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At a glance
- Best for: Everyday Earning
- Annual Fee: $95
- APR: 20.49%- 28.49% (Variable)
- Reward Rate: 1X-10X
- Recommended Credit: 670-850
Citi Strata Premier℠ Card
75,000 Bonus Points
Offer Details:
75,000 Bonus Points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in your first 3 months of account opening - redeemable for $750 in gift cards or travel rewards at thankyou.com
Why we like it
The Citi Strata Premier Card is an underrated travel credit card that offers both high points-earning potential and simplicity. While the mid-tier card doesn’t come with any premium benefits, its earning on popular spending categories is almost unmatched. Holders earn 3X points on air travel, hotels, gas stations, supermarkets, and restaurants, making it ludicrously easy to accrue points. Throw in the healthy 75,000-point bonus and you’ve got a great haul of rewards on your hands.
Reward details
10 points per $1 spent on Hotels, Car Rentals, and Attractions booked on CitiTravel.com.
3 points per $1 on Air Travel and Other Hotel Purchases, at Restaurants, Supermarkets, Gas, and EV Charging Stations.
1 Point per $1 spent on all other purchases
Pros & Cons
Pros
The 75,000-point intro bonus is worth $750 in gift cards and well over $1,000 when transferred to travel partners, making the $95 dollar annual fee an afterthought. You could ignore the card for a decade, and it would still be worth it.
Its earning potential is phenomenal: Earning 3X points on categories like gas and supermarkets, which are part of the average American’s biggest expenses, means the Citi Strata Premier will work hard for you on a daily basis.
Cardholders get a $100 hotel benefit each year on a hotel purchase of $500 or more. Not the greatest perk in the world, but a nice saving on an unexpected hotel stay that wipes out the yearly fee itself.
As it’s a World Elite Mastercard, cardholders will enjoy varied benefits like Lyft credits, upgrades and breakfast at select hotels, and cell phone protection.
Cons
Citi’s transfer partners are mainly foreign airlines, so using the points on US-based carriers will require some extra research.
Other mid-tier cards may offer some more interesting perks.
Overview
There’s underrated.
And then there’s the Citi Strata Premier Card.
To quell any confusion, the Citi Strata is the Citi Premier card. The company rebranded the product in May 2024, with any Citi Premier cardholders being automatically adopted into the new Strata setup.
Very little has changed besides a few extra earning categories and some new travel protections. It is important to remember, however, that if you earned the Citi Premier’s bonus in the last 48 months, you won’t be eligible for the Strata’s bonus. You can still use the Citi Premier card if you have one, but it will now operate under the new rules of the Strata.
And with its current limited-time elevated introductory offer of 75,000 points, there’s never been a better time to pounce.
Let’s take a look at the Citi Strata Premier Card.
Who is the Citi Strata Premier Card best for:
This card is great for anyone. Its a high-value card with no frills. And it delivers. The Strata trumps its competitors on day-to-day earnings while keeping its annual fee remarkably low. Sure, there are no perks to distract you, but that’s not why you’re opening this card. It’s an earning machine.
The Bottom Line:
The Citi Strata Premier Card remains one of the most underrated cards on the market thanks to its low annual fee, excellent earning potential, and impressive introductory offer.
Intro Bonus
The Strata is currently running an elevated introductory offer of 75,000 ThankYou points. To earn the bonus, you’ll need to spend $4,000 within three months of opening the account. This amounts to an average spend of $1,333 a month—a fairly achievable goal for the majority of credit card users.
While the card and its bonus are immensely valuable, critics will argue ThankYou points are worth less than their equivalents with Chase, Capital One, or Amex. While it may be true in some cases, Citi still has some excellent airline and hotel transfer partners, making it simple to squeeze more than $1,300 out of that intro bonus. In short, it’s not a bonus to ignore.
As mentioned above, cardholders who opened and earned the Citi Premier bonus in the last 48 months will not be eligible for the Strata’s bonus.
