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The Citi® Double Money Card is certainly one of our favourite bank cards — particularly for many who desire money again. Usually, this bank card doesn’t provide something by way of a sign-up bonus provide, however as of latest, now you can get $200 money again if you spend $1,500 on purchases within the first six months after opening your account for a restricted time.

However what in the event you desire journey rewards as an alternative? You’re most likely considering that the Citi Double Money Card doesn’t make sense for you. However, suppose once more. Though marketed as a money again bank card, the cardboard truly earns Citi ThankYou Rewards factors, which may, in truth, be redeemed without cost journey towards your subsequent trip.

Whilst you might redeem these Citi ThankYou factors for money again or present playing cards and get 1 cent apiece in worth for them, there are methods to get much more worth out of them by transferring to a few of Citi’s journey companions. With simply the Citi Double Money Card in your journey pockets, you’ll be able to switch your ThankYou factors to 3 companions: JetBlue TrueBlue, Alternative Privileges and Wyndham Rewards. Or, in the event you pair the cardboard with a premium Citi ThankYou Rewards bank card such because the Citi Premier® Card, there are a complete of 16 journey switch companions — and also you’ll get higher switch charges. Whereas this takes somewhat additional effort and time, it’s effectively price it and can enable you guide your subsequent journey at a considerably decrease price.

Unsure the place to begin? Listed below are some choices for spending the 20,000 factors earned from the Citi Double Money Card. We’ve additionally included extra choices in the event you finally go the additional step and pair the cardboard with the Citi Premier Card, which is at the moment providing a limited-time bonus of 80,000 bonus factors after you spend $4,000 on the cardboard throughout the first three months after opening the account.

In terms of utilizing frequent flyer factors, JetBlue TrueBlue is without doubt one of the best applications to make use of, as there are by no means any blackout dates or points with award availability. If there’s a seat accessible on the market on a JetBlue flight, you’ll be able to all the time use JetBlue factors to guide it. You may even use your factors to fly in a JetBlue Mint seat and expertise a terrific home first-class expertise.

The reason being that JetBlue doesn’t have a basic award chart. As an alternative, the variety of factors you’ll want to redeem for a seat is roughly tied to the ticket value — when the money value goes up or down, the factors value follows.

With the Citi Double Money Card, factors switch at a price such that 1,000 ThankYou factors equal 800 TrueBlue factors. Though this would possibly come throughout as a less-than-desirable price, the 20,000 ThankYou factors earned equates to 16,000 TrueBlue factors, that are price about $224 in the direction of JetBlue journey — since JetBlue factors are price about 1.4 cents apiece, in keeping with frequent flyer web site The Factors Man. In case you had been to redeem those self same 20,000 factors as money again, you’d find yourself with solely $200 again in your pocket.

However in the event you pair the Citi Double Money with the Citi Premier, factors switch at an equal one-to-one price, providing you with a good greater variety of JetBlue factors to redeem for journey. And with the Citi Premier 80,000-point sign-up bonus, that’ll earn you a formidable $1,120 in journey. There’s additionally no have to switch all of your factors directly — you’ll be able to switch ThankYou factors in blocks of 1,000 everytime you want them, and most transfers occur immediately.

Many individuals desire vacationing in a house or rental rental, but in addition desire a method to redeem their factors and miles. Traditionally, this hasn’t been an possibility — till now. Wyndham Rewards has partnered with Vacasa Administration Rental in such a method whereby you’ll be able to redeem your factors for any accessible residence rental at a hard and fast price of 15,000 factors per night time per bed room. Hire a one-bedroom rental and the fee is 15,000 factors per night time; hire a four-bedroom home and the fee is 60,000 factors per night time. The candy spot here’s a giant rental or home that solely has one listed bed room however further dwelling area, comparable to a loft, basement or alcove.

For many who haven’t heard of Vacasa till now, it’s much like Airbnb or Virbo the place you’re renting a person individual’s residence, with the principle distinction being that Vacasa is the property administration firm for the actual rental.

