Recently, Nick and I have published a number of posts about the Citi Prestige card’s new 5X earning power and our thoughts about whether or not to keep our Sapphire Reserve cards (which earn 3X in similar categories):
- Prestige rocks my wallet for 2019
- On my mind (Goodbye Sapphire Reserve?)
- Rocking the Prestige more softly than Greg
In response, a number of readers asserted that Citi’s transfer partners are awful (shitty, garbage, useless, etc.) compared to Chase’s partners. If true, this is important because the best value use of Citi or Chase points is to transfer points to a loyalty program for high value awards. If Citi’s transfer partners truly pale compared to Chase’s, then maybe 5X isn’t better than 3X after all.
Let’s put this to the test…
Hotels: Chase wins by default
At the time of this writing, Citi doesn’t have any hotel transfer partners whereas Chase Ultimate Rewards points can be transferred to Hyatt, Marriott / Ritz, or IHG. Of these, only Hyatt consistently offers better than 1 cent per point value towards hotel stays, so that’s the only Chase hotel partner that I find useful. But, it’s fantastically useful. Hyatt has a very reasonable award chart and they do not charge resort fees on award stays. Point transfers to Hyatt are how I’ve personally used most of my Chase Ultimate Rewards points… by far.
Flights
Aside from the occasional big hotel win, transferable points are usually best used to book high cost flights for relatively few miles. And it’s important to understand that you don’t necessarily need miles with the airline you want to fly — you can often book the same flights with a partner’s airline miles and often at better prices. Here’s an example: Suppose you want to fly United first class to Hawaii. Cash prices for first class are usually sky high. For example, round-trip flights from Denver to Honolulu in business/first usually cost $1700 or more. Round-trip awards for the same flights can cost as few as 80,000 miles when booked with United Airlines miles. That gives you a decent value of 2.1 cents per mile. Even better, though, you can book the same United Airlines flights using Singapore Airlines miles and pay only 60,000 miles round-trip. That gives you a value of 2.8 cents per mile. And both Chase and Citi allow you to transfer points to Singapore Airlines. Caution: This was just an illustrative example. In real life it can be extremely difficult to find first class saver level awards to Hawaii except when traveling during their rare off-seasons. Make sure the awards are available before transferring points!
Shared Airline Transfer Partners
Several of transfer partners are available as 1 to 1 transfers from both Chase and Citibank:
Rewards Program | Best Uses |
---|---|
Aer Lingus Avios | Fuel surcharges are sometimes lower when booking with Aer Lingus (Avios.com) rather than British Airways, Qatar, or Iberia. It's possible to move points (Avios) between Iberia, British Airways, Aer Lingus, and Qatar. See also: Avios Sweet Spots for Award Tickets. |
Air France KLM Flying Blue | Monthly Air France Promo Awards often represent very good value. Air France miles can be used to book Sky Team awards, including Delta awards. Air France often offers very good business class award pricing between the US and Europe & Israel. |
British Airways Avios | While flights on British Airways itself often incur outrageously high fuel surcharges, many BA partners charge low or no fuel surcharges. Excellent value can be had in redeeming BA points for short distance flights. It's possible to move points (Avios) between Iberia, British Airways, Aer Lingus, and Qatar. See also: Avios Sweet Spots for Award Tickets. |
Emirates Skywards | The best use of Emirates miles has been to fly Emirates itself. Unfortunately fuel surcharges can be steep. See: Emirates Sweet Spot Awards - First class from 30K miles round trip. |
Iberia Avios | On their own flights, Iberia offers low award prices and a very reasonable 25 Euro cancellation fee. Partner awards can offer good value under some circumstances as well, but these are usually nonrefundable. Fuel surcharges are sometimes lower when booking with Iberia rather than British Airways, Aer Lingus, or Qatar. It's possible to move points (Avios) between Iberia, British Airways, Aer Lingus, and Qatar. See also: Avios Sweet Spots for Award Tickets. |
JetBlue | JetBlue points offer the most value when cheap ticket prices are available and when award taxes are high relative to the overall cost of the ticket (more details can be found here). The JetBlue Plus Card and the JetBlue Business Card offer a 10% rebate on awards, so you can get more value by holding one of these cards. |
Qatar Privilege Club Avios | Qatar has reasonable award prices for flying Qatar itself. Points are now transferable 1 to 1 to British Airways (and from there to Aer Lingus or Iberia). It is now also possible to book JetBlue flights with Qatar Avios. |
Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer | Use to book Singapore Airlines First Class awards (generally reserved for their own members), Alaska Airlines economy awards, or for Star Alliance awards (including United Airlines). |
Virgin Atlantic Flying Club | Virgin Atlantic offers a few great sweet spot awards including US to Europe on Delta One business class for 50K points one-way. See: Best uses for Virgin Atlantic points (Sweet Spot Spotlight). |
Each of the above transfer partners are extremely useful under the right circumstances. For example, I’ve recently found that Air France often prices Delta flights cheaper than Delta does.
