The Citi Strata Premier℠ Card and the discontinued Citi Prestige cards offer the ability to transfer points into airline miles or hotel points, redeem for gift cards or travel, or redeem for statement credits or a check. Citi is a DansDeals partner. View Rates & Fees here. The information related to Citi Prestige has been collected by DansDeals and has not been reviewed or provided by the issuer or provider of this product or service.
Citi tells DansDeals that through 8/23, points are worth 1 cent each towards statement credits or a check, but effective 8/24, that will be reduced to 0.75 cents per point for the Premier and Prestige cards. That means 10,000 points will go down from $100 cash back to $75 cash back.
The points are worth much more when transferred to airline miles or hotel points or when used for gift cards when there’s a 15% or a 25% promo offer, but it was still nice to have the cash out option.
Luckily, there’s an easy workaround that Citi has confirmed to DansDeals will work. Premier or Prestige cardholders who have a Citi Double Cash® Card or Citi Custom Cash Card linked to the same ThankYou account will continue to be able to cash out at a value of 1 cent per point, even after 8/23. View Rates & Fees here. The information related to the Citi Custom Cash Card has been collected by DansDeals and has not been reviewed or provided by the issuer or provider of this product or service.
That’s fantastic news as it preserves the excellent Citi Bifecta at its full value.
The Double Cash card earns 1% cash back when you buy, plus an additional 1% as you pay, on every purchase. That makes for an effective 2% cash back everywhere, which is awarded in the form of 2 ThankYou Points per dollar spent.
If you have the Strata Premier card and Double Cash, that means you can earn 2 points per dollar everywhere for spending on the double Cash card, and 3 points per dollar on air travel, hotels, supermarkets, dining, gas stations, and EV charging on the Premier card. You’ll also earn 10 points per dollar on Hotels, Car Rentals, and Attractions booked through Citi Travel on the Premier card.
Plus, you’ll be able to continue cashing out all points earned on Premier or Double Cash at 1 cent each, or transfer them to miles, or use them for gift cards or paid travel.
If you have those cards, but they aren’t linked to the same ThankYou account, just call the number on the back of your card to link them to the same ThankYou account.
This is also a good reminder that Citi and many other banks require activity once per year on all cards, or else they can be closed without warning. You can reload your Amazon account balance with $5 to keep your cards active.
Do you have a Citi Bifecta?
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17 Comments On "Citi Will Downgrade Premier And Prestige Cash-Out Option, But Here’s How To Avoid The Downgrade!"
All opinions expressed below are user generated and the opinions aren’t provided, reviewed or endorsed by any advertiser or DansDeals.
Citi sent out the value of double cash miles are also being downgraded
It was never worth using that option for miles. There is no devaluation if you have a linked Premier or Prestige card.
Does it hurt your credit if a bank closes your card due to inactivity?
Your total credit will go down right away and the card will eventually fall off your profile, which can hurt your score.
Other than that, if someone is manually looking at your report, they’ll see it was closed by issuer and may ask questions.
If I have a Citi Double Cash Card and the Citi Rewards card, will I still be able to cash out as before?
Yes
Does Rewards+ provide the same benefit?
No
so if my thank you accounts are all linked it will automatically give me one cent per point ?
Yes
Does DD have some Citi liaison for information like this? If so that’s great to hear.
If not, who exactly confirmed this? Phone reps have a history of making things up, especially when you have a persuasive argument. I’ll assume the worst until Citi puts this in writing, maybe on the June printed statement.
We do and have the information in writing from Citi corporate.
We don’t post information from phone reps.
Citi just sent this to me by email:
Effective 08/24/25, the redemption value for Cash Back redeemed through the ThankYou Rewards account associated with your Citi Strata Premier® will change.
Current Value for Cash Back: 10,000 ThankYou Rewards Points are redeemable for $100.
New Value for Cash Back, effective 08/24/25: 10,000 ThankYou Rewards Points are redeemable for $75.
You may redeem ThankYou Points for Cash Back at the current redemption value through 08/23/25. After that, the new redemption value will apply.
OK?
That’s exactly what this post addresses.
I have the Citi double cash and got the email.
The email is irrelevant.
The new policy will apply if you don’t have the DC card linked to the same TY account or if your DC card is closed in the future. Otherwise, the new policy won’t apply to you.
I’m going to ask the obvious question. Why would they do this? More specifically to the higher tier but not the free card?!
Am I wrong this is foreshadowing of more devaluation to come and should be thinking about moving over to Capital One? I’m hard core Citi fecta right now.