fees. For all annual fees, I make a cost/benefit analysis that I described in detail here: https://milevalu.wpengine.com/should-i-keep-this-card-whether-to-hold-or-cancel-a-rewards-card-when-an-annual-fee-is-due/
Some people may spend more on dining and entertainment than you do to justify the $125 annual fee. Like all cards, this is right for some and wrong for others.
If you have the Citi TY Preferred and use enough points for flights, the extra .25 more than offsets the fee for the second year. Regardless, I didn’t see Scott putting a gun to anyone’s head. If the card is not right for you, move on to the next post. Any thoughts on how many cards Citi will let one have a time?
@Eddy – wouldn’t the extra 1/4 of a cent require earning 50,000 points to offset the annual fee? Considering that the only difference in earn is 1 pt on dining and entertainment between the Premier and the Preferred (no fee version), I think it will be the rare individual who spends 50,000 a year on dining and entertainment. That said, for those who do, your analysis makes sense.
I also recognize no one is forcing anyone to sign up or a card, but it’s important for readers to analyze things from all sides rather than only one perspective. This card was recently SIGNIFICANTLY devalued. Yes, I hold it, and I’ve churned it, but I also don’t pay an annual fee on it. If I did have to pay $125, I would shred it.
I’m not sure where the notion comes from that I am advocating getting this card and blindly paying its annual fee even if it’s not worth it. I am doing neither.
I presented who the card is best for and worst for. And I always do a cost/benefit before paying any annual fee. (The first annual fee comes out as a definite pay/keep. Beyond that, it depends on circumstances, and you point out very well that you’d need a ton of 3x spending to make this card a keep.)
The extra .25 to which I was referring was the following. Let’s say you want to purchase a $500 ticket using TY points. If you have the Preferred card only, that will cost you 50,000 pionts. If you have the Premier card as well, it will cost you 40,000. The 10,000 you save are woth $125 points in airfare. So it’s about how much you redeem, not how much you earn. If you are going to redeem less than $500 worth of TY points in the next 2 years, then the extra .25 is not worth the $125 fee, but if you are going to redeem more than $500, it is.
this is the third card I ve seen lately that extend over a year to get the whole bonus, I think other banks are in this boat to milk what it can from consumers. the good and bad must be laid out for the viewers to decide.
These two part bonuses are definitely trying to get you used to using a card over a long period of time and to get used to paying an annual fee. I can’t agree that they are trying to milk consumers when they are giving $625 in free travel and only collecting $125 in annual fees. Sounds like we are getting the better deal.
I think this card is inferior to the Barclay’s world arrival card and the US bank Flexperks card due to the fact you have to hold it for over 1 year to get the full bonus, however, what other Citi card are you gonna get with that kind of a bonus? Taking the $125 fee into account that’s basically $500 towards airfare. Now that the AA card is unchurnable, this is pretty much the only other “travel” card that Citi offers (besides the normal TY card with no annual fee).
A side question for Scott (or anyone else), what are the rules on getting the Barclay’s world arrival card again (with the bonus) and the US bank Flexperks card if you already have it? Does it need to be closed for a certain time before you can get it like Chase or does it just have to be a certain time since you last applied for it like Citi?
I agree almost completely with what you’ve said, though don’t forget about Citi’s Hilton cards (especially the Hilton Reserve).
I assume this card is considered to be a separate product from the “thank you preferred” (a no fee card currently offering a 30k signup bonus, but without the ability to redeem at 1.25 unless one also holds the premier), meaning that one can earn the bonus on both.
Any thoughts on how to most profitably sequence the applications of the two?
You want to have the Premier open when redeeming, but other than that, I don’t think the order matters much.
In your $444 vs. $500 net analysis of Barclays Arrival and Citi Forward, it would be easy to put a time value of money (time value of points) calculation on it and easy everyone’s concerns about getting the points at a later date (there is a value to having them now vs. next year) since you get the full $444 after initial spend for Arrival and you get $250 (20,000 x 0.0125) in value initially month #0 (assuming the clock starts ticking when you get the bonus and you’d theoretically get the bonus for the Citi at the same time you got the bonus for the Arrival if you applied for them in parallel) then get hit with a negative $125 (annual fee) in month #9 then get $375 (30,000 x 0.0125) in month #12.
So, at a 10% discount rate (probably as reasonable as anything for a household), you’d get the following:
+$250 (20,000 signup)
-$115 ($125 annual fee discounted to present at 9/12 of 10% per year)
+$337 (30,000 bonus discounted to present at 12/12 of 10% per year)
The Citi card signup is worth ~$472
Not advocating a 10% discount rate for everyone, apply your own if you know it…but I think this methodology holds up.
Good analysis. I agree with it mostly, but I would probably apply the discount rate until the points are used–not just earned–because until then they are worthless.
Yes, agree in absolute value terms, but for the purposes of getting relative values (apples to apples vs. the Arrival miles) and assuming that you’ll redeem either one or the other, the analysis still holds up as long as discount rate is applied equally to the earning of miles for each.
i like how your buries this at the end of your post lol
———–
Earn an additional 30,000 points after another $3,000 in purchases within the first 3 months of your second year of being a cardmember
—————-
That’s at the top of the post too. Thanks for bringing it the attention of anyone who missed it.
Thanks, Anita.
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I closed my Citi ThankYou® Premier Rewards Card in July 2013. Could I still get signup bonus if I apply now? Thanks.
Just received this announcement when I logged into my Premier account:
Great news! In an effort to bring you more value for the things you do every day, we are pleased to announce that we will be updating your Citi ThankYou Premier Card benefits.
Starting April 19, 2015, you will earn 3 ThankYou Points per $1 spent on travel including gas, 2 ThankYou Points per $1 spent on dining out and entertainment, and 1 ThankYou Point per $1 spent on other purchases.
Flipping the 2x and 3x categories is neutral. Adding gas at 3x is huge!
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Not sure about the mechanics of using the points. Can I transfer these to AA to receive miles that will be added to my AA balance, or are these points used exclusively on their own for a flight on, say, AA?
There are two ways to use these points.
1. Book any flight on any airline and get 1.25 cents for each point. This involves no transfers. Example: You find $300 roundtrip on United from LA to Chicago. You can book it with 24,000 ThankYou Points by logging into your account and clicking book flights.
2. Transfer to one of ThankYou Points 11 airline or 1 hotel partner: https://milevalu.wpengine.com/citi-thankyou-points-now-transferable-to-seven-airlines/
You do this by logging in and clicking transfer points. Once you transfer, the points become whatever you miles you selected, and you redeem them in accordance with that program’s rules.
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