find the best credit card NerdWallet named Money Magazine's Best Credit Card Website of 2010
NerdWallet > Rewards Credit Cards > Citi ThankYou℠ Premier Rewards Card - enough for $500 in Gift Cards

THIS CARD IS NO LONGER BEING OFFERED

Review / Compare / Reward Calculations / Interest Calculations / Rankings / Comments
Citi ThankYou℠ Premier Rewards Card - enough for $500 in Gift Cards
Citibank ThankYou+Premier Credit Card

(3/5 - 96 Votes)
Net Annual Rewards
$413
of Citi ThankYou Points
Reward Rate
1.00%
Annual Fee
$0 the first year, then $125
Signing Promo
50,000 Citi ThankYou Points Bonus after spending $2,500 - in the first 3 months
APR, variable*
Min APR:
13.99%
Max APR:
22.99%
Default:
29.99%
Cash Adv:
25.24%
Intro APR Promotions
Purchase:
None
Transfer:
None
Summary
  • Earn 50,000 bonus ThankYou Points after $2,500 in purchases within 3 months of account opening - enough for $500 in Gift Cards
  • 1 ThankYou® Point for every dollar you spend on purchases
  • Earn points for the miles you fly when you purchase a ticket with your Citi ThankYou Premier Card.
  • No foreign transaction fees on purchases*
  • Annual complimentary domestic companion ticket within the continental USA, when booked through our travel benefits provider, Spirit Incentives
  • No expiration and no limit on the points you can earn

Compare To Our Most Popular Cards For The Category

back to top

Compare To Blue Cash Preferred℠ Card from American Express

Why do we think you should consider this card?

Earn $150 cash back after spending $1,000 in eligible purchases in the first 3 months of Cardmembership

Compare To A Different Card



or compare to

Reward Details & Calculator

back to top

Rewards Type: Citi ThankYou Points

Signing Promotion
($500=50,000 points)/2 yrs
$250
Estimated Annual Rewards
$21,600 * 1.04%
$226
Annual Fee, 2 yr avg
$63
Annual Rewards (Rewards less Fees)
$413

Details

  • Earn 1 point per $1 spent on purchases
  • Get 1 flight point per mile flown on airline tickets purchased using the card
  • 1.2x points at grocery, gas stations, and drugstores
  • Annual domestic companion ticket

Calculate Interest & Finance Charges

back to top
Use the sliders to the left to calculate balance transfer interest and APR interest for this particular card.

Finance Charge, Balance Transfer of $10,000*

Balance Transfer Fee, 3.0%
$300
APR, 24 months
$3,303
Total
$3,603

*Average APR for Balance Transfers of 15.5% includes transfer fees and APR promotions.

Effective Annual Rate, Purchases

Promo EAR, 0 months
0.00%
Ongoing EAR, 24 months
14.92%
Total EAR, 24 months
14.92%

APR Rankings

back to top
Balance Transfer Fee
3%
ranks #905 out of 1639 cards.
Average is 1.67%.
Cash Advance APR
25.24%
ranks #888 out of 1002 cards.
Average is 18.74%.

Rewards Rankings

back to top
Annual Fee
$125
ranks #1759 out of 1773 cards.
Average is $9.
Base Reward Rate
1%
ranks #69 out of 963 cards.
Average is 0.99%.
Effective Reward Rate
1.04%
ranks #183 out of 958 cards.
Average is 1.04%.
Sign-up Bonus
$500
ranks #7 out of 1762 cards.
Average is $33.
Credit Card Review: Citi ThankYou℠ Premier Rewards Card - enough for $500 in Gift Cards


Author:
STEPHEN

Rewards: The ThankYou Premier is Citibank’s premium alternative to the ThankYou Preferred.  Where the Preferred charges no annual fee and only pays 1 point per dollar spent after the first year (but 2 the first year), the Premier charges a $125 annual fee (after the first year) and has a more significant rewards program.  It pays 1.2 ThankYou points for every dollar spent on gas, groceries, and at drug stores, plus 1 point on all other purchases.  And for every mile flown for airfare purchased with your card, you’ll earn an additional 1 Flight Point to add to your ThankYou point balance.  For bonuses, it pays 30,000 bonus points if you spend $1,500 in 3 months (enough for $300 in gift cards), and you earn a companion airfare ticket every year.  As a kicker, the card charges no foreign transaction fees.

APR: This is not a card you want to have if you carry a balance, since the APR is pretty high.  If you’re worried about the rate, you’re better off searching our site for low apr credit cards or low interest balance transfer cards.