Thankfully, Wyndham is without doubt one of the three journey companions for these with the Citi Double Money Card. With this card, you’ll be able to switch your factors at a 1,000-to-800 ratio. This implies for each 1,000 Citi ThankYou factors you switch, you’ll earn 800 Wyndham Reward factors. With the 20,000 factors earned from the Citi Double Money Card, in the event you switch 19,000 factors over (since factors could be transferred in 1,000-point increments), you’ll find yourself with 15,200 Wyndham Reward factors — sufficient for one free night time in a house rental (and 1,000 factors to maintain in your ThankYou account).

However there’s one catch — although a house rental is offered for a paid keep on Vacasa, it doesn’t imply it’s accessible when paying with factors. There are blackout dates, and sometimes, the house rental must be lower than a sure value for it to be listed with factors. Sadly, the one method to verify availability is to name Wyndham straight, which is usually a prolonged course of.

If used strategically — which we’ve performed first-hand — the factors earned from the Citi Double Money Card could be simply price as much as $400 towards your subsequent residence trip rental. And with steady bank card spend, you’ll be able to ultimately guide a multi-night keep at a terrific location.

Or, when you have the Citi Premier card, ThankYou factors switch at a one-to-one price, that means you solely have to redeem 15,000 ThankYou factors for a similar one-night keep in a one-bedroom home or rental by Vacasa. With frequent-flyer web site The Factors Man valuing Citi ThankYou factors at 1.8 cents apiece, so long as you guide a house rental for greater than $280 for the night time, you’re redeeming your factors at a terrific worth.

Click on right here to earn sufficient bonus factors with the Citi Double Money card to guide a house rental.

Though Delta SkyMiles isn’t a accomplice of the Citi ThankYou program, it’s nonetheless attainable to make use of your ThankYou factors to guide Delta flights. The trick is to as an alternative switch your factors to Virgin Atlantic, which is a accomplice of each Citi and Delta. From there, you need to use Virgin factors to guide many Delta flights.

Remember although that when you can’t switch your Citi Double Money factors to lots of the premier companions, comparable to Virgin Atlantic, when you have a premium card such because the Citi Premier, you’ll be able to mix your Citi ThankYou factors from the 2 playing cards. From there, your factors are eligible to be transferred to all the Citi ThankYou accomplice suite on the highest switch ratio.

In terms of Delta flights throughout the US, Virgin Atlantic has a distance-based award chart for economic system seats that appears like this:

This implies when award area is offered, a round-trip nonstop Delta flight between Boston and Los Angeles prices 30,000 Virgin Atlantic factors. That may typically be cheaper than reserving the very same flight utilizing Delta’s personal miles, which fluctuate relying on the money value of the ticket.

Simply do not forget that Virgin Atlantic costs awards by including up the miles required for every flight section. So a routing that requires a connection will price greater than a nonstop flight, as a result of the 2 connecting flights will likely be priced individually, then added collectively.

Additionally, in the event you’re questioning whether or not you’ll be able to switch your Citi ThankYou factors to Virgin Atlantic and redeem them for flights to Europe and the UK, you’ll be able to — however I don’t suggest it. That’s as a result of Virgin provides extraordinarily excessive service surcharges to their very own award redemptions — as a lot as a whole bunch of {dollars}, which regularly make your “free” flight not price the fee. Thankfully, you received’t see these excessive surcharges if you’re redeeming Virgin factors for home Delta flights.

Redeem factors from the Citi Premier card for Delta flights by Virgin Atlantic.

Hawaii isn’t a part of the continental United States, however that doesn’t matter on the subject of the Turkish Airways Miles&Smiles award chart. The airline teams the Hawaiian Islands in with the remainder of the 48 mainland states, making it extremely low-cost to make use of Turkish miles to fly to Hawaii.

In fact, you’re most likely considering to your self that Turkish Airways doesn’t fly from the remainder of the US to Hawaii — and also you’re right. However Turkish Airways is a part of the Star Alliance airline partnership, which implies you’ll be able to redeem its miles for flights on United Airways, which can be a part of the Star Alliance. And you may switch your Citi Premier factors — though not Citi Double Money factors (until you’ve got a premium card) — to Turkish Airways, because it’s certainly one of Citi’s 16 journey companions.

For simply 7,500 Turkish Airways miles one-way — or 15,000 miles spherical journey — you’ll be able to fly on a United flight from virtually any vacation spot within the US to any Hawaiian island when there’s award area accessible. Or, in the event you’re seeking to sit up entrance, you’ll be able to fly the identical route for simply 25,000 miles spherical journey in enterprise class.

