Yikes: Citi ThankYou Rewards devalues Emirates Skywards level transfers

In a shocking announcement despatched to Citi ThankYou Rewards members, the bank card program has introduced a devaluation of one in all its 20 airline and lodge switch companions, Emirates Skywards.

At present, Citi Strata Premier℠ Card (see charges and charges) cardholders can switch their ThankYou Rewards factors to Skywards at a 1:1 fee. Nonetheless, starting on July 27, the switch fee will devalue by 20%, which implies for each 1,000 ThankYou Rewards factors you switch to Emirates, you will get a price of 800 miles.

Whereas devaluations are by no means a constructive, may this transfer spark a bigger development of different bank card applications following go well with?

Associated: Citi switch companions: Maximize your ThankYou factors with these loyalty applications

Citi devalues Emirates Skywards level transfers

As we talked about above, in case you maintain a Citi rewards card, transferring your factors to Emirates will now not yield you a 1:1 switch fee. As a substitute, for each 1,000 ThankYou Rewards factors you switch, you will obtain simply 800 Skywards miles — now a 5:4 switch ratio.

Although Emirates has undergone a string of devaluations up to now few years and has added excessive surcharges to enterprise and first-class award flights, there are nonetheless some candy spots to seek out. Particularly, Emirates flies two fifth-freedom routes to Europe from the U.S.: from New York Metropolis’s John F. Kennedy Worldwide Airport (JFK) to Milan Malpensa Airport (MXP) and Newark Liberty Worldwide Airport (EWR) to Athens Worldwide Airport (ATH) in Greece.

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You’ll be able to ebook an economic system flight from JFK to MXP for simply 17,500 miles plus $54 in taxes and charges or from EWR to ATH for 30,000 miles plus $54 in taxes and charges. These are nice offers for European journey, with low gas surcharges in comparison with different transatlantic award flights.

Due to this fact, with Citi’s newest devaluation of its partnership with Emirates, as a substitute of transferring 18,000 ThankYou factors to ebook an award flight from JFK to MXP, you’d must switch 22,000 factors.

Fortunately, Emirates can also be a switch companion of American Specific Membership Rewards, Bilt Rewards, Capital One miles and Chase Final Rewards; these bank card companion applications all nonetheless switch to Emirates Skywards at a 1:1 fee.

So, in case you needed to ebook three round-trip economic system flights from New York to Italy, you could possibly try this simply with one card’s welcome bonus — saving you hundreds of {dollars}.