Gotchas: In order to redeem FlightPoints, you have to pair them up with ThankYou Points. This means if you fly 100,000 miles one year, your points are worthless unless you spend enough to earn 100,000 ThankYou Points. Even with the 1.2x gas, grocery, and drug store bonuses, this will be tough to accomplish unless you rack up some serious bills.

  • Alice

    I’ve had this card for a long time, from its recent Citi Premier Pass Elite program and now transitioning to the Thank You Premier. With the transition, the rewards points have dropped on the bonus categories, but the flight point matching remains the same. I was surprised not to see this card come up under the top rewards cards when I entered my criteria. Upon closer inspection, I see that you have not factored in the flight points. If one flies enough miles to essentially allow all purchases to get matched by flight points, you would effectively earn 2.4pts/$1 on bonus categories and 2 pts/$1 on all other purchases. This is competitive with the other 2% cash back cards and should be considered in the analysis.

  • martin

    I love your mathematical breakdown of the benefits of each card! sure saves a lot of time for lazy people like me. :)

    i’m on the same boat as Alice, my citi ppe card is being converted to thankyou premier card. is there a way you can consider the flight points and do a separate calculation for the card’s rating? flight point is a unique feature that i haven’t seen in other cards. so it’s hard to compare apple to apple. but for example, if i take one international trip (say 12k miles round trip) and two domestic trips (~7k miles r/t) a year with my wife, that would give me 54,000 flight points on top of purchase points. even if i get capped at 50k flight points (i heard the cap is going away on the new card), that’s still roughly $400+ worth of thankyou points. does my calculation make sense? can you check to see if i missed any catch? i’m trying to decide if this new card is worth keeping. thanks!

    • http://www.nerdwallet.com NerdWallet

      Thanks Martin, I’m glad you like it!

      As for your math on the thank you premier card, I’m not sure I fully understand what you’re getting at. If you fly 12k internationally, plus 7k domestically, that’s 19k Flight Points. Or 38k for you and your wife.

      That’s a decent bonus, but there’s also a catch. You can only redeem Flight Points while redeeming an equivalent number of ThankYou Points. So you also have to earn 38k ThankYou Points during the year for all of those Flight Points to work in your favor, which means spending up to $38,000 on the card.

      Because of this complication, we’re still working out a good (simple!) way to incorporate the bonus into our rankings. If you travel a lot AND spend a lot, it can basically double your rewards. But personally, I like simplicity, and there are plenty of other cards that will still earn you 2% or more in rewards without the Flight Points.

      • Mike

        Does the ThankYou Point signup bonus count towards the redemption minimum with Flight Points? I fly a good amount (~50k/year) but don’t spend much. Is there another card that gives bonus points based on miles traveled without the catch?

        • http://www.nerdwallet.com/ Tim

          Yes Mike, the signup bonus counts too. Just make sure you use the credit card to pay for your airfare, and you’ll collect 1 Flight Point per mile flown to go along with the signup bonus.

          • Citi Watch

            Does it mean that if somebody flies more than 50,000 miles and match it with the sign up monus 50,000, will he/she gets 100,000 points?
            Amazing…

            With 33% travel redemption does it worth 1333 dollars?

            Just for sign up? Too good to be true.

          • Citi Watch RE

            I got this card with 60,000 sign up bonus with no annual fee first year. It was 50,000 sign up bonus and 10,000 extra after I called them. I had to spend 3000 within 3 months not 2500. They have credited 60,000 bonus points already.

            I bought some airline tickets for my family and got about 30,000 flight points. Those were only matched for dollar for dollar amount I spent.
            i.e. I got around 11,000 points for total of 11,000 dollars I spent on the card.
            **60000 Bonus points were not matched with flight points and only purchase points were matched.**

            My Total Points = 50,000 + 10,000 + 11,000 + 11,000
            + (some bonus points of extra 20% for Gas)
            Total Points > 82,000

            I have 19,000 flight points left which remain to be matched wih dollar for dollar spending. i.e. For next 19,000 dollars I spend on this card I would get affectively 2%.

            I am planning to redeem these for airline tickets. I checked their portal and tickets were not over priced. I will get 33% extra.
            i.e. I can buy a ticket worth of 1090$, not bad for just signing up spend 11,000 on the card.

            They have cut down the bonus to 30,000 points but I hope it will come back with 50,000 soon. Good Luck who wants to get the card. I am happy with my decision.

          • citi watch RE

            Forgot to mention for next 19,000 dollars I spend on this card I will earn 2.66% effectively.
            For gas it will be ( 1% + 1% + 0.2% ) x 133% = 2.926 % eefective cash back.

