Citi Strata Premier℠ Card Benefits: 8 Reasons To Get This Card

The Citi Strata Premier℠ Card is a travel credit card suited for the semi-frequent, low-maintenance traveler. It has a generous welcome offer and rewards categories that offer strong earnings on both travel and common everyday expenses, such as hotels, car rentals, and attractions booked on CitiTravel.com.

The Strata Premier’s $95 annual fee makes it more accessible than some premium travel credit cards but also means cardholders miss out on high-end benefits like airport lounge access.

Even so, perks like travel insurance and the Strata Premier’s annual hotel benefit — which gets you $100 off a stay of $500+ booked through CitiTravel.com — make this a reasonably good card for booking and earning rewards toward travel.

Key takeaways

• The Citi Strata Premier earns Citi ThankYou Points, which can be redeemed in many different ways.
• The Citi Strata Premier has a $95 annual fee.
• Citi has over a dozen transfer partners, including Choice Privileges, JetBlue TrueBlue, and Virgin Atlantic Flying Club.
• The Citi Strata Premier has no foreign transaction fees.

Citi Strata Premier℠ Card benefits

The Citi Strata Premier is a solid mid-tier travel card. It comes with a welcome offer, offers a few benefits for the avid traveler, and earns rewards on spending, sometimes at elevated rates.

If you compare credit cards from other issuers like Chase, American Express, and Capital One, you’ll find that travel cards at similar fee levels are more or less equitable. Some may outpace the Strata Premier on benefits but come up short on earn rates; others may include better transfer partners but lack travel credits.

1. Welcome offer

As a new cardholder, you could, for a limited time, earn 75,000 bonus ThankYou® Points after spending $4,000 in the first 3 months of account opening, redeemable for $750 in gift cards or travel rewards at thankyou.com.

The Citi Strata Premier welcome bonus currently provides decent value, on par with similar travel cards. The spending requirement is also typical for a mid-level travel card.

Be sure to have a plan for responsibly meeting the minimum spend requirement in the allotted time before deciding to apply for this card. If you don’t have a good reason to put $4,000 on the card in the first 3 months, don’t spread your finances thin doing so.

2. Earning points

The Citi Strata Premier provides 10X points on hotels, car rentals, and attractions booked on CitiTravel.com; 3X points on air travel and other hotel purchases, at restaurants, supermarkets, gas and EV charging stations; and 1X points on all other purchases.

As a travel card, it’s not surprising that you can earn some bonus points on certain travel purchases. That 10X earn rate on hotels, car rentals, and attractions booked on CitiTravel.com is nice, for sure, but credit card travel portals don’t always offer the best deals. It’s often better to book directly with a travel provider, as you don’t have to go through the issuer as a middleman if you run into any issues.

So the fact that restaurants, supermarkets, gas, and EV charging share an elevated earn rate with general air travel and hotel spending outside Citi’s portal makes this card a strong choice for travel anyway, as you’d earn more on both direct travel bookings and some common everyday spending categories.

3. Redeeming points

As a Citi Strata Premier cardholder, you could redeem your Citi ThankYou Points for travel through Citi’s portal, as a points transfer to a partner loyalty program, as payment for a gift card on ThankYou.com, or at checkout with many online retailers in lieu of paying cash. You can also use Citi’s Pay With Points feature to redeem your ThankYou Points as a statement credit to cover eligible purchases, which is basically like paying yourself back.

In general, Citi ThankYou Points are worth at least 1 cent per point if redeemed for travel using the Citi Travel portal. The portal lets you book airfare, hotels, car rentals, cruises, and more.

If you choose to transfer your Citi points to hotel and airline partners, the redemption value can vary, but depending on the cash price of an award flight or hotel stay, it could be much higher than 1 cent per point.

4. Access to Citi transfer partners

The Citi ThankYou Points you earn on your Strata Premier can be transferred to Citi’s roster of 20 airline, hotel, and retail partners. Citi transfer partners include some big names in international and domestic air travel, increasing the appeal of this card for anyone who anticipates flying one of the issuer’s partner airlines with any frequency.

Transferring won’t always be the best use of your points, but the opportunity to squeeze a little more value out of each one through strategic transfers is certainly a mark in this card’s favor.

Points value for partner transfers

You’ll always want to do the math on whether a partner redemption gets you more value than redeeming directly through Citi’s portal or as a statement credit on eligible purchases. Divide the cash price of your prospective booking by the number of points required to redeem for that flight or hotel stay — this gets your value per point.

Then, you can compare that value with what you’d get per point by redeeming through Citi Travel (typically around 1 cent) or opting to cover the purchase via statement credit, if it qualifies.

For most transfer partners, you’ll get a 1:1 transfer ratio, meaning that for every 1,000 Citi points you transfer, you get 1,000 points or miles with the partner program. Some programs offer worse ratios — for instance, you only get 500 Accor Live Limitless points per 1,000 ThankYou Points — and some offer better. Transfer 1,000 ThankYou Points to Choice, and you’ll get 2,000 Choice Privileges points in return.

