You probably know by now that I am obsessed with booking excursions and day trips through the Chase Ultimate Rewards travel portal. I frequently use points for snorkeling trips, museum entries, skip-the-line tours and more. I recently cashed in some points for a whale watching tour in Maui and a day excursion with my kids in Scotland this upcoming summer. There are a ton of options available, and sometimes they are an excellent deal in either cash or points.
Recently, I used the Citi travel portal to book an excursion with points. I do have more than 130,000 Citi ThankYou points from our Citi Premier cards, after all, so why not? I normally use Citi ThankYou points for transfers to Air France/Flying Blue, but I don’t plan to do that in the next few months since I have already have our five Europe trips booked and paid for this year.
Using the Citi ThankYou Portal for Excursions
My go-to portal is always Chase, but I wound up searching the Citi portal when the Chase portal, which partners with Expedia, didn’t have the exact day trip I wanted.
My sister and I are spending a few days in London after a cruise in early March, and I really wanted to do a skip-the-line guided tour of the Tower of London. Chase didn’t offer a tour for the dates I need, but the Citi travel portal did!
Ultimately, I wound up booking a Tower of London entry with a Beefeater tour for 7,229 points for two people. This tour doesn’t have an entry time, so we can show up any time during opening hours.
My Thoughts on Using the Citi Travel Portal for Excursions
While I ultimately ended up with the tour I wanted for free, I believe the Citi travel portal could use some work in terms of the excursions they offer. This portal partners with Connexions Loyalty, which doesn’t offer the same broad selection in terms of activities from what I’ve seen. I’ve browsed options all over the world to get a feeling for their offerings, and it’s pretty sad in some cities. In fact, a large percentage of the “day trip” options in London are airport pickups.
Also note that the Citi travel portal doesn’t give you more bang for your buck when you book excursions with points. Where the Chase Sapphire Reserve gives you 50% more travel when you use points to book through the Chase portal, the Citi travel portal offers just one cent per point when you book activities.
The Bottom Line
If you have some Citi points and need to book a day trip that isn’t available through Chase, it’s worth digging around for your dates to see what’s available. You’ll only get one cent per point in value but having another option other than the Chase portal is always a good thing.
[Image: Wikimedia/Carlos Delgado]
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Delta® Reserve for Business
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0
$3,000
Per dollar on eligible purchases with Delta Purchases
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$1
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$1
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