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One of the many ways to redeem Citi ThankYou® Points is to transfer them to Emirates Skywards to leverage the program's sweet spots. If you've been considering making a redemption like this, now is a good time to act, as Citi will soon devalue the current 1:1 transfer ratio to Emirates.
Here's what we know — and how we've seen this change coming for weeks.
Citi to Devalue 1:1 Transfers to Emirates Skywards
Almost exactly five years ago, Citi ThankYou added Emirates Skywards as a transfer partner. This addition allows eligible cardholders to transfer points at a 1:1 ratio to one of the Middle East’s most luxurious airlines and redeem points for some of the world's best in-flight experiences. But sadly, that 1:1 ratio won't last much longer. It will drop to 1:0.8 on July 27, 2025.
Citi confirmed the upcoming transfer ratio devaluation in an email to cardholders on April 23:
“New Redemption Value for Points Transfers, effective 07/27: 1,000 ThankYou Rewards Points are transferable for 800 Emirates Skywards Miles.”
But we can't say we didn't see this devaluation coming. On April 2, 2025, AwardWallet was the first to notice a discrepancy between the Emirates bank partners webpage and Citi's travel transfer partners site. While Citi’s page still showed a 1:1 transfer ratio…
Emirates quietly updated its bank partners page to reflect the soon-to-be-new 1:0.8 ratio — and then reverted it after we inquired about the change. But this all but signaled that a devaluation of the Citi-to-Emirates transfer ratio was on the way.
When we first noticed the discrepancy, we reached out to Citi, which replied with the following:
“That is an error on the Emirates site they are working to update. The correct Citi ThankYou-to-Emirates transfer ratio is 1:1.”
While this confirmed that the current transfer ratio remains 1:1, it didn't say anything about what might be coming down the pike regarding this relationship. And sure enough, the transfer ratio will be devalued in the near future.
Final Thoughts
On July 27, 2025, Citi will devalue the ThankYou Rewards transfer ratio to Emirates Skywards, dropping it from 1:1 to 1:0.8. All devaluations are unfortunate, but this one hits harder given that Citi initially claimed the leaked change was an “error.” The leak itself might have been a mistake, but the revealed transfer ratio was a sign of what was to come.
Thankfully, there’s still a lot of runway before the change takes effect. If you have a stash of ThankYou Points and plan to transfer them to Emirates, make sure to do so before July 27.
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Citi has a history of oddities in not only their travel rewards program but also their entire banking business model – customer service issues noted by comments to various AwardWallet blog posts, rolling out premium rewards credit cards only to discontinue later – or gut the benefits, destroying Diners Club Club Rewards in the US by selling the international part to Discover and the US business to BMO – after first removing American Airlines as a transfer partner, only to later launch ThankYou Rewards, acquiring Smith Barney, only to later sell off to Morgan Stanley, rolling out banking branches across USA – only to later shutter most except for a limited footprint on the East and West coast. Since I have a tendency to carry a rather large balance of transferrable rewards, it was clear to me a long time ago that building any kind of travel rewards balance or any other kind of long term banking relationship with Citi is probably a bad idea – at least for me.