The 75,000-point offer has been floating around for several months but is still listed as a temporary offer. There’s no indication of when it will drop back to its typical 60,000-point offer, so keep this in mind if you’re on the fence.
Pros & Cons
As we mentioned before, this is a high-value card with no frills. But knowing the pros and cons can help you make smarter financial decisions. Let’s break down what makes this credit card useful.
Pros
- Low annual fee
- The 75,000-point intro bonus is worth $750 in gift cards and well over $1,000 when transferred to travel partners, making the $95 dollar annual fee an afterthought. You could ignore the card for a decade, and it would still be worth it.
- Its earning potential is phenomenal: Earning 3X points on categories like gas and supermarkets, which are part of the average American’s biggest expenses, means the Citi Strata Premier will work hard for you on a daily basis.
- Cardholders get a $100 hotel benefit each year on a hotel purchase of $500 or more. Not the greatest perk in the world, but a nice saving on an unexpected hotel stay that wipes out the yearly fee itself.
- As it’s a World Elite Mastercard, cardholders will enjoy varied benefits like Lyft credits, upgrades and breakfast at select hotels, and cell phone protection.
Cons
- Citi’s transfer partners are mainly foreign airlines, so using the points on US-based carriers will require some extra research.
- Other mid-tier cards may offer some more interesting perks.
Benefits & Perks
The Citi Strata Premier keeps its annual fee low by keeping the add-ons to a minimum. But it still has a few strong benefits that can help recoup the value of the fee.
$100 Annual Hotel Statement Credit
The most practical perk is the annual hotel statement credit. To earn it, cardholders need to spend $500 on a single stay in a hotel booked via the Citi Travel Portal. Obviously, that booking shouldn’t be forced, but if you know you’ll spend $500 on a hotel stay at some point during the year, it makes sense to book it through the portal.
That $100 saving cancels out the annual fee without minimal effort.
Other benefits
- World Elite Mastercard perks—this program flies under the radar but offers cardholders some nice add-ons like Lyft credits and on-property benefits at Mastercard luxury hotels. Cellphone protection and global emergency services are also included.
- Citi Entertainment—Similar to other issuers, Citi offers its cardholders special access to events like concerts and sporting events.
- No foreign transaction fees
- Travel coverage—trip cancellation and delay coverage, car rental coverage, and insurance on lost or damaged luggage
Earning rewards & redeeming points
Earning rewards
Points earning is where the Strata springs to life. This is a card built for maximizing everyday purchases by offering a wide range of high-spend-high-earning categories.
10x points per dollar on Citi Travel
The biggest earning category is for purchases on Citi’s own travel portal. While 10x points per dollar is a huge pull and much higher than its competitors, it’s a double-edged sword. By keeping hotels, car rentals, and tourist attractions on the portal, shopping around for the best price is impossible. Cardholders will get a big return but may pay more in the first place.
Including Citi Travel in your searches is a good way to compare rates. If it’s the best rate or super close, it might be worth it for the 10x points haul.
3x points per dollar on…a lot
The Strata awards 3x points per dollar on a number of high-spend categories. The breadth of coverage makes it a strong contender for a single-card set-up, but almost anyone can find huge value with this in their wallet.
Cardholders earn 3x points per dollar on:
- Air travel
- Hotels
- Gas stations
- EV charging
- Supermarkets
- Restaurants and takeout
Those categories have the capacity to cover virtually all of your daily spending, hence why it’s a good option for a one-card set-up. But for those with multiple cards in their wallet, the gas station’s inclusion will be a major highlight. There are only a handful of point-earning cards that allow you to earn this much on your gas.
You can earn 3x points per dollar at hotels. While not as strong as 10x when booked through Citi Travel, you can still earn 3x and find the best rate (likely not on Citi Travel).
Everything else earns 1x point per dollar.
