My personal review of Citi Premier Card.

Why the Citi Premier Credit Card?

I just decided to get this card in light of two things. The super high welcome bonus offered by Citi is a great opportunity to earn travel points from everyday spending and the amount of airline transfer partners. The low annual fee makes it a nice addition to your travel points portfolio. 

Citi Premier Card Basics 

WELCOME BONUS

• 80,000 Citi Thank You points
• Spend $4,000 in 3 months from account approval

Credits

• $100 hotel annual credit

Bonus Earning Category

• 3X Gas, Groceries, Dining, Hotel, Airfare
• 1X everything else

Earning Points with the Citi Premier credit card

Bonus categories per $1 spent. Earn 3 points per dollar in many everyday spending categories:

3 POINTS AT RESTAURANTS

3 POINTS AT SUPERMARKETS

3 POINTS AT GAS STATIONS

3 POINTS ON AIR TRAVEL

3 POINTS ON HOTELS

1 POINT ON ALL OTHER PURCHASES

Redeeming Points with Citi Premier

Transfer points to airline and hotel partners

BEST USE OF WELCOME BONUS POINTS

Airline Partners

• AEROMEXICO
• ASIA MILES
• AVIANCA LIFEMILES
• EMIRATES SKYWARDS
• ETIHAD GUEST
• EVA AIR
• FLYING BLUE
• INTERMILES
• JETBLUE TRUEBLUE
• MALAYSIA AIRLINES ENRICH
• QANTAS FREQUENT FLYER
• QATAR PRIVILEGE CLUB
• SINGAPORE AIRLINES
• THAI ROYAL ORCHID PLUS
• TURKISH AIRLINES MILES & SMILES
• VIRGIN ATLANTIC FLYING CLUB

Hotel Partners

• CHOICE PRIVILEGES (1:2 transfer) 
• WYNDHAM REWARDS

Other Benefits 

Sears – SHOP YOUR WAY (1:10 transfer)

Transfer ThankYou Points to Shop Your Way® points to use at Sears and Kmart stores. 1 Citi Thank you point = 10 Shop Your Way points.

Is Citi Premier worth the Annual Fee?

Earning transferable points and being able to book directly with airlines for award travel is where the value is. With the welcome offer and bonus categories, this can be worth over $95 per year.

The card offers great ways to maximize earning 3 transferable points from everyday spending, like groceries, gas, and restaurants. This makes it easy to accrue valuable points quickly. 

If you spend $2,000 per month in those 3 categories, you can earn 72,000 Citi ThankYou points per year. This is enough for a round trip to so many places, like Europe, Central America, Mexico and more! 

Is this card right for you?

If you plan on having any big expenses coming up, where you can meet the minimum spending requirements of $4,000 in 3 months, then the welcome offer can make sense to offset the annual fee and get tons of value when exchanged for flights booked directly with the airline transfer partners.

Other alternatives

This card is a nice addition to those that already have transferable points from other credit cards since you can transfer points to similar partners, such as Singapore Airlines, JetBlue, Flying Blue (KLM/Delta/Air France), and Emirates.

My final thoughts 

I am personally excited to be able to use the Citi points to transfer to Avianca Life Miles to book international flights with the Star Alliance and add stopovers along the route. 

For domestic and some international flights, Jetblue is a great transferable currency from several cards. This is great for positioning flights from many US airports.

Turkish Miles & Smiles is an amazing partner to take advantage of US and Hawaii routes for very low points redemptions if you can find the space availability.