Reports are circulating that Citibank plans to end ThankYou members’ ability to share points with each other. If that turns out to be true, it would be a meaningful negative change for anyone who has used point sharing to move points between accounts before a transfer or redemption.
Normally, that kind of news would be pretty straightforward. Several trusted sites have written about it, and at least some of them say they confirmed the change with Citi. But with Citi, that’s often where things start getting messy rather than clearer.
Why I’m Not Ready To Jump To Conclusions
Over the years, Citi has developed a habit of rolling out changes in a way that leaves cardholders guessing. Sometimes the information given by representatives or spokespersons turns out to be exactly right. Other times, the final implementation looks narrower, messier, or simply different from how it was described.
That’s why I’ve learned to be careful anytime a broad conclusion is being drawn from a spokesperson’s statement rather than from updated terms or changes that are actually visible across accounts.
Where This Story Actually Starts
If you trace the reports back, the only clear example of this change actually showing up appears to come from a notice on a specific ThankYou card—the version tied to the old Sears portfolio. From there, the story quickly expands into the idea that this applies to all ThankYou accounts.
Maybe it does. But that leap isn’t backed up by much that’s publicly visible.
What I’m Seeing (And Not Seeing)
In our case, we have multiple Citi cards with different statement closing dates, including one that just closed on March 16, and none of them mention this change. Citi’s own ThankYou points sharing page also hasn’t been updated.
For something that’s supposedly going away within two months, that’s a bit surprising.
Even some of the more detailed reports point out the same thing. There’s a timeline and a spokesperson confirmation—but no updates to Citi’s official pages. That disconnect is hard to ignore.
A Possible Explanation
If this turns out to be limited to the legacy ThankYou card tied to the old Sears portfolio, it makes a lot more sense. Citi has a long history of treating those products differently.
That’s a very different story from a full shutdown of point sharing across all ThankYou cards.
A Big Shift For Citi
What also makes this harder to take at face value is how big a shift this would be.
Citi has historically had one of the more lenient policies regarding sharing points. You could send points to almost any other ThankYou member, even if they weren’t in your household.
If this change ends up being as broad as reported, it would move Citi from one of the most flexible programs to one of the most restrictive—potentially with no option to share points at all, even with a spouse or authorized user. That would be a pretty dramatic swing, and another reason I’m not fully convinced we’ve seen the complete picture yet.
Final Thought
I could be completely off base here, and point sharing may very well be going away in May, exactly as reported.
But I’m not willing to bet on that until I see a clear statement from Citi—most likely appearing in my own accounts in upcoming statements.
Until then, this feels like another situation where the early version of a Citi story may not be the final one.
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