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Turn Citi Double Cash cashback into Thank You points
Citi Double Cash rewards its users with 1% cashback at the time of purchase, and then another 1% when the balance is paid. That’s 2% cashback on every single dollar you purchase, but the greatest perk is the ability to convert that cashback into Citi Thank You points when you concurrently hold a Citi Thank You Premier or Citi Thank You Prestige. Let’s walk through how you can convert your Citi Double Cash into Citi Thank You points and take advantage of Citi’s list of transfer partners.
Why would you want to convert cashback into Thank You points?
While I, personally, don’t value Citi Thank You points as much as Amex or Chase, they have a great list of transfer partners and facilitate aspirational travel experiences through those transfer partners. Many of their partners are also Chase/Amex/Cap1/Marriott partners, which is beneficial from the perspective that you can spread your drawdown across various flexible currencies.
Giving the Citi Double Cash the ability to convert cashback into Thank You points is Citi’s way of emulating what Chase permits with its Freedom and Freedom Unlimited cards. Both of those Chase cards are technically cashback cards, but when paired with a Chase premium card, the door opens to conversion into Ultimate Rewards. We often talk about blending a portfolio of Chase cards to optimize earn via a Quadfecta or Trifecta ( read more ).
This is using same underlying strategy, but with Citi: any purchase that doesn’t have a category bonus, put on the card that earns the highest cashback rate, then transfer into the flexible currency, Thank You points.
Citi Thank You transfer partners
Here’s a look at Citi Thank You transfer partners, 17 ( 16 Air + Sears )
Step by Step Guide to converting Citi Double Cash into Thank You points
When you’re logged in, on the home screen, you’ll see the following on the right. Click on View/Redeem Cash Rewards
That will load the following screen. Click “Convert to Points”
Then Cash Rewards to Points
Then you’ll choose how many you want to convert.
The conversion should be instantaneous; however, when I did it this afternoon for this post there was a lag in the conversion. The points are kept in each account, so you’ll see the total amount for each card.
Hope this helps!
Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
The Chase Sapphire Preferred is a great starter card that earns Premium Ultimate Rewards that can be transferred into over a dozen partners many of which are US based.
Welcome Offer
60k Points after $4k spend in 3 months
Annual Fee
$95
Points Earned
Transferrable Chase Ultimate Rewards
If you carry this card alongside Chase’s cashback cards like the Chase Freedom Flex℠and Chase Freedom Unlimited® or the business versions: Ink Business Cash , Ink Business Unlimited you can combine the points into Preferred account and transfer into hotel and airline partners
Annual fee is quite low at $95 a year + you get a 10% anniversary bonus on points + $50 hotel credit in Chase travel.
- 3x on dining
- including eligible delivery services for takeout
- 3x on select streaming services
- 3x on online grocery purchases
- (excluding Target, Walmart and wholesale clubs)
- 5x on all travel purchased through Chase Ultimate Rewards – Chase Travel Portal
- $50 Annual Credit on hotel stays purchased via Ultimate Rewards/Chase Travel
- The begins immediately for new cardmembers and after your account anniversary for existing cardmembers
- 10% Anniversary Bonus
- Every year you keep the card, your total spend will yield a 10% points bonus. If you spend $10k in a year, you’ll get 1k bonus points
- Chase Sapphire Preferred® continues to redeem at 1.25c in the Chase Travel Portal and the slew of other benefits remain in tact including primary rental car insurance, purchase protections, etc.
- Points are transferrable to 13 Ultimate Rewards partners
- Redeem in the Chase Travel center for 1.25 cents per point
- No foreign transaction fees
- Suite of Travel and Purchase Coverage
- Primary rental car coverage is my favorite
We keep an up to date spreadsheet that lists the best ever offers: You can find that spreadsheet here.
Historically 80k is a very, very good offer and hit in both 2022 and 2023. In 2021, we saw the offer hit an all time high of 100k. Who knows if that will ever come back.
Main Cast:
Cards that earn flexible points and should be used on the bulk of your purchases.
Supporting Cast:
Cards that earn fixed points in the currency of the airline/hotel and can not be transferred at attractive rates. These cards yield benefits that make it worth keeping, but not necessarily worth putting a lot of your everyday spend on.
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