Expedia Partners with Citi on Rewards Program for Expedia Customers

By Liz Morris

Travel site Expedia has begun a rewards program that allows its customers to earn points on purchases they make at the site. While reward points programs are fairly standard stuff, the twist here is that Expedia has not started a proprietary program, but is instead offering ThankYou points, the same points that Citibank offers on certain credit card and bank accounts. Expedia customers do not have have to be Citibank customers to participate, but if they do earn Citi ThankYou points from cards or bank accounts, the Expedia program gives them a new way to increase their point totals. In other words, ThankYou points from Citi can be pooled with ThankYou points from Expedia into a single account that offers merchandise and travel rewards to accountholders.

Confused? So were we, but we’ll try to make it clear:

Make a purchase from Expedia and you earn ThankYou points, regardless of how you pay. If you were not enrolled in the ThankYou program from Citi, you can enroll in it through Expedia. It is not required that you hold a Citi card in order to have a ThankYou account; you can earn points and get rewards strictly from your Expedia purchases.

However, if you are a Citi credit card customer, you can earn points from your card purchases AND earn points for purchases at Expedia. Further, if you pay with your Citi card at Expedia, you’ll earn double points—points from Expedia for the purchase, and points from Citi for using their card. And all of those points go into a single account, which allows you to earn points faster.

According to Citi, there are over ten million people currently enrolled in the ThankYou rewards proram. See Citi Credit Cards for information on credit cards offering ThankYou points.