Citi has sent out an e-mail to Citi Strata Premier cardholders informing them that on 7/27/25 the transfer rate to Emirates will be changing:
- Current Redemption Value for Points Transfers: 1,000 ThankYou Rewards Points are transferable for 1,000 Emirates Skywards Miles
- New Redemption Value for Points Transfers, effective 07/27: 1,000 ThankYou Rewards Points are transferable for 800 Emirates Skywards Miles
Screenshot
It’s over Johnny, It’s Over ! End of the train 🚂
“Nothing is over! Nothing!”
Trash program, fuck Emirates. Overrated as hell and there are other airlines just as good.
Interesting, I received similar e-mail with different devalued partners for Double Cash:
Current Redemption Value for Points Transfers:
1,000 ThankYou Rewards Points are transferable for 800 TrueBlue Points
1,000 ThankYou Rewards Points are transferable for 1,500 Choice Privileges® Points
1,000 ThankYou Rewards Points are transferable for 800 Wyndham Rewards® Points
New Redemption Value for Points Transfers, effective 07/27:
1,000 ThankYou Rewards Points are transferable for 700 TrueBlue Points
1,000 ThankYou Rewards Points are transferable for 1,400 Choice Privileges® Points
1,000 ThankYou Rewards Points are transferable for 700 Wyndham Rewards® Points
Exact same changes for the Rewards+ card.
Why would this be occurring for this partner? Emirates miles are not especially valuable.
I flew A380 Frist SFO-DXB-DEL, round trip for 372K miles and $2500. At the time a $20k flight. My math, $20,000 minus $2500 equals $17,500 divided by 372K equals 4.7c/point.
And I flew ANA First nonstop RT for 130k miles + $550, which costs $27k in cash, which equals over 20c/p. But this means nothing, and nobody’s counting. Their miles are still as trash as DL skybolivares.
Would you have paid $20k for that ticket? Of course not! It doesn’t really carry a $20k value thus it’s not $0.047/point.
It’s really crazy how some people “value”points. It’s only worth what you’re willing to pay.
very bad precedent to be setting
Citi should have pushed back and just taken Emirates off as a transfer partner. I wouldn’t even know Emirates was missing.
Citi is not doing things based only on your needs.
Just because you (and I) have no need for Emirates as a transfer partner, whether it was always or just after this devaluation, doesn’t meant that no one who uses Citi does.
Citi presumably has data on who transferred to Emirates in the past and is using that to decide to keep Emirates.
You presumably don’t have data, so you don’t actually know if and how many people transferred from Citi to Emirates. All you know is that you and perhaps some people you know haven’t.
And as you can see in other posts here, that wasn’t the only devaluation done at Citi at about the same time. So maybe it didn’t have to do so specifically with Emirates.
Especially at Citi where their transfer partners are a somewhat unique hodgepodge. I’ll be pissed if they adjust the rate of LHW myself and I’ve seen a ton of people get awesome value out of the unique 1:1 to EVA Air.