25% Citi ThankYou Transfer bonus to Avianca — Book cheap Star Alliance partner awards

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Through Dec. 11th 2019, you can get a 25% bonus on Citi ThankYou points transfers to Avianca. Avianca is a Colombian-based airline that is excellent for booking Star Alliance partner awards. Transfer bonuses are an easy and great way to get more value out of your points.

There are a handful of Citibank credit cards that earn Citi ThankYou points, but in order to be able to transfer those points to airlines you’ll need to have either the Citi Prestige card or the Citi Premier℠ Card.

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Citi ThankYou transfer bonus

The normal Citi ThankYou points transfer ratio to Avianca is 1:1 (in 1,000 point increments), so with this bonus you’ll get 1,250 for every 1,000 points you transfer. You can see the full promotion details when you log into your Citi ThankYou points account.

Avianca might not be the first place you think of for booking award flights, but it can be a valuable program because it doesn’t add fuel surcharges to award flights. But you will be charged a $25 award-booking fee, even for online bookings and Avianca phone agents have a reputation for not being the best out there.

Avianca does have a Star Alliance-partner award chart, but in practice award prices can be all over the place. Prices tend to vary, based on which cities you’re flying to/from. Also, one-way award prices are sometimes different, depending on which direction you’re traveling. But most business-class flights from the U.S. to Europe will cost only 63,000 Avianca miles, which is spectacular when you add in the fact that you’ll also avoid paying hundreds of dollars in fuel surcharges. With the transfer bonus,  you’d only need to transfer 51,000 Citi ThankYou points to book a business-class flight from the U.S. to Europe. Or you could book first class to Europe for only 87,000 LifeMiles (70,000 Citi points with the bonus).

Citi ThankYou points transfer to Avianca instantly, so once you’ve found an award you want to book you can easily convert your points. A great place to search for Star Alliance award availability is the United Airlines website.

The best cards for earning Citi ThankYou points are:

• Citi Premier℠ Card
• Citi Prestige®
• Citi Rewards+℠ Card
• Citi Rewards+℠ Student Card
• Citi® Double Cash Card

As a reminder, you’ll need a Citi Premier or Citi Prestige card in order to be able to transfer the ThankYou points you earn with the other cards to airlines (other than JetBlue). If you have either of those two cards you can combine your ThankYou points accounts and then transfer your points. Also, if you don’t have a Prestige or Premier card, but your partner does you could share your ThankYou points and then transfer them. Sharing is different than pooling and the biggest catch is that when you share points with another account those points will expire in 90 days. So only share ThankYou points when you are ready to use them.

You can also earn Avianca LifeMiles directly with the:

• Avianca Vuela Visa® Card – Through Dec. 31st 2019 you can earn 60,000 bonus miles after meeting tiered spending requirements. You’ll earn 40,000 Avianca LifeMiles after your first purchase in the first 90 days and 20,000 bonus Avianca LifeMiles after you spend $1,000 on purchases within the first 90 days of account opening. To get the additional 20,000 miles you’ll need to enter the promo code “SB4060” during your application. This card has a $149 annual fee, read our Avianca Vuela card review for more details.
• Avianca Vida Visa® Card – Through Dec. 31st 2019 you can earn 40,000 bonus miles after meeting tiered spending requirements. You’ll earn 20,000 Avianca LifeMiles after your first purchase in the first 90 days and 20,000 bonus Avianca LifeMiles after you spend $1,000 on purchases within the first 90 days of account opening. To get the additional 20,000 miles you’ll need to enter the promo code “SB4060” during your application. This card has a $59 annual fee, read our Avianca Vida card review for more details.

You can also transfer Capital One miles or Amex Membership Rewards points to Avianca, although neither of those transfers have an additional bonus at the moment.

The information for the Citi Premier and the Citi Double cash card has been collected independently by Million Mile Secrets. The card details on this page have not been reviewed or provided by the card issuer.