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The Citi Strata Premier® Card is a rare case: a card focused on travel rewards that still earns a high return on many everyday purchases. It could even be a single, do-it-all credit card for some frequent flyers. With an annual fee of $95, the Strata Premier delivers great value for its moderate cost, and since it doesn’t charge foreign transaction fees, it also makes for a great card to take abroad.
Here’s why we like the Citi Strata Premier and why it may be worthy of consideration for a spot in your wallet.
The Citi Strata Premier at a glance
The Citi Strata Premier stands out for its high return on everyday spending categories like gas, dining and supermarkets, as well as on airfare and hotels. Its earning structure is especially remarkable considering its $95 annual fee.
The card’s current welcome offer is 60,000 bonus Citi ThankYou® points after spending $4,000 in the first three months. Citi points are worth 1.9 cents apiece, according to The Points Guy, which makes the welcome offer equivalent to $1,140. That means the value of the welcome offer would offset the annual fee by a full 12 times in the first year of having this card.
Note that the welcome bonus is not available if you have received a new account bonus for a Citi Premier or Citi Strata Premier account in the past 48 months. You’re also ineligible if you have converted into a Strata Premier card or another Citi credit card account for which you earned a bonus in the last 48 months.
Pros
- Elevated earnings on many everyday expenses as well as travel.
- Some travel protections.
- Valuable transfer partners for Citi ThankYou points.
Cons
- No airport lounge access.
- Hotel credit applies only to bookings of more than $500.
Earning points with the Citi Strata Premier
The Strata Premier’s point-earning rates are among the most impressive of any travel rewards card. In fact, it also happens to be one of the best credit cards for groceries on the market. There are cards that earn more than the Strata Premier’s 3x points per dollar spent at supermarkets, but their bonus points in that category are capped at a certain amount of spending or don’t apply overseas. The Strata Premier instead earns 3x on all your supermarket purchases anywhere, with no annual cap.
Here’s how the Strata Premier earns points:
- 10x points per dollar spent on hotels, car rentals and attractions booked through Citi Travel.
- 3x points on air travel and hotels, dining, supermarkets, gas and EV charging.
- 1x on everything else.
That 10x rate on hotels, car rentals and some tourist attractions booked on Citi’s own portal is also exceptionally high. The downside of booking via a third party rather than directly is that you may forfeit collecting loyalty points and recognition of any elite status you may have with the provider. If you’re willing to overlook that, don’t have elite status or don’t care about it, then booking via Citi Travel using the Strata Premier will reward you richly.
The 3x earning categories — airfare, hotels booked directly, dining, supermarkets, and gas stations and EV charging — mean that the card is a very good all-rounder, with the potential to earn a lot of points on everyday expenses. That’s the reason the Citi Strata Premier can be attractive not only for frequent travelers.
Citi Strata Premier credits
The Strata Premier offers one credit that could offset the annual fee all by itself. Once per calendar year, you’ll receive $100 off a single hotel stay booked on the Citi Travel portal and costing $500 or more (excluding taxes and fees). This could prove useful on a family vacation or an extended stay. However, the need to book via Citi and to spend a considerable sum for one single stay may limit the credit’s usefulness for many people.
Citi Strata Premier benefits
The card’s top benefits are its travel protections. Those include the following:
- Trip cancellation and trip interruption insurance: This will pay a maximum of $5,000 per covered traveler per trip ($10,000 in total claim per 12 months) if your trip booked with the card is canceled or interrupted for a covered reason.
- Trip delay insurance: You’re covered for up to $500 in costs like lodging and meals incurred as a consequence of a delay of at least six hours.
- Lost baggage insurance: Pays a maximum of $3,000 (limited to the actual purchase price or cost to replace the item, whichever is smaller) if your luggage is lost by the carrier or stolen.
- Car rental insurance: This is a collision damage waiver, letting you decline the rental agency’s usually expensive insurance. Note that this is secondary to your personal auto insurance and does not cover liability.
- Purchase warranty extension: This benefit, not related to travel, doubles a manufacturer’s or store warranty by up to 24 months.
Using points from the Citi Strata Premier
Like all transferable credit card points, Citi ThankYou points earned with the Strata Premier can be used in a variety of ways. The easiest is to redeem them for gift cards, or for cash rewards via statement credit, direct deposit or check. You can also use them on the Citi Travel portal to book airfare, hotels, car rentals or some tourist attractions. All those options value the points at 1 cent each, so a $500 plane ticket would cost you 50,000 points, for example.
You can also shop with points, but that generally yields only 0.8 cents per point. Because of this poor value, we recommend not using credit card points to shop on Amazon, except for those earned with the Prime Visa card.
The way to extract higher value from Citi points is to transfer them at a 1:1 ratio to Citi’s 20 travel partners (15 airlines and five hotel chains) and use them for award flights or award stays. This way, it’s possible to redeem at a value higher than 2 cents per point. There are often promotions awarding at least a 20% bonus when transferring points to a partner, for instance.
Note that among the airline partners, there are only two domestic carriers, American and JetBlue, which could be an issue for people looking to fly another US airline. This may make other cards from American Express, Chase and Capital One rivals potentially more appealing to some travelers. For American Airlines loyalists, though, the Strata Premium is a great card, since Citi points are the only ones that transfer to American’s AAdvantage miles.
