Month: October 2016

October 22, 2016

You Can Now Transfer Citigold ThankYou Points…But Only to Sears

I discovered an interesting point (pun intended) while figuring out the best way to redeem my wife’s 51k ThankYou points from her Citigold account as I’m looking to close the account soon. As you may remember, it was a huge mess earlier this year fighting for my wife’s 50k ThankYou points for opening a Citibank Citigold Account that involved several rounds of messages, phone calls and finally a CFPB complaint. While I succeeded in having the points awarded to my wife’s account, I haven’t had a chance to use them for anything yet until I began looking to redeem them for a flight to St. Lucia next year for a wedding.

Historically, only Citi ThankYou points linked to a Citi Premier or Prestige could be transferred to airlines or hotels. However, with the news that JetBlue is now a transfer partner and no annual fee cards like the Preferred could transfer ThankYou points to JetBlue, I wondered if Citigold ThankYou points could be transferred as well. Alas, the answer is no but I did determine that Citigold ThankYou points are transferable into Sears Shop Your Way points.

sears-shop-your-way-transfer

I did a little digging into the terms & conditions and sure enough, only a ThankYou Rewards account is required to transfer points to Sears (the language is different for airline/hotel transfers).

sears-syw-transfer

The transfer ratio is 1 ThankYou point to 12 Sears Shop Your Way (SYW) points but before you get all excited, that is a value of just 1.2 cents in value per ThankYou point and you are stuck shopping for all the “fine” merchandise at Sears. Unless you an extreme Sears shopper, a reseller who understands the SYW program or looking to top off your SYW account if you are close to some free merchandise, I can’t recommend this transfer option. That said, I still think it’s a positive sign Citibank is adding new partners and hopefully they continue to improve the ThankYou points program.

October 19, 2016

How to Absolutely Waste 21,000 SPG Starpoints…

…by burning them for a 30 minute chat.

spgpointsguy

Here are some better uses for 21,000 Starpoints (which is valued at $567 per TPG’s own calculations of 2.7 cents a points). And yes that value is too high. 

  • Transfer 60,000 points to Marriott and book a category 4 Ritz Carlton (or two nights a low level Ritz Carlton)
  • Book several nights at lower level Marriott hotels or one night a higher level Marriott and have points leftover
  • Transfer 20k Starpoints to an airline, get 25k miles and book a roundtrip domestic flight
  • Or book a one way flight to the Caribbean or Hawaii (among other airline redemptions)
  • Book one night at a Category 6 SPG Hotels
  • Book several nights at lower level SPG hotels
  • Literally almost anything else that doesn’t involve a one-time chat with someone about points & miles and effectively paying an hourly rate of $1,134.

If you really want to chat and learn/optimize your miles situation, my consulting services are a much better value.

My thoughts on this redemption…

Dumpster-Fire

October 11, 2016

Here is Yet Another Free 500 Points from Virgin America

Virgin America loves giving away free points and there is yet another offer for 500 free Elevate points if you signup for another email list – this time it is for the “Virgin Produced” Newsletter.

va500miles

It literally took 20 seconds to fill out the form with my name, email and Elevate number. This is a great way to extend the life of your existing miles if you signup by October 26th. If you took advantage of the last two 500 free mile offers, then you would be halfway to a free Hawaiian inter-island flight all for signing up for a few emails.

As always, use a throwaway email if you don’t actually want to read these newsletters.

(H/T to View From the Wing)