Now, in the event you’re on the East Coast and Hawaii is barely too far-off in your liking, you’ll be able to as an alternative go to Puerto Rico or the US Virgin Islands for a similar 7,500 miles every method, since these locations are additionally grouped collectively as a part of the US on the Turkish Airways award chart.

With simply the 20,000 factors earned from the Citi Double Money card — so long as you even have a premium Citi card — yow will discover your self having fun with many close by islands very quickly.

Use Citi Premier factors to fly your loved ones to Hawaii.

Singapore Airways has one of many best possible first-class seats — or because the airline calls them, “Suites” — on the planet, and lately began flying its A380 plane with these Suites to the US. And imagine it or not, you’ll be able to truly redeem Citi ThankYou factors to get a Suite for practically nothing.

Whereas Singapore Airways is a member of the Star Alliance, the service solely releases award area for its Suites to members of its personal frequent flyer program, often called KrisFlyer. Thankfully, it’s free to affix KrisFlyer, and when you’ve joined, you’ll be able to switch Citi ThankYou factors from a premium Citi bank card to KrisFlyer at a one-to-one price, that means you’ll be able to simply purchase sufficient KrisFlyer factors from the Citi Premier to guide certainly one of these incredible suites. Sadly, the factors earned from the Citi Double Money welcome bonus received’t practically be sufficient to get you certainly one of these extremely fascinating seats, however it’ll assist enhance your account stability.

Proper now, Singapore is simply flying the A380 on one path to and from the US — New York’s JFK to Singapore by means of Frankfurt, Germany. Nevertheless it’s attainable to guide simply the section between New York and Frankfurt, that means you will get from the US to Europe this fashion after which use every other airline to make a fast hop to every other nation on the continent that you simply’d like to go to.

Even higher, it’s cheaper to guide an award to Frankfurt than reserving all the run to Singapore. For a one-way flight from New York to Frankfurt, you’ll be able to count on to pay 86,000 miles for a seat in Suites on the lowest “Saver” stage, however solely when Singapore has launched award area at that stage for the day you need to journey. But when yow will discover area, the 80,000 bonus factors on the Citi Premier card will cowl virtually all the price all by itself.

Even in the event you can’t discover saver-level area and have to guide on the greater “Benefit” stage, which prices 140,000 miles one-way, the bonus from the Citi Premier will get you greater than midway there, and you may then both earn extra factors through the use of the cardboard regularly, or switch further factors to Singapore from one of many different bank card applications that additionally accomplice with KrisFlyer, together with Chase Final Rewards, American Specific Membership Rewards and Capital One miles.

Click on right here to earn sufficient bonus factors with the Citi Premier card to fly first-class to Europe.

Whilst you shouldn’t switch your Citi ThankYou factors to Virgin Atlantic for flights to Europe attributable to that service’s excessive surcharges, there’s another choice for transatlantic journeys with out paying enormous charges.

Avianca is one other airline that’s each within the Star Alliance community and a Citi switch accomplice (just for premium playing cards, such because the Citi Premier and never for the Citi Double Money), and whereas its LifeMiles award chart would possibly look barely costlier than another airways’ award charts, it’s one of many few applications that doesn’t cross alongside main surcharges on accomplice awards, though it does cost a small $25 price for all award bookings.

The variety of Avianca LifeMiles required for an award flight from the US to Europe depends upon which route you’re flying. LifeMiles divides each the US and Europe into regional zones, which implies there’s a distinct award chart tier for every zone you’re flying to and from.

For instance, in the event you’re flying on a Star Alliance accomplice out of New York (United States Zone 1) to London (Europe Zone 1), it’ll price you solely 20,000 miles one-way on a Star Alliance accomplice. However Los Angeles (United States Zone 3) to Athens (Europe Zone 3) will price you 30,000 miles one-way. Nonetheless, these are very cheap redemption charges for flights throughout the pond.

Moreover, you need to use Avianca miles to fly domestically across the US on United Airways, since once more, each are members of the Star Alliance. One-way flights throughout the US are sometimes 7,500 miles every method, however there are occasions chances are you’ll discover routes as little as 3,500 miles one-way utilizing LifeMiles.

Study extra and apply now for the Citi Premier card.

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