Nobody likes a devaluation and this one is pretty small – but also noteworthy as it’s pretty rare for a bank program to devalue as opposed to their transfer partners devaluing. That’s just one reason why, generally, we advise sticking to transferable points…. if one frequent flyer program devalues you can use another.
But kudos to Citi for giving three months of notice on the changes.
If you have a Citi Strata Premier℠ card, you can currently transfer your ThankYou points from ThankYou to Emirates at a 1:1 ratio – like all other airlines. Starting July 27, 2025, you’ll only get a 1:0.8 ratio, meaning 1,000 ThankYou = 800 Emirates points.
Using our matrix of transferable points, we see that this will make Citi the only transferable point (besides Wells Fargo) that has less than a 1:1 ratio to Emirates.
It’s a bit surprising in the sense that Capital One once had various transfer ratios and backed off, making nearly everything 1:1 realizing that users need and value simplicity. It’s very possible Emirates is charging ThankYou higher than average cost per point and someone there just decided they couldn’t’t absorb it anymore – or a contract was renegotiated at a higher rate.
Note that I’m not 100% sure if this will be identical for Citi Prestige as I didn’t get an email about it, but my guess is it will be identical.
Meanwhile, they also made some small devaluations on the very limited list of point transfers you can make on the no-annual fee cards like the Citi® Double Cash Card and Citi Rewards+® Card also starting July 27, 2025.
- 1,000 ThankYou Rewards Points = 700 JetBlue TrueBlue Points
- 1,000 ThankYou Rewards Points = 1,400 Choice Privileges® Points
- 1,000 ThankYou Rewards Points = 700 Wyndham Rewards® Points
These ratios are down from 800 TrueBlue, 1,500 Choice, and 800 Wyndham points, respectively, and really aren’t much of a big deal as I would almost never recommend transferring to JetBlue TrueBlue at either ratio (although there could be edge cases with their newer partner awards like on JAL).
I’m curious what you think of these changes?
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Thoughts?
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