Citi ThankYou Points Cash Out Rates Lowered

I have some some more bummer news to share with you today. If you were big into the Citi ThankYou points ecosystem then this one could hurt depending on your credit card lineup. Starting on 8/24/25 Citi ThankYou points cash out rates are lowered to to $0.0075, down from 1 cent per point. That is true for the Citi Strata Premier and Citi Prestige (no longer available). The good news is that it doesn't seem to be happening to the Citi DoubleCash or Custom Cash cards. At least that doesn't appear to be the case yet. It is a move that doesn't really make sense to me with how entrenched in cash back Citi has been over the years. Update 8/23/25: This is your last chance to cash out at the higher rate.

Email Details

Over the last few days affected cardholders received emails warning about Citi ThankYou points cash out rates being lowered in the coming months. Here is what they said in their entirety:

We are writing to let you know that we are making a change to the ThankYou Rewards Program. Effective 8/24/25, the redemption value for cash back redeemed through the ThankYou Rewards account associated with your Citi Prestige / Strata Premier will change.

Current value for cash back: 10,000 ThankYou Rewards points are redeemable for $100.

New value for cash back: 10,000 ThankYou Rewards points are redeemable for $75.

You may redeem ThankYou points for cash back at the current redemption value through 8/23/25. After that, the new redemption value will apply.

Remember: There are many other great ways to redeem ThankYou points for rewards like booking flights and hotel stays through Citi Travel or redeeming for gift cards from popular brands. Sign on to Thankyou.com to see all of the different ways you can use ThankYou points.

Why This Makes No Sense

Reducing the rates at which you can cash out ThankYou points on Citi's premium cards is a weird choice. By far their most popular card is the Citi DoubleCash, which revolves entirely around cash back. Why would you punish cardholders of your only premium cards, which now have a lower floor than your no fee card options. If they carry both cards they should be able to move the points to the no fee cards and still redeem at 1 cent per point. I don't think they can ever devalue the rate for the DoubleCash after all. Everything in their marketing revolves around earning 1% for the purchase and an additional 1% on the payment.

This is also uncompetitive compared to Citi's direct competitor in Chase. Even Capital One, their other main competitor, allows 1 cent per point when redeeming towards travel. Citi was already far behind Chase in terms of transfer partners. They also reduced the value people get from booking in their travel portal from 1.25 cents down to 1 cent years ago. Another thing that puts them well behind Chase. That was maybe even more of a confusing decision, since they made a nice commission on the bookings when using their travel portal.

For a company revolving so heavily around cash back this sends some mixed messages. It definitely hurts the value of ThankYou points if you don't have the right card lineup. The Citi Strata Premier is probably the best mid tier card in terms of earning rates too. They just lowered the bottom value of their points by 30%. No small drop. It would be super dubious if they did this, people cashed out their points to still get 1 cent per point and then they added American Airlines as a transfer partner in 2026.

Citi ThankYou Points Cash Out Rates Lowered: ToP Thoughts

If you use your Citi ThankYou points for transfer partners, or still carry the right card lineup, then the lowered cash out rate shouldn't hurt you much. I still never like seeing the floor valuation of something being lowered, but there are workarounds at least. The real question is should you cash out your points before the change happens in August? Or, should you hold out hope that American Airlines partnership happens once Barclays is done? I would put that happening at below 50%, but it is something to consider.

Let me know what you think about this Citi ThankYou points devaluation over in the ToP Facebook Group.