Citi Premier 50,000 In-Branch Offer (You May Want to Wait)

Via Doctor of Credit, Citi is offering 50,000 point sign-up bonuses for the Citi® ThankYou® Premier Card after you spend $3,000 (possibly $4,000 for some offers) in the first 3 months. The standard public offer right now is 30,000 after you spend $3,000 so this obviously seems like the better deal. 

Update: Some offers are no longer available — click here for the latest deals!

Sign-up bonus

The 50,000 sign-up bonus is great because it’s been a while since Citi has upped its sign-up bonus for the Premier. In fact, at one point in 2016 Citi removed the sign-up bonus altogether from this card and even though a while back we saw it go up to 40,000, it’s been a little while since we’ve seen it at 50,000 points. The only drawback here is that it’s only available in-branch and some states like Texas don’t even have a Citi branch.

Transfer partners

Citi has the following transfer partners:

Airlines

  • Asia Miles (Cathay Pacific)
  • EVA Air
  • Eithad Guest
  • Flying Blue (Air France, KLM)
  • Garuda Indonesia Frequent Flyer
  • Jet Privilege
  • Malaysia Airlines Enrich
  • Qantas Frequent Flyer
  • Qatar Airways Privilege Club
  • Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer
  • Thai Airways Royal Orchid Plus
  • Virgin Atlantic Flying Club

Hotels

  • Hilton HHonors (Get 1,500 HHonors Bonus Points for 1,000 pts)

Asia Miles, Flying Blue, Singapore Airlines, Virgin Atlantic, and Etihad are probably my favorite partners from Citi. With these partners you can still book tickets from the major legacy carriers like United, Delta, and American, so domestic travel is still a possibility.

You can also redeem your ThankYou Points for 1.25 cents per point when redeemed for airfare through the ThankYou®TravelCenter, so 50,000 points becomes $625 worth of travel.

Bonus earning

The Citi Premier has long been one of the most valuable cards from a bonus earning standpoint, as it earns the following bonus rates:

  • 3X on travel including gas
  • 2X on dining and entertainment

No annual fee

Via Reddit, it looks like the annual may be waived for the first year for some of these offers (it’s unclear if this is the same offer found in some branches). This is a step up from the prior offers we’ve seen that were above the standard public offer since those did not waive the annual fee.

24 month language

The offer contains 24 month language. As further explained in my Citi credit card application rules article, this means that you can’t have opened or closed another Citi ThankYou earning card within the past 24 months or you will not receive the sign-up bonus. 

This rule is particularly important to consider right now because there are rumors that the Citi Prestige® Card is going to undergo some new changes perhaps as early as this month. These new changes could mean that the Prestige is going to be more competitive. If you sign-up for the Premier right now and get approved, that means you will not be eligible to receive the sign-up bonus for the Prestige, which could potentially be higher.

Thus, I would probably wait to apply for the Premier until a couple of more weeks just to see how the rumors of the Citi Prestige play out.

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