Citi Strata Premier℠ Card review: An ideal fit for occasional travelers?

The Citi Strata Premier is a terrific option for anyone looking to earn travel rewards on everyday spending. It can work as either a standalone rewards card or as the centerpiece of a Citi card stack. And though the card carries a modest annual fee ($95), its cost can easily be offset via its ongoing rewards, annual hotel benefit and — for the first few years — its generous welcome offer.

Rewards: A great mix for occasional travelers

The Citi Strata Premier boasts a terrific mix of everyday bonus categories on top of its solid rewards on travel purchases. 

In the travel category, you’ll earn 10X points on hotels, car rentals and attractions booked through CitiTravel.com and 3X points on air travel and other hotel purchases. This is a decent travel rewards rate for a mid-tier card, with its 10X and 3X rates beating out the travel rewards rates on some competing cards like the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card (5X miles on hotels and rental cars booked through Capital One Travel, 2X miles on everything else). 

Where the card shines most, though, is with its everyday rewards potential. In addition to 3X points on air travel, you’ll earn 3X points on restaurant, supermarket, and gas and EV charging station purchases. That’s not only a solid everyday rewards rate for a card in the $95-per-year range, but also an exceptional mix of popular everyday categories. 

Few travel cards offer the same high rewards rate in all three of these everyday categories. As I noted in my piece on the Robinhood Gold card, credit card rewards tend to follow the “You can only pick two,” rule, but instead of “Good,” “Cheap” and “Fast,” you have “Groceries,” “Restaurants” and “Gas.”

If you want to earn travel points, but don’t actually spend much on travel, this rewards rate and mix of categories may make the Citi Strata Premier a more lucrative standalone option than many competing travel cards.

For example, if you spend about $2,000 per year on air travel, $5,000 per year on groceries, $3,600 per year on dining, $2,400 per year on gas and $8,000 on general purchases, the Citi Strata Premier will offer more value than the popular Capital One Venture card.

One exception to keep in mind: The Chase Sapphire Preferred® comes out on top in this example even with a relatively low travel spend. However, you’ll need to book travel through Chase, redeem points for travel via Chase and purchase all your groceries online. 

As you can see, depending on your spending habits, the Citi Strata Premier can be one of the most lucrative standalone travel rewards cards available.

Welcome offer: One of the best Citi travel card sign-up bonuses to date

The Citi Strata Premier card has debuted with an impressive welcome offer: If you apply via Bankrate, you can earn 70,000 bonus ThankYou® Points after you spend $4,000 in your first three months as a cardholder. That’s worth $700 in gift cards or travel rewards at thankyou.com. Your bonus could be even higher if you apply via the issuer’s website.

Based on Bankrate’s latest travel point and mile valuations, which give Citi ThankYou points an average value of 1.6 cents per point based on its transfer partners, we estimate a 70,000-point bonus could be worth around $1,120 in travel.

While this offer isn’t a giant step up from the now-discontinued Citi Premier® Card’s final bonus (60,000 points with the same spending requirement), it’s still solid for a mid-tier travel card. 

We also haven’t seen a bonus of 70,000 points or more since this time last year, when the Citi Premier offered a 75,000-point bonus for the same spend. This makes now a good time to apply, especially if you anticipate a lot of spending in the next few months. Plus, the bonus holds enough value to offset the annual fee for at least your first seven years as a cardholder based on its baseline redemption value.

Rates and fees: Annual perk value outweighs annual fee

Like most mid-tier travel cards, the Citi Strata Premier doesn’t carry luxury perks like airport lounge access or flight credits (typically, you’ll have to get a card with a higher annual fee for those benefits). However, the card’s biggest perk holds enough value to completely offset the $95 annual fee on its own.

Once per calendar year, you can get $100 off a single hotel stay of $500 or more (excluding taxes and fees) when you book through CitiTravel.com. This benefit is applied instantly when you book, so you won’t face any runaround to get your discount. 

Assuming you typically book at least one hotel stay of $500 or more each year, this is a terrific value, essentially making the card free to hold. Competing cards also offer airline or hotel credits or discounts, but these are typically less valuable than the annual hotel benefit available with the Citi Strata Premier. 

For example, the Chase Sapphire Preferred only offers ​​up to $50 in annual statement credits toward hotel stays through the Chase Travel℠ portal, and the new Wells Fargo Autograph Journey℠ Card only carries a $50 annual statement credit for airline purchases (toward a $50 minimum airline purchase). Meanwhile, the Capital One Venture card doesn’t offer any credits or discounts for airfare or hotel bookings.

