Citi Kills ThankYou Points Sharing Feature: The Family Pool Strategy That Preserves Transfer Partner Access Before Shutdown

Citi is pulling the plug on ThankYou Points sharing effective May 17, 2026. The final day to send or receive points between accounts is May 16. After that, no more moving ThankYou Points to your spouse, partner, or that reliable friend who always seems to have a few thousand lying around.

This kills one of Citi's few genuine advantages in the family points game. For years, you could share up to 100,000 points annually with anyone holding a ThankYou-earning card. It was clunky, sure, but it worked. Now that edge evaporates, leaving families staring at the same fragmented reality Chase and Amex users have navigated for ages.

Existing shared balances don't disappear. Those points remain in the recipient's account and can still be transferred to airline and hotel partners. That's the loophole worth exploiting right now.

The Family Pool Strategy That's About to Get Harder

Consolidate everything into one primary ThankYou account before the deadline. If you hold multiple Citi cards — Strata Premier, Strata Elite, Double Cash, whatever — combine your own accounts while you still can. The process lives on thankyou.com: match profiles perfectly (phone numbers, addresses, no rogue spaces), then hit the combine button. Do it soon. Profiles that look identical on paper often hide tiny mismatches that require a call to 1-800-THANKYOU.

Once pooled, those points gain full access to Citi's transfer partners from a single balance. No more wondering which account has enough for that Turkish Airlines award. Shared points received from family members before May 16 follow the same rule — they sit in the new account and transfer out normally, though they carry a 90-day expiration clock.

This matters because Citi still offers transfer partners and sweet spots the others don't match. Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles at 1:1 remains a standout: 7,500 miles for one-way domestic U.S. or Hawaii in economy, often on United metal. EVA Air business class to Taipei at 75,000-80,000 points one-way with better award space and lower surcharges than equivalent options elsewhere. American AAdvantage at 1:1 gives direct access to Web Specials and Oneworld partners that Chase and Amex can't touch cleanly.

How Citi Stacks Up Against Chase and Amex Now

Chase has played the household game better for years. You can transfer Ultimate Rewards to one other household member (spouse, domestic partner, or same-address resident) with no annual limit. It's cleaner than Citi's old sharing ever was, and it survives. Points move instantly between your Sapphire, Ink, or Freedom cards too, creating a true family pool without expiration tricks.

Amex takes the authorized-user route for Membership Rewards. Add your spouse as an AU on a Platinum or Gold, wait 90 days, then transfer points directly to their airline accounts. No pooling the MR balance itself, but it gets the job done for transfers. Less flexible than Chase, more restrictive than old Citi, yet it persists.

Citi's incoming setup leaves everyone with isolated accounts. Your partner's Premier balance stays theirs. No sharing, no easy pooling. The only move is proactive consolidation of your own points now, then strategic transfers to partners before anyone cancels cards. (Downgrade instead of close — points from canceled cards can vanish after 60-90 days.)

The humor here is dark if you're a points hoarder with balances scattered across four Citi cards and two family members. Citi essentially said, "You liked that flexibility? Cute. Here's a wall." At least the transfer partners didn't get nerfed alongside it. Turkish still delivers those absurdly cheap domestic awards. Flying Blue Promo Rewards and Avianca mixed-cabin awards without fuel surcharges remain viable. Those don't require a pooled balance, but hitting the minimums sure is easier when everything lives in one place.

Premium card holders keep 1:1 ratios to nearly everything. Non-premium cards take the 30% haircut on most transfers, so if you're optimizing at this level, the Strata Elite or Premier should be your hub anyway.

Do this today: Log into thankyou.com, align every profile across your Citi cards, combine what you can, and have family members share any excess points by May 16. Then transfer the consolidated pile to Turkish Miles&Smiles, EVA, or AA for the awards you're actually going to use. The window is closing. Points sitting in multiple accounts after next week become stranded islands. Don't let them.