Frequent Miler on the Air - How to handle Citi cards in 2-player mode now that point sharing is dead? | Question of the Week Ep13 | 8-24-26

Episode Date: August 24, 2026

Get 15% of on Saily E-SimsThis podcast episode is sponsored by Saily. Saily is an ESIM service app created by the security experts behind NordVPN. Instead of paying absurd daily rates to your home carrier or swapping SIM cards on arrival, Saily gives you flexible prepaid data plans in over 200 destinations worldwide. Download Saily from your app store and use our code FREQUENTMILER at checkout to get 15% off your first purchase. https://saily.com/frequentmilerHow to handle Citi cards in 2-player mode now that point sharing is dead? "GH" wrote in with this question recently, wondering:Paraphrasing and simplifying: My old plan was to keep a single Strata Premier card for myself, a Double Cash card for player 2, and multiple Custom Cash cards across both. Now that Player 2 can't move points to me, I need a new plan. Should Player 2 get a Strata Premier card to enable 1-to-1 point transfers, or should we give up on Player 2 holding any Citi ThankYou cards?(00:53) - What does "player 2" mean and what does this question mean?(03:09) - What is the best 2-player strategy for earning Citi points?(06:46) - What is the best 2-player strategy for earning Citi points if you're starting from scratch?Subscribe and FollowVisit https://frequentmiler.com/subscribe/ to get updated on in-depth points and miles content like this, and don’t forget to like and follow us on social media.Music Credit – “Ocean Deep” by Annie YoderCheck out all of our other travel podcasts from around the worldThis podcast is part of the Voyascape Network, a collection of some of the world’s best travel podcasts. Explore more at Voyascape.com. For advertising or sponsorship opportunities on this show and across the network, email [e-mail] or you can find more information at Voyascape.com/advertsing.

This is a Voyescape podcast. You can find all of our travel podcasts from around the world atvoyescape.com. Today's question of the week, how to handle city cards in two-player mode now that point sharing is dead. This is Greg, and while Nick is on vacation, I'm joined by Tim. Today's question of the week, G.H. writes in, and I've drastically simplified and paraphrased G.H.'s question. G.H. sort of wrote, my old plan was to keep a single city strata premier card for myself, a double cash card for Player 2, and multiple custom cash cards across both. Now that Player 2 can't move points to me,

I need a new plan. Should Player 2 get a Strata Premier card to enable one-to-one point transfers, or should we give up on Player 2 holding any City thank you cards? Now, before we talk about our answer to this, I need to back up and explain some things for people who aren't familiar with all these buzzwords. First, what is player two? We like to talk about how in this points and miles game, there's often one person and a household who's more into it than others, and that's the player one. And then everyone else who can maybe sign up for credit cards or do other things that kind of helps further the points for the household would be player or two and maybe player three and so on. So, you know, often it's a spouse who is player two

in any given couple. The other thing that you need to understand is why would anyone have had the strategy that GH described? The reason was that City has a number of cards that are transferable thank you points that where you can earn good multiples of points. So for example, there's the custom cash cards where you could earn five points per dollar up to $500 spend per month in certain categories. And because of that $500 limitation, it's good to have a bunch of those cards and that way it expands your 5x capacity. The Strata Premier card gives you 3x in a bunch of categories of spend and the double cash gives you 2x. Now, the only card in that pile of cards that has an annual fee is the Strata Premier with a $95 annual fee. So when doing this in two-player mode, it used to be

possible, like have one person have the Stratoprameer and collect as many of those useful fee-free cards as possible and have the other person collect as many of those fee-free cards as possible. And then you were able to combine points. There was a limit of 100,000 points a year, but at least you're able to move points from player two to player one and then transfer them on to airline and hotel partners. So that's what made it all great because you could do all that with just one small annual fee. And now, now the problem is city has stopped allowing that point sharing. So GH is asking, what do we do now? What's the right strategy for a two-player household? Yeah, and that's a great question, GH. And let me just say that I feel your pain.

it's I it's crazy to me that city because previously to city doing this they used to have a 100,000 point transfer for limit from one person to another per year so you couldn't transfer more than 100,000 points and that seemed to me to be perfectly reasonable and now they're just completely taken that away so now there's and it's not even like there's a you know like chase where you have to design it has to be a household member or whatever like it's a really draconian policy, really. And so I'll, for me, and this is not necessarily what I would say is the best answer, because I don't know there is a best answer. It depends on your, your situation. And Greg may have a different one than me. But part of the issue for my wife and I is we already have a bunch of city points.