If you also have a Citi cash-back card like the Citi Double Cash® Card or Citi Custom Cash® Card, you can transfer the cash back earned from those to the Strata Premier and then transfer it to partners at 1:1. The rewards you earn on the Double Cash and Custom Cash would otherwise transfer to partners at a lower 1:0.7 ratio.
How we evaluate credit cards
According to CNN Underscored’s credit card methodology, we evaluate cards based on a variety of factors, gauging their utility for real-world users, not just card experts. The principal factors we consider are the following:
- Earning rate vs. redemption value: A high earning rate is valuable but only if the rewards are too. We balance both factors to assess a card’s overall value.
- Weighing fees against benefits: We compare annual fees to the tangible value of a card’s perks. Travel benefits, such as lounge access, statement credits and insurance protections, are weighed relative to a card’s annual cost.
- Welcome offer: A sizable welcome offer may make applying for a card worthwhile in itself but only if the spending target is reasonably attainable.
- Ease of redemption: We evaluate if rewards can be easily redeemed and if cards with transferable points have strong airline and hotel partners.
- Travel and purchase protections: Trip delay and interruption coverage, baggage protection and rental car insurance add significant value to travel-focused credit cards. Purchase protections like extended warranties and price protection can also make certain cards stand out.
- Interest rates and balance transfer offers: While we advise avoiding interest charges, we evaluate 0% APR introductory offers for consumers looking to manage debt strategically.
Who should get the Citi Strata Premier
The beauty of the Strata Premier is that it can function as a workhorse for people who just want elevated rewards on many spending categories or it can satisfy advanced users who are experienced in using travel rewards.
As a money editor focused on credit cards, I’m always looking for new cards to try out, and the Strata Premier is currently at the top of the list of cards I’m considering applying for next. Its most attractive feature is the ability to earn a relatively high 3x points per dollar at supermarkets and gas stations, including outside of the US, which I value as a frequent traveler. Most other travel rewards cards would earn a single point per dollar on those transactions abroad.
Having the Premier would also allow me to transfer the ThankYou points I earn with the excellent Citi Double Cash and Custom Cash cards to travel partners at a 1:1 ratio. This would open up the possibility of some great point redemptions for award travel.
But you don’t have to do any of those things to make the Strata Premier worth it for you. If you travel even moderately and want to earn a good chunk of points on many everyday purchases, this card could be for you.
Alternatives to the Citi Strata Premier
There are other mid-tier travel credit cards with the same $95 annual fee as the Citi Strata Premier and comparable benefits but with different earning structures and points ecosystems. Depending on what you spend on and what airlines or hotels you want to book, these could be more attractive for you. None of them charge foreign transaction fees.
Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
The Chase Sapphire Preferred offers a solid return on travel and dining purchases, and earns some of the most valuable points around. Like the Strata Premier, it’s a great choice for beginners getting started with travel rewards but still provides the flexibility to satisfy more experienced users. It’s also among our picks of the best credit cards.
Currently it has an introductory offer of 75,000 bonus Chase Ultimate Rewards® points after you spend $5,000 on purchases within the first three months from account opening.
You’ll earn 3 points per dollar spent on dining worldwide, 5x points on travel purchased through the Chase Travel℠ portal and, through September 2027, 5x points on Lyft. On all other travel purchases, you’ll earn 2x. A 3x earning rate also applies to select streaming services and online groceries (excluding Walmart, Target and wholesale clubs). On everything else, you’ll earn 1 point per dollar.
On each account anniversary, you’ll also earn bonus points equal to 10% of total purchases made the previous year.
Those points are valued up to 1.75 cents per point when redeemed in the Chase Travel portal and can be transferred to any of Chase’s 14 airline and hotel partners for even higher value.
The Chase Sapphire Preferred also has excellent travel and purchase protections, which are covered more extensively in our review of the card. Travel protections are especially attractive, with coverage of up to $10,000 per traveler and $20,000 per trip in the event your trip gets delayed or canceled, reimbursement for delayed or lost baggage and, most notably, primary rental car coverage. That differs from the Citi Strata Premier’s, which is secondary, meaning you have to look to your own auto policy first in the event of an accident.
You’ll also get a $50 credit each year on hotel stays purchased through Chase Travel, which can offset more than half the annual fee.
Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card
This card’s strong suit is a simple and robust earning structure. You’ll earn 5x Capital One miles on hotels, vacation rentals and rental cars booked through the Capital One Travel portal, and 2x miles on all other purchases. That’s a solid return on every single thing you buy.
Currently, the Capital One Venture Rewards is offering 75,000 bonus miles after spending $4,000 in the first three months.
While you won’t have access to airport lounges — something that none of the cards in this article offer — you’ll get travel and purchase protections, and an array of transfer partners. That helps make the Venture Rewards a good choice for people who want a simpler but still relatively powerful travel card.
Along with primary insurance coverage on car rentals, you get lost luggage reimbursement and trip delay reimbursement (up to $500 per person for delays of at least 12 hours), but no trip cancellation and interruption insurance.
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