Citi has added leading Hotels of the World Leaders Club as a transfer partner. You have to transfer 5 Citi ThankYou points to receive 1 Hotels of the World Leaders Club. Leading Hotels of the World has over 400 properties worldwide.
5:1 sounds like an awful rate but you usually get around 8¢ per point in value (that works out to be 1.6¢ per point from Citi ThankYou). This might be a useful option for some people, but I wouldn’t recommend transferring unless you have a specific transfer in mind.
| Emirates | EVA Air Infinity MileageLands | Malaysia Airlines Enrich |
| AirFrance-KLM Flying Blue | Etihad Guest | Qatar Airways Privilege Club |
| Asia Miles | Accor Hotels (1:0.5) | Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer |
| Thai Airways Royal Orchid Plus | Virgin Atlantic Flying Club | Qantas |
| JetBlue (1:0.8 rate, 0.5 with Preferred) | Sears SYWRP (1:12) | Jet Airways JetPrivilege |
| Turkish Airlines Miles & Smiles | Avianca LifeMiles | Club Premier Aeromexico |
| Choice Hotels (1:2) | Leading Hotels of the World (5:1) |
I just used this for the first time.
I’ve been having a lot of trouble with regular hotel programs (Hyatt, Hilton, etc.) finding a room that could accommodate more than 2 people where we are traveling in Europe this summer because everything is either in a historic building (i.e. tiny rooms) or 30+ minutes from downtown via public transit when suites and larger rooms are available.
The cost in USD was $754/night, so 9425 LHW points/night. This works out to 47,125 TYP/night.
Transfer was instant — didn’t even have to log out and log back in to complete the booking.
I didn’t really expect to use this when it was posted, but the fact that you can book any available room type (granted it’s more points when they cost more $$$) makes it a lot more flexible for families.
It’s still a lot of points, but my original booking that I’ve now cancelled was two separate rooms at a Hyatt/SLH property that cost even more to me as far as point value is concerned.
For anyone wondering about point value, 8 cpp for LHW seems fixed across the board, so it’s a 1.6 cpp redemption as far as TYP are concerned, assuming no transfer bonuses or anything at the time. There is the 10% points back up to 10,000 points for having Citi Rewards+ if you weren’t otherwise going to hit your cap for the year.
i looked briefly at securing a summer 2024 reservation for a hotel that was around $1.6k per night. It was about 20k pts for the same room per night, so would require about 100k Citi Pts per night…. Not the best value imo for those used to spending 40k chase for a ~$1.5-2k room through hyatt, or but somewhat comparable I guess to spending 100k pts with marriott (via chase) for a $1.5k luxury hotel room (top tier ritz/st regis etc.). Im assuming most people here would not do the latter unless it’s a top-up to secure a multi-day reservation, etc.
1.6 cents/point is respectable and better than Southwest transfers.
Does anyone have experience using this points program?