So she has a bunch of city points on her side, and I have a bunch of city points on my side. So it's not just about how are we going to earn going forward, but it's what do we do with the points that we already have. And so what we're doing right now is I have effectively designated, we have designated, I should say, my wife and I have designated my wife's points for programs that where elite status doesn't matter. So for instance, my wife's points are going to EVA air for Trans-Pacific flights from the West Coast and they're going to leaders, club if we need leaders club points because she can book leading hotels of the world and she has the same elite status that I do from her platinum card. So she's, there's no reason why I need to be

able to book those. And just to back up a second, one of the limitations of cities program and most transferable points programs is that you usually have to transfer and in city's cases you do to your own loyalty program. Oh, right. So your, your spouse can't transfer to your airline account. And that's why, that's why Tim is talking about it. Yeah. Then thank you for asking which, which types of programs make sense for the player two to transfer to their own program. Right. Totally. And so then for me, right now, my primary transfer path is for American Airlines because then not only can I take advantage of my elite status, which right now we have the same elite status for one world, but sometimes we don't.

So I would rather have the A.A. Miles sitting in my account than I would hers. In terms of, and this was where I think it might be different, in terms of how we're earning our points going forward, effectively, we're all earning them on my account. And how we're doing that is my wife has on her phone saved my premier card saved my custom, all of our custom cash cards. We have like four custom cash cards. But they're all on both on our phone. So I don't even need to add her as an authorized user. I can just, she can just use that phone to tap to pay at the grocery store or whatever.

And she's earning the same bonuses that I would earn on my card. If that was an issue, like if for some reason you were in some area where tap to pay wasn't readily available or whatever, I would probably just add my wife as an authorized user and have her be earning on my account. Just so that we could consolidate those. Right. That totally makes sense. What about what about you? Well, let me ask you.

So that what you just described makes total sense to me for a household where both players already have a bunch of points because you need to do something worthwhile with them. That totally makes sense. What about a couple starting fresh with Citi? is it should they just concentrate one person just earn get city cards and just earn there or should they do you think do you think it makes sense for both personally what i what i would do and it you know and it depends a little bit so that's what i would do yes i would probably in terms of points earning i would probably try to consolidate it on one player's account and and do exactly what what my wife and I are doing. The exception to that would be for first year welcome offers.

And by and large, the only city cards that have appealing first year welcome offers are the Strata Elite and the city premiere. And by signing up for both of those new, you could theoretically earn enough points to actually have enough points to use for meaningful rewards and do it in the same way that my wife and I are doing now, just designate those points for something, right? Yeah. And so I would say that maybe if you wanted to, you could both use the two-player strategy then. But the custom cache and the double-cash, those are usually around 15,000 points, 20,000 points. And it's not nothing, but it's also, they're never anywhere close to the exciting welcome,

the most exciting welcome offers around. Right, right. So that makes sense. So take advantage, player two should take advantage of those welcome offers, the big welcome muffers come with the cards that have annual fees and allow one-to-one transfers. So before canceling or downgrading one of those cards, you make sure to use the points. But you could string it along because if you do one of the cards with an annual fee one year, you could then downgrade, right?

I'm talking about player too. Could downgrade to a card with no annual fee and apply for a number. another card that has an annual fee to get another welcome bonus. And then by combining, you can combine points within your own accounts. So by player two combining the, the old points and the new, they would be able to transfer one to one to all the programs that they can. So you can keep that going for a couple years anyway before kind of trying to make sure to use up the, you know, points, I guess, if you're ever going to take player two, completely off of a paid situation, right?

Totally. And the great part about doing exactly what you're describing is then you get one-to-one transfers for full two years. Right. Not like you have only one year to decide where you're going to use your points or figure out where those usability cases may arise. Yeah, yeah. And I personally think that there's enough value,

at least for now in the American Airlines program, that if you're really stuck with like, where should player two, like we want to get rid of the paid cards for player two. To me, American Airlines, miles can often be so valuable, even without status, that I think that's a reasonable place to park your miles. 100%. So is that what would you do? I mean, I don't want to bring up a sore point because I know if you were able to have a two-player

strategy with Citibank. I mean exactly what you're saying. I think I would look for player two to only be signing up for big welcome bonuses and otherwise concentrating on my own accounts. This episode was produced and edited by Carrie Yoder, music by Annie Yoder. If you've enjoyed what you've heard today and you'd like to get more of this in your email inbox each day or each week, go to frequentmiler.com slash subscribe to join our email list. Follow us on all the various social media, join our Frequent Myler Insiders Facebook group,

And wherever you're watching or listening, don't forget to like this or give it a thumbs up. If you have a question that you'd like to be considered for a future question of the week or a piece of feedback that you'd like to be considered for our giant mailbag, you can send that to? Send it to mailbag at frequentmiler.com.