Redeeming points
Of course, earning all those points is useless if you can’t redeem them for travel. Thankfully, Citi has a number of excellent travel partners allowing you to enjoy outsized value from your points. Here are all the ways you can use your ThankYou points.
Transfer to a travel partner
The best way to redeem your ThankYou points is to transfer them to one of Citi’s valuable travel partners. The card issuer currently has 14 airline partners and 4 hotel partners as follows.
- Aeromexico Club Premier
- Air France-KLM Flying Blue
- All-Accor Live Limitless
- Avianca Lifemiles
- Cathay Pacific
- Choice Privileges
- Emirates Skywards
- Etihad Airways Guest Miles
- EVA Air Infinity MileageLands
- JetBlue TrueBlue
- Leaders Club
- Qantas Frequent Flyer
- Qatar Airways Privilege Club
- Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer
- Thai Airways Royal Orchid Plus
- Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles
- Virgin Atlantic Flying Club
- Wyndham Rewards
Transferring to a high-value partner like KLM-Air France Flying Blue or Virgin Atlantic Flying Club is the best way to achieve maximum value. With Virgin’s new changes, it’s possible to redeem a Transatlantic flight for just 6,000 points. The card’s intro bonus alone would be large enough to redeem six round trips from New York to London.
Redeem on Citi Travel
If you’re willing to sacrifice high value for simplicity, you can redeem your points on the Citi Travel portal. ThankYou Points are valued at 1 cent each on the portal and are very easy to redeem.
Is this card right for you?
The Citi Strata Premier card makes a strong case for anyone serious about earning points. Those looking to use just one card will find its high-earning categories useful enough to pry them away from a flat-rate card like the Capital One Venture Rewards card, while those with a more structured wallet can take advantage of individual spending categories like 3x points per dollar at gas stations.
- Best for: Everyday Earning
- Annual Fee: $95
- APR: 20.49%- 28.49% (Variable)
- Reward Rate: 1X-10X
- Recommended Credit: 670-850
Citi Strata Premier℠ Card
75,000 Bonus Points
Offer Details:
75,000 Bonus Points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in your first 3 months of account opening - redeemable for $750 in gift cards or travel rewards at thankyou.com
Why we like it
The Citi Strata Premier Card is an underrated travel credit card that offers both high points-earning potential and simplicity. While the mid-tier card doesn’t come with any premium benefits, its earning on popular spending categories is almost unmatched. Holders earn 3X points on air travel, hotels, gas stations, supermarkets, and restaurants, making it ludicrously easy to accrue points. Throw in the healthy 75,000-point bonus and you’ve got a great haul of rewards on your hands.
Reward details
10 points per $1 spent on Hotels, Car Rentals, and Attractions booked on CitiTravel.com.
3 points per $1 on Air Travel and Other Hotel Purchases, at Restaurants, Supermarkets, Gas, and EV Charging Stations.
1 Point per $1 spent on all other purchases
Pros & Cons
Pros
The 75,000-point intro bonus is worth $750 in gift cards and well over $1,000 when transferred to travel partners, making the $95 dollar annual fee an afterthought. You could ignore the card for a decade, and it would still be worth it.
Its earning potential is phenomenal: Earning 3X points on categories like gas and supermarkets, which are part of the average American’s biggest expenses, means the Citi Strata Premier will work hard for you on a daily basis.
Cardholders get a $100 hotel benefit each year on a hotel purchase of $500 or more. Not the greatest perk in the world, but a nice saving on an unexpected hotel stay that wipes out the yearly fee itself.
As it’s a World Elite Mastercard, cardholders will enjoy varied benefits like Lyft credits, upgrades and breakfast at select hotels, and cell phone protection.
Cons
Citi’s transfer partners are mainly foreign airlines, so using the points on US-based carriers will require some extra research.
Other mid-tier cards may offer some more interesting perks.
by your friends at The Daily Navigator
