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CNB City National Rewards Points Now Worth 1.35 Cents Per Point (CPP) Toward Flights, Hotels, Rental Cars & Activities

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Updated at 2:40pm PT on 12/12: Frequent Miler noticed that flights listed on the CNB City National Rewards site are more expensive than the same flights listed on Google Flights.  I checked a few flights and can confirm that CNB flights are $16-$20 more expensive than booking flights directly.  This is very disappointing news :(


Good afternoon everyone.  A few weeks ago, I was approved for the CNB City National Crystal Visa Infinite Credit Card.  When I applied for the credit card in branch, there was a promotion running for 75,000 CNB City National Rewards Points after spending $5,000 in 3 months.  I met the spend requirements quickly, but the bonus points are slow to post.  I will write a new blog post when the sign up bonus posts, so you know when to expect the bonus points to post to your account.

While I was browsing the CNB City National Rewards site, I decided to check out the travel portal and see how many points were required to book trips.  I did a few dummy searches and crunched the numbers.  Every time I did the calculations, I found out that CNB City National Rewards Points were worth 1.35 cents per point (CPP).  This was surprising since Doctor of Credit said that points were worth about 1.00 CPP.  I did some more research and Frequent Miler said points were worth up to 1.25 CPP.  I double checked my math and was still getting 1.35 CPP on all flights.  I wanted to see if the same 1.35 CPP applied to other aspects of the travel portal, including hotels, rental cars, and activities.  Here is what I found out…

a screenshot of a flight schedule

When I did dummy hotel bookings, I was still getting 1.35 CPP for hotel redemptions.

a screenshot of a hotel search

When I did dummy rental car bookings, I was still getting 1.35 CPP for rental car redemptions.

a screenshot of a car sales

Lastly, when I did dummy activity bookings, I was still getting 1.35 CPP for activity redemptions.

a screenshot of a website

It looks like I can conclusively say that sometime in the last few months, CNB City National Rewards Points increased in value to 1.35 CPP for all travel redemptions.  This is great news since I plan on redeeming my CNB City National Rewards Points for airfare and appreciate a higher redemption value.  Maybe they will add transferrable point options like Capital One did, who knows.  If you have any questions, please leave a comment below.  Have a great day everyone!


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11 thoughts on “CNB City National Rewards Points Now Worth 1.35 Cents Per Point (CPP) Toward Flights, Hotels, Rental Cars & Activities

  1. Dan

    CNB pricing is inflated. For airline tickets, they build-in into price the fee of $25 per ticket online (or $35 if booked over the phone).

    I did flight booking a week ago – United had ticket for $382, but CNB was listing it for $407. I paid 30,200 points (that came to 1.35 cents per point – based on CNB price of $407).
    However, if you use price available everywhere else ($382), cost per point becomes 1.265.

    Same for hotels – their prices are much higher than on Expedia, etc. Citi’s ThankYou portal actually was showing same hotel prices as CNB did – both are using the same provider.

    Reply
  2. Miles

    I have a CNB and have used the points for flights. The flights were priced the same as a couple other sources when I checked, but the value only worked out to about 1.14 cpp.

    Reply
  3. C

    How long did it take for your travel credit to post? I got an AA e-gift card and it took about 4 days but my authorized users haven’t post yet. It’s been over a week. Also does each authorize user get the Global Entry credit?

    Reply
    1. Grant Post author

      It is hard to say since I paid $14.20 in taxes for an Alaska Airlines flight. The purchase has a transaction date of 11/20 and a post date of 11/26. My “Travel Fee Rebate” has a transaction date of 11/25 and a post date of 11/28. If you take the most conservative dates (11/20-11/28), it looks like it takes 7-9 days between purchase and statement credit.

      Reply
  4. Steve

    I recently got the CNB card and I have to say that this bank may have well have one of the worst IT setups I have ever seen. Worse that Citi. They have an inexplicably difficult process for getting registered into their online banking, the user interface for the credit card is bizarro, the length of time it takes for something to post is painful, the system has repeated down times, they keep demanding security questions to log in but refuse to accept my answers that are correct, their phone app is useless, and they seem to have 3 or more separate login portals for different aspects of their banking and rewards, all of which require their own registration process, and I can’t even get registered into the rewards portal. I’ve talked on the phone with them three times, and each time they tell me I have to talk to someone else, and they seem embarrassed by how bad their system is.

    Reply
    1. Grant Post author

      I agree with 99% of your comments. CNB seems to like me and allow me to log into both portals. For a high net worth focused bank, their IT is bottom of the barrel.

      Reply
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