5. Hotel savings benefit

The Citi Strata Premier provides an annual hotel savings benefit of $100 off a single hotel stay of $500 or more (not including taxes and fees) each calendar year. You have to book through CitiTravel.com or call 1-833-737-1288 and pre-pay for the entire stay with your Citi Strata Premier Card, ThankYou Points, or a combination of the two to qualify for this perk.

The hotel savings benefit alone is enough to make up for the Strata Premier’s annual fee. If you know you’ll be booking at least one hotel stay per year that meets the requirements, do it through Citi Travel and the card pays for itself.

6. No foreign transaction fees

With the Citi Strata Premier, there are no foreign transaction fees. That means no worrying about paying extra on any transactions you make with a credit card while outside the country.

With some cards, you could be charged as much as 3% extra on every credit card transaction made while abroad. So if you were to spend $2,000 on your card outside the United States, you’d rack up $60 in foreign transaction fees as well. That’s not something you’d have to consider with the Strata Premier.

7. Citi Strata Premier℠ Card travel insurance

Cardholders who use their Strata Premier to book travel could be eligible for a range of travel protection benefits, including trip delay insurance, trip cancellation and interruption insurance, baggage insurance, and rental car coverage.

Citi doesn’t provide specific coverage levels until you’ve been approved for the card, so you might not want to go all in on the Strata Premier for the insurance alone. Besides, there are plenty of other cards — like the Chase Sapphire Preferred^® Card, for example — that provide robust travel insurance packages you can review before applying. And in some cases, you may be better off buying a separate travel insurance policy entirely.

Regardless, if you’re going to pay for a travel credit card, it may as well be one that comes with travel protections, so you could do worse than the Strata Premier.

8. Citi Entertainment

Citi card members can receive exclusive access to experiences and presale tickets through the Citi Entertainment program. That means you can use the Citi Strata Premier to buy tickets to concerts, sporting events, and other experiences before the general public.

FAQs

Bottom line

The Citi Strata Premier℠ Card(Rates and fees) is not a groundbreaking card, but it does offer a few benefits that make it a worthy addition to your wallet. If used optimally, the card’s welcome bonus, ongoing earning potential, and $100 annual hotel credit justify its annual fee.

While it lacks the premium perks of more expensive cards like the The Platinum Card^® from American Express ($695 annual fee) or Chase Sapphire Reserve^® ($550 annual fee), the Strata Premier’s relatively low price and overall utility for travel spending makes it one of our top travel card recommendations.

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Rates and fees

Current Offer

For a limited time, earn 75,000 bonus ThankYou® Points after spending $4,000 in the first 3 months of account opening, redeemable for $750 in gift cards or travel rewards at thankyou.com.

Annual Fee

$95

Rewards Rate

10X points on hotels, car rentals, and attractions booked on CitiTravel.com; 3X points on air travel and other hotel purchases, at restaurants, supermarkets, gas and EV charging stations; and 1X points on all other purchases

Benefits and Drawbacks

Benefits

• Exceptional rewards on travel booked through Citi Travel
• Offers opportunities to transfer points to travel partners at a 1:1 ratio
• Elevated rewards on everyday spending, like grocery shopping

Drawbacks

• Requires good-to-excellent credit to qualify
• You get the most rewards only by booking travel through Citi’s portal

Card Details

• For a limited time, earn 75,000 bonus ThankYou® Points after spending $4,000 in the first 3 months of account opening, redeemable for $750 in gift cards or travel rewards at thankyou.com.
• Earn 10 points per $1 spent on Hotels, Car Rentals, and Attractions booked on CitiTravel.com.
• Earn 3 points per $1 on Air Travel and Other Hotel Purchases, at Restaurants, Supermarkets, Gas and EV Charging Stations.
• Earn 1 Point per $1 spent on all other purchases.
• $100 Annual Hotel Benefit: Once per calendar year, enjoy $100 off a single hotel stay of $500 or more (excluding taxes and fees) when booked through CitiTravel.com. Benefit applied instantly at time of booking.
• No expiration and no limit to the amount of points you can earn with this card
• No Foreign Transaction Fees on purchases

Author Details

Ben Walker, CEPF, CFEI®

Ben Walker, CEPF, CFEI®, is credit cards specialist. For over a decade, he's leveraged credit card points and miles to travel the world. His expertise extends to other areas of personal finance — including loans, insurance, investing, and real estate — and you can find his insights on The Washington Post, Debt.com, Yahoo! Finance, and Fox Business.

Author Details

Steve Miller

Steve Miller is a Senior Editor at FinanceBuzz and has worked in the personal finance, legal, and academic publishing fields. He's researched and written about topics in credit cards, travel, and economics, in addition to covering subjects in the arts, humanities, and medicine. Steve is based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.