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Citi ThankYou point cardholders, rejoice—Qatar Airways is offering a unique 30% transfer bonus for Citi ThankYou points. Notably, since you can move Avios freely between British Airways, Iberia, and Aer Lingus, this is effectively a 30% transfer bonus for Avios when moving Citi points over to Qatar Airways.
In this article, we’ll explore the details & rules behind this transfer bonus, sweet spots, and our takes on the offer.
The Details On The Transfer Bonus
From a technical perspective, this is one of those “reverse” transfer bonuses where the airline is offering the bonus rather than the card issuer. From a general takeaways perspective, this is just a 30% transfer bonus to Avios when transferring Citi ThankYou points to Qatar Airways.
  • All bonus Avios earned will be reflected in your Privilege Club account by 15 June 2024.
  • Once the conversion transaction has taken place, the transaction cannot be reversed.
  • The bonus Avios will be calculated per transaction and not on the cumulative sum of base Avios converted from rewards points during the campaign period.
In summary, when transferring at least 1,000 Citi ThankYou points to Qatar Airways, you’ll receive 1,300 Avios.
How Often Does Citi Or Qatar Airways Offer This Promotion?

Citi has more recently started offering transfer bonuses to Qatar:

  • November 2023: 30%
  • June 2023: 30%

Based on these past transfer bonuses, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect another one to come up in a few months, specifically in late 2024 perhaps.

How To Get Citi ThankYou Points
While we don’t value Citi ThankYou points as highly as American Express Membership Rewards or Chase Ultimate Rewards points, you can still get a lot of value out of Citi points. Specifically, you can access rarer transfer partners like Thai Airways or TAP Air Portugal.
Here are some popular Citi cards that earn transferable ThankYou points that can be used to book award flights:

BRAND

Credit Card

Annual Fee

Welcome Bonus

Application

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Wait, Aren’t I Earning Qatar Airways Points? Why Are You Showing Me British Airways, Iberia, Etc?

It is important to understand that a “Qatar Airways Avios” is the same as any other Avios earned throughout British Airways, Iberia, and Aer Lingus. Since Qatar Airways joined the Avios family, you can freely move Avios around any of the programs with little issue. You may need to take into account the fact that some programs won’t let you directly transfer to another, but you can always send points via British Airways as a middleman before sending to the actual destination.
Avios Sweet Spots

While the Avios doesn’t necessarily have many jaw dropping deals, there are still some incredible ones to be found. Although Roame cannot directly search for Avios results, if you have a good understanding of partner awards, you can search for Oneworld results via American Airlines or Alaska Airlines to see if there might be valuable redemption opportunities there.

Iberia Airlines: Business Class To Spain For 27k Citi Pts

Iberia provides excellent value on award travel for flights between 3,001 and 4,000 miles on off-peak dates, charging only 34,000 Avios for a one-way ticket. Additionally, routes covering 4,001 to 5,500 miles offer great value as well, priced at just 42,500 Avios for a one-way journey.

With this transfer bonus, a ticket costs just 27,000 Citi points one—that's incredible value.

Iberia provides excellent value on award travel for flights between 3,001 and 4,000 miles on off-peak dates, charging only 34,000 Avios for a one-way ticket. Additionally, routes covering 4,001 to 5,500 miles offer great value as well, priced at just 42,500 Avios for a one-way journey.

Mostly Northeast airports qualify for the 3,001–4,000 mile band, while the likes of middle US airports & Miami fall into the 4,001–5,500 band.

US Airports <> Doha Via Qatar Airways Business Class For 54k Citi Pts One Way

While British Airways says they have a specific partner award chart, there are pricing exceptions. In this case, British charges only 70,000 Avios one way to fly on Qatar Airway's business class—an awesome deal.

This deal is available from many US airports, including:

  • Atlanta
  • Boston
  • Chicago
  • Dallas (DFW)
  • Houston
  • Los Angeles
  • Miami
  • New York
  • San Francisco
  • Seattle
  • Washington DC (IAD)

Award taxes are bit steeper than the standard U.S. rate of $5.60, usually around $200–300 one way. However, with the transfer bonus, we're looking at just 54,000 Citi points one way.

Aer Lingus: Economy/Business Class To Dublin For 10k/39k Citi Pts

Aer Lingus has some pretty awesome redemptions when using Avios on its own flight offerings. For instance, during off peak travel times, you can get one-way award tickets in economy for just 13k Avios / business for just 50k Avios. This pricing is eligible for routes flying to/from:

  • Boston
  • Chicago
  • Cleveland
  • Hartford
  • Minneapolis
  • Newark
  • New York
  • Philadelphia
  • Toronto
  • Washington

On peak isn't too bad either, with business costing a total of 60k Avios one-way (10k more Avios). If you take into account the ongoing transfer bonus, the economy flight is just 10k miles while the biz flight is only is just 39k Avios (a really good price).

JetBlue Mint: Business Class To The Caribbean For 20k Citi Pts One Way

Through Qatar's codeshare partnership with JetBlue, you can use Avios to book JetBlue flights. Notably, there are some very interesting rates on the Qatar/JetBlue award chart:

BRAND

Distance (Miles)

Economy Price

Business Price

0–1,151

8,500

17,000

1,152–2,000

13,000

26,000

2,001–3,000

18,500

74,000

3,001+

25,000

78,000

In looking at this chart, you can see that flights up to 2,000 miles flown actually represent strong value propositions for your points.

Is This A Good Deal?
30% is generally the highest transfer we’ve seen for Avios in the last few years, so it can definitely be an excellent deal if you have a specific use case in mind. Being able to fly nonstop on Iberia’s business class for as low as 27,000 Citi ThankYou points is quite ridiculous.
However, given that Avios do expire without eligible activity, I would urge caution when thinking about doing speculative transfers (where you don’t have a specific points use case in mind and just want to take advantage of the transfer bonus while you can). Airline programs can devalue their miles with little to no notice, so it can be a dangerous move to transfer ahead of time.
Conclusion
The 30% transfer bonus when moving Citi ThankYou points to Qatar Airways has potential to be an excellent way to get further use out of your points, especially if you have specific plans to use your points. However, outside of a few routes, Avios isn’t considered too valuable of a program nowadays, and with the expiration period, it can be a bit annoying to transfer your points speculatively without an immediate redemption.
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