How to Use 7,500 Citi ThankYou Points to Get to Hawaii
No, this isn't a sale. Though Citi has been busy the last few weeks gutting its card benefits, it still remains a valuable transfer partner with multiple airlines around the world. Today, Frequent Miler noticed something amazing: Turkish Airlines, one of those partners, has an extremely generous policy for domestic flights:
What does this mean? Turkish, a member of Star Alliance, charges only 15,000 miles for round-trip flights in the same country. Now, it used to be that Turkish considered Hawaii a part of Oceania, but it looks like the airline has realigned its region definitions on the sly, adding Hawaii back to North America:
Using this award chart, you can fly from anywhere within the US to Hawaii for 7,500 ThankYou points, or 12,500 ThankYou points in business, via Turkish's Star Alliance partner United. A quick check on United's website shows that saver awards in economy price out at 22,000 miles each way:
Or, you can pay the cash cost of nearly $1,000:
At these redemption rates, you're getting 12.5 cents per point (CPP) in redemption value with your ThankYou points. As TPG values Citi ThankYou points at 1.7 CPP, you'd be getting an insane value with your transfer, and even more if you fly business class, at 17.2 CPP.
Now, it's important to note here that transfers to Turkish are not instant. TPG tried and found that it takes around one day to get those miles into your account, which is a bummer if you find availability that you absolutely need to have.
Still, this is a phenomenal opportunity on a previously overlooked sweet spot within the US, and welcome news for Citi loyalists after the recent spate of benefit cuts that we've seen.
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