Welcome Back!

Hope everyone is doing well 😊

This coming weekend is the first weekend in August! Can’t believe 7 months of the year are gone…

But if you are a Bank of America cardholder, the first weekend of the month means Free Museum Weekend! I’ll be at the MoMA this weekend thanks to Museums On Us, so do enjoy and go see some art/history/science/etc.!

Elsewhere in the points world, June and July have massively shaken up the points & miles space, with new cards, changes to existing cards, and more. Very pertinent to today’s newsletter, as it’s pretty much all about Citi’s role in changing the points landscape this time around.

With that, let’s get into today’s stories!

In today’s edition:

• 🏦 I judged Citi too Early 🧑‍⚖️

• 🏦 Transfer Bonuses ✈️

• 🤝 Citi X American 🤝

• 📰 Other Stories & Deals 💰️

• 💳️ Best Card Signup Bonuses 💳️ 

🏦 I judged Citi too Early 🧑‍⚖️

To be clear, I still do think the Citi Strata Elite is meh at best, but the rest of the changes they’ve made since this made it clear to me that my verdict came too early! 🤷

On top of the new Strata Elite they introduced, they’ve also introduced the no-annual fee Citi Strata card, which also earns Citi ThankYou points! This card, for reference, replaces the Citi Rewards+ card.

Some details on that card:

• No annual fee

• 30,000 point sign up bonus after $1,000 in spend within the first 3 months 

• 5x on Hotels, Car Rentals, and Attractions booked on cititravel.com

• 3x on Supermarkets

• 3x on Select Transit and at Gas & EV Charging Stations

• 3x on an eligible Self-Select Category of your choice

• 2x on Restaurants

• 1x on All Other Purchases

Now, for a no annual fee card, that looks pretty good, especially the 3x on supermarkets. The points earned on this card can be transferred to airline partners (reduced rates if you have just this card, but the regular rates if you have the Strata Premier or Strata Elite to pool points), so generally good stuff! 👍️

The Citi changes have me realizing that the changes overall are not as bad as I thought they’d be. My reservations about the above Citi Strata card is that the categories do generally seem to overlap with the Strata Premier, which I do think is the more solid card, given it doesn’t have reduced transfer ratios, and a higher signup bonus.

The biggest indictment of the Citi Strata, however, is that it did not bring back the 10% rebate on points that the Citi Rewards+ had… That rebate always made sure that when you redeem your first 100k Citi points, you got 10k back - but that option will be available via product change, for now.

But this is a decent addition to the rest of Citi’s no annual fee card portfolio, with the Double Cash being the 2x workhorse its always been, and the Custom Cash also being a lock for 5x on $500 spend in one category per month. If you are team cash back, and don’t use points and miles for travel, Citi’s $0 annual fee cards look pretty good for that! 💸

So all that to say, sorry Citi that I judged your changes too early. I initially thought they were horrid, but now they’re not as bad as that.

🏦➡️✈️ Transfer Bonuses

A chart of transfer partners by bank, along with other information, can be found here!

¹ New transfer bonuses not present during the previous week are bolded.

🤝 Citi X American 🤝

So the main reason why I realized I judged Citi too harshly in the beginning is because of this! Citi added American Airlines as a transfer partner!

This a huge deal, because AA’s redemption rates are far far better than Delta and United. Delta and United have gone full dynamic pricing, but American is not quite there yet, meaning there is value to be had in the program, particularly for partner awards.

To give you a few examples:

• 🗾 North America to Japan for 60k AA miles each way in business class!

• 🦁 North America to South Africa in Qatar Business Class for 75k AA miles each way!

• 🦘 North America to Australia or New Zealand on Qantas for 80k miles each way in business class!

These are 1:1 transfers from Citi to American, so I can’t understate how massive this is. So so much opportunity for value here! I have seen some concerns that this will lead to devaluations from American soon, as the influx of points coming into the program from Citi will surely cause AA to increase redemption rates.

My take on that: AA was bound to devalue anyway at some point, so take advantage of the opportunities you have now and redeem what you can! Pessimism about devaluations in this case feels like the “cup half-empty” mindset, when the optimist in me says that there will be tons of deals to take advantage of here. 🧳

The value of Citi ThankYou points have skyrocketed with this news. On the basis of gaining AA as a transfer partner alone, they are definitely more valuable than Capital One miles imo (although MLB tickets at 5k a piece is nice), and honestly, maybe even Amex points. Chase to Hyatt and Bilt to Alaska remains incredibly lucrative too, but this definitely puts Citi a tier up.

So yeah, big news. Big deals too, so go find them and go travel! ✈️

📰 Other Stories & Deals 💰️

• ⛄️Alaska has another sale going on, with flights starting from 4k miles, and flights to/from Hawaii starting from 7.5k miles!

• 🪙 Chase and Coinbase are partnering up to allow for Chase UR points to be transferred for crypto purchases, among other things…

💳️ Best Card Signup Bonuses 💳️ 

Again, the usual solid cards:

• Chase Sapphire Preferred^® / Reserve®

• Chase Freedom Unlimited^®/Flex^®

• Amex Gold & Plat

• Capital One Venture X

Do search for public links for the above cards to compare signup bonuses to make sure you get the highest one (incognito mode, Resy, etc.).

For cards with elevated signup bonuses (targeted bonuses are not included), I’ve got:

📤️ Spread the Word! 📤️

Thanks for subscribing! This newsletter is committed to helping you maximize your points and rewards, at no direct cost to you! (appreciate you using any of my referral links, though!)

If you do find this newsletter informative, helpful, or entertaining, I’d greatly appreciate you spreading the word about it! If not, please do give me feedback on how I can improve your Sense per Point experience.

Also, if my newsletter helps you to book travel using points, let me know! It’ll make me so happy 😄 

Hope that all makes sense! That’s all for this week’s edition of Sense per Point.

Wishing everyone a wonderful rest of your day and week 😊 

- Sean Kim

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