How to protect your Citi ThankYou points while you are alive
There is no way to name a beneficiary or successor on a Citi ThankYou account. While the account holder is alive, Citibank, N.A allows transfers to a partner program.
Citibank, N.A decides requests about Citi ThankYou points after a death case by case, so nothing in its terms promises a survivor anything; what the account holder sets up in advance is what holds. There is no way to name a beneficiary or successor on a Citi ThankYou account. While the account holder is alive, Citibank, N.A allows transfers to a partner program.
How to protect your Citi ThankYou points
Naming who acts after a death
- Designation
There is no way to name a beneficiary for ThankYou Points; only a lawfully designated executor or administrator may redeem points on behalf of the deceased.1
What Citibank, N.A.'s terms say about sharing and transfers4
- Pooling with family
ThankYou Points can be pooled across the cardholder's own Citi ThankYou-earning accounts.1
- Transfers to a partner program
Points can be redeemed by transferring them to participating travel loyalty programs, with eligibility depending on the card product; the partner loyalty account must be in the cardholder's own name.1
Citi's FAQs list the partner roster as including Aeromexico Rewards, American Airlines, Avianca LifeMiles, Cathay Asia Miles, Emirates Skywards, Etihad Guest, EVA Air, Flying Blue, JetBlue TrueBlue and Qantas.2
The roster also includes Qatar Privilege Club, Singapore KrisFlyer, Thai Royal Orchid Plus, Turkish Miles&Smiles, Virgin Atlantic Flying Club, "ALL-Accor", Choice Privileges, Leaders Club, Preferred Hotels, Wyndham Rewards and Shop Your Way.2
- Transfers to another member
Effective May 17, 2026, Point Sharing is no longer offered as a ThankYou Rewards redemption option, so there is no person-to-person transfer; the feature let one member give up to 100,000 points a year to another member's ThankYou Account.1
- Expiry and activity requirements
Points earned with most Citi credit card accounts generally do not expire. The agreement sets expirations for several legacy and business products and for Citibank checking accounts, where points expire three years from December 31 of the year they were earned.1
Sources2
- 1.Citi ThankYou Rewards Terms and Conditions (Citi Credit Cards and Consumer Citibank Checking Accounts), Last Updated September 2026
- 2.Citi ThankYou Rewards FAQs, Oct 10, 2025
Should you save your passwords for your family?
Some people store account passwords so a family member can sign in later. The practice has three practical limits:
- Two-factor authentication often blocks it. Most accounts require a second factor — a code sent to a phone, an authenticator app, a passkey, or a physical key. A saved password alone frequently does not grant access, and the recovery codes that would are easy to lose or let go stale.
- It usually conflicts with the platform's terms. Most operators prohibit account sharing and signing in as another person, including after a death. Stored credentials are not the operator's recognized access path, and using them can violate the terms of service.
- Operators provide other paths. Where an operator offers a designation tool — Apple's Legacy Contact, Google's Inactive Account Manager, a beneficiary designation — that mechanism grants access the operator recognizes. A password manager's own emergency-access or legacy feature passes credentials through a controlled process. Digital assets named in a will or trust give a fiduciary authority under each state's Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act (RUFADAA).
Sources
Data sourced from Citibank, N.A. primary sources (4 pages reviewed). How we research.
Citi ThankYou customer support
Citi ThankYou Service Center
Phone
International
TTY
Hours
Website
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