Unique Airline Transfer Partners from Chase
In addition to the transfer partners listed above, Chase offers 1 to 1 transfers to the following airline loyalty programs:
Rewards Program | Best Uses |
---|---|
Air Canada Aeroplan | Redeem for Star Alliance flights and/or flights with Air Canada partners (such as Etihad). No fuel surcharges; $39 CAD award booking fee; 5,000 points to add stopover on one-way award. See: Air Canada Aeroplan: Everything you need to know. |
Southwest Rapid Rewards | Award flights are fully refundable. Point values vary due to certain taxes not being charged on awards, but tend to average around 1.5 cents per point. |
United MileagePlus | United offers free award changes and free cancelations. Like Avianca and Aeroplan, United never charges fuel surcharges for awards. Unfortunately, United charges many more miles for international first class awards. Good uses of miles include United's Excursionist Perk awards and (sometimes) dynamically priced United economy awards. |
Unique Airline Transfer Partners from Citi
In addition to the transfer partners listed above, Citibank offers 1 to 1 transfers to the following airline loyalty programs…
Unique Recommended Transfer Partners from Citi
Rewards Program | Best Uses |
---|---|
Avianca LifeMiles | Avianca LifeMiles can be great for Star Alliance awards. They offer reasonable award prices and no fuel surcharges on awards. They also offer shorthaul awards within the US (for flying United, for example) for as few as 7,500 miles one-way. Best of all, their mixed-cabin pricing can lead to fantastic first-class award prices. See this post for details. |
Unique Worth a Look Transfer Partners from Citi
Unique Not-Recommended Transfer Partners from Citi
Rewards Program | Best Uses |
---|---|
Jet Airways Inter Miles | JetAirways JetPrivilege miles are useful only for a few very specific cases such as certain flights to Hawaii for as low as 15K (30K business) one-way, or to the Caribbean or Central America for as low as 10K (20K business) one-way. Details can be found here. |
Malaysia Enrich | Given Malaysia's award chart devaluation in June 2017, I'm not aware of any good uses for these miles. |
Transfer Bonuses
To my knowledge, Chase has never offered a bonus for transferring points to airline miles. Citi does so regularly. You can always view current and expired bonuses here: Current Point Transfer Bonuses. But, to save you the trouble, here are the bonuses Citi has offered in the past few years:
Important notes about past Citi transfer bonuses:
- JetBlue used to transfer at less than 1 to 1 from Citi, so the bonuses at the time merely brought the ratio up to 1 to 1
- Hilton used to be a transfer partner, but that relationship ended in late 2017
Analysis
Chase is obviously better for transfers to hotel programs since Chase offers them and Citi doesn’t. In particular, Chase offers transfers to Hyatt which can be fantastically valuable under certain circumstances.
With airline transfer partners, though, there’s no clear winner.
- If you want to fly Delta, both Chase and Citi offer point transfers to Air France and Virgin Atlantic. Both great options for booking Delta awards.
- If you want to fly American Airlines or other OneWorld partners, Chase has the edge with support for transfers to Avios (British Airways, Aer Lingus, and Iberia). British Airways and Iberia, in particular, have great sweet spot awards. On the other hand, if you want to fly long distance on American Airlines business class, you’re much better off with Etihad miles and Etihad is unique to Citibank.
- If you want to fly United Airlines or other Star Alliance partners, I’d say that the two programs are roughly equal. Both support transfers to Star Alliance member Singapore Airlines. And both offer point transfers to Star Alliance programs that never pass along fuel surcharges on awards: Chase Ultimate Rewards points transfer to United MileagePlus; and Citi ThankYou Rewards transfer to Avianca LifeMiles. However, each of these has its own advantages:
- Advantages to United MileagePlus (a Chase Ultimate Rewards transfer partner):
- Book excursionist awards (see this post for details)
- Very good online booking tool
- Can book awards for flights with no saver award availability (but at higher prices)
- When combined with a United MileagePlus credit card, you get access to additional economy saver awards
- When combined with a United MileagePlus credit card, you get last seat availability of domestic economy awards at the standard price (i.e. much higher price than saver awards). This can be a lifesaver when you need a flight at the last minute. See this post for a real life example.
- No online booking fee (Avianca meanwhile charges $25 per ticket)
- Advantages to Avianca LifeMiles (a Citi ThankYou Rewards transfer partner):
- Mixed-cabin pricing can lead to fantastic first-class award prices. See this post for details.
- Ability to book United Airlines domestic flights for as little as 7,500 miles one way (or 15,000 miles one way in first class). See this post for details.
- Unlike United, Avianca doesn’t charge close-in booking fees (United charges $75 to non-elites for booking awards within 21 days)
- Advantages to United MileagePlus (a Chase Ultimate Rewards transfer partner):
- If you want to fly Southwest, Chase is the obvious winner since they support transfers to Southwest and Citi does not. Southwest doesn’t have any partners with which you can book their flights.
Due to Chase exclusively offering point transfers to Southwest, they edge out Citi in this category, but only slightly. However…
Considering that Citi often offers transfer bonuses, I’m calling it a draw.
Bottom Line: Citi’s transfer partners aren’t shitty at all
After comparing Chase and Citi’s airline transfer partners, I concluded that they have approximately equal value. Chase does have a couple of excellent partners that Citi doesn’t have, but the reverse is true as well. And, considering Citi’s frequent transfer bonuses, I’d argue that Citi’s airline partnerships are comparable or even better than Chase’s (depending upon your needs).
Hotel partners are a whole different story. Chase has them. Citi doesn’t. Chase has Hyatt… drop mic