      • Kshanahorn

        I’m considering getting the citi thank you premier or chase sapphire preferred. which is better? You mention above that there are other cards thatw ill earn 2% without the flight points – what are they? Things I like about Citi is 1) no foreign transaction fee 2) when you call customer service you get a live person in the USA and 3) companion ticket every year. What else compares to this, is as good or better?

        • http://www.nerdwallet.com/ Tim

          The Chase Sapphire Preferred meets all of your requirements except for the companion ticket. That’s a rare benefit, and the Citi Premier is the most accessible card that offers that benefit.

          Another good option is the Capital One Venture, which pays 2% on all purchases when you redeem for travel, and carries no foreign transaction fee.

          • kterp

            One last question for you – each time I’ve called Citi, the customer service rep is in the USA. However, when I’ve called regarding the Chase Sapphire Preferred, the customer service rep is in another country and they say there’s no way to transfer you to a US rep. Do you know, once you have the card and call Chase, will your customer service be in the US or overseas?

  • martin

    Ah, Thank you. when you said 2% (basically doubling up the purchase points) it made a lot of sense. :) i’m gonna look into the starwood card.

    my bad about the math, i meant (12+7+7)x2 and it still would be 52k instead of 54k. that’s why i’d trust you more than myself

  • Mark

    Even if you have to have an equivalent amount of purchase points to redeem flight points, I believe the flight points will stay in your account to be redeemable as your purchase points accrue. Effectively this would mean double your rewards.

  • Micmitc

    Can you explain the companion ticket a little more?

    Can I use previously accumulated points to purchase my ticket and get my girlfriend’s ticket on the house?

    Or do I, essentially, need to purchase my ticket (and pay for it in full) to get my girlfriend on board, too + get the points?

    I mean, it could really net you two free tickets a year – one for you and one for someone else. That’s a pretty good deal.

    • http://www.nerdwallet.com/ Tim

      They’re somewhat cagey on the details here, so they don’t disclose exactly how it works until you receive the card. However, they do state that you have to buy the ticket through their affiliated travel network, Spirit Incentives.

      I would imagine that you can’t use ThankYou points to book tickets through Spirit, but you will still receive ThankYou points for your purchase when you use your Premier card, and both travelers will still receive frequent flier miles for the trip:
      http://www.spirit-incentives.com/incentives/airfare/fly-with-me-companion-airfare

  • Sepulvedaj3

    Do you get flight points for other people flying? Like for the free companion ticket? Or if you book for yourself and 3 others for the cumulative miles flown by all 4 people?

  • http://twitter.com/farsighted99 Farsighted

    I signed up for this card mainly for the $500 bonus and the no foreign transaction fee. I’ve got two trips to Europe planned this year, and I’m getting tired of paying all those fees. How does the exchange rate of foreign currencies fare with this card? How can they not charge foreign transaction fees? Also I don’t get what you are saying about the points, you just use the Thank You Points as I recall. Are you saying you need to pay for one whole ticket with points to get the complimentary one? I actually forgot there was one with this card. Hummm. I’m going to San Francisco next week so that should take care of the bonus stuff.

    • http://www.nerdwallet.com/ NerdWallet

      Most credit cards will assess a fee of 3% of every purchase you make abroad, but the ThankYou Premier waives this fee. You’ll still face the standard currency conversion rate, but you aren’t stuck paying a fee on top of that.

      In terms of ThankYou Points, if you use them for airfare booked through Citi’s travel center, your points are worth 33% more. The 50,000 point bonus is then worth $665 of airfare. Of course, you can still use your points for the standard gift cards, etc.

      Have a great time in San Francisco! We’re based just south of there.

  • http://twitter.com/farsighted99 Farsighted

    Okay, are you saying that if I buy a ticket using this card for a flight from Chicago to London RT, and the ticket costs say $1000… you get 1000 points for the ticket sale, then 8000 points for the miles (about 4K per mile). so 9,000 ? Or just the miles? (8,000, which still isn’t shabby). When I validated the card the person I spoke to didn’t seem to know about this bonus. Am I understanding this correctly? I find this a bit hard to believe. :-) Thanks.

© Copyright 2012 NerdWallet, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

*Disclaimer: We try to keep information accurate and up to date, however we cannot make warranties regarding the accuracy of our information. Please verify FDIC Insurance / NCUA Insurance status, credit card information, and interest rates during the application process. Please note that NerdWallet has financial relationships with some of the merchants mentioned here. NerdWallet may be compensated if consumers choose to utilize the links located throughout the content on this site and generate sales for the said merchant.