Though the Citi Strata Premier is a great option for occasional travelers who want to earn rewards on everyday spending, it may fall short if you spend a lot on travel or are looking to maximize your point value. A few competing cards not only carry a higher travel rewards rate with the same annual fee, but also higher-value points, additional transfer partners and other valuable perks.

Perks: Not the most practical

The Citi Strata Premier card’s main perk is its annual hotel benefit, which can get you a $100 discount on a single hotel booking of $500 or more (minus taxes and fees). However, this benefit trades value for flexibility. 

While the credits on competing cards might carry less value, they could be easier to take advantage of for some cardholders.

The Sapphire Preferred card’s hotel perk and the Autograph Journey Card’s airline credit each only require a $50 spend (the Sapphire Preferred card offers up to $50 in annual statement credits toward hotel stays through Chase Travel and the Wells Fargo Autograph Journey℠ Card offers $50 annual statement credit for airline purchases with a $50 minimum airline purchase). With the Citi Strata Premier Card you not only need to spend at least $500, but also spend $500 on a single hotel booking. If you don’t meet that requirement, you won’t get any discount. This means the perk could be of little use if you tend to book short stays or budget hotels.

And while the Capital One Venture card doesn’t offer any credits or discounts for airfare or hotel bookings, it comes with an up to $100 application fee credit for Global Entry or TSA PreCheck. That’s the same potential value for what may be a more useful perk if you fly but rarely stay in hotels.

The Citi Strata Premier also offers little in the way of everyday perks — it doesn’t come with an intro APR offer or any credits for dining, rideshares and streaming. A few other mid-tier travel and even some no- or low-annual-fee cash back cards beat the CIti Strata Premier in this area. 

For example, the Blue Cash Everyday® Card from American Express gets you $7 back each month when you spend $9.99 or more on an eligible subscription to the Disney Bundle (enrollment required; subject to auto-renewal). That’s potentially $84 in annual value. Meanwhile, the Chase Sapphire Preferred offers at least 12 months of complimentary DashPass if you activate the membership with your card by the end of 2024 (almost $120 in potential savings).

Redemption: Low point value and limited transfer partners

If you try to squeeze every bit of value out of your travel rewards with strategic redemptions and point transfers, the Citi Strata Premier Card may not be your best option. 

While the card does boast a solid list of travel partners, including airlines like JetBlue and hotel brands like Wyndham and Choice Privileges, we estimate that Citi’s transfer partners will net you less redemption value on average than those of issuers like Chase and American Express. 

If you book travel with Citi, your ThankYou points are worth 1 cent each; based on an average of its five highest-value transfer partners, we estimate your points are worth around 1.6 cents each.

Compare this with Chase Sapphire Preferred points, which are worth at least 1.25 cents per point if you redeem via Chase Travel and, based on Bankrate’s estimates, around 2.0 cents per point with the right transfer partner. Amex also wins here, boasting an estimated point value of around 2.0 cents per point with the right partner.

Depending on your spending habits and rewards goals, the Citi Strata Premier Card may not be your best option, particularly if you spend heavily on travel or already have cards that earn rewards on staples like groceries, gas and dining. A few competing travel cards also offer more flexible perks and higher point value. 

The Citi Strata Premier can be a great option if you’re building a rewards card stack. By using the card alongside the Citi Double Cash, Citi Custom Cash or both, you can maximize your earnings in nearly every key spending category.

Definitely. The Citi Strata Premier is easily worth it for the right cardholder — someone who may not spend a ton on travel but still wants to earn travel rewards on everyday purchases like dining, groceries and gas without juggling a ton of cards. 

While the Citi Strata Premier doesn’t carry the highest travel rewards rate out there, its generous everyday rewards rate means it can be more rewarding for occasional travelers than many mid-tier travel cards. Plus, the card’s annual hotel benefit should offer more than enough value to offset the annual fee. 

However, if you’re looking to maximize rewards on travel spending and boost your point redemption value via an issuer portal or transfer to travel partners, another card may be a better fit.

We rate credit cards using a proprietary card scoring system that ranks each card’s estimated average rewards rate, estimated annual earnings, welcome bonus value, APR, fees, perks and more against those of other cards in its primary category.

Each card feature is assigned a weighting based on how important it is to people looking for a card in a given category. These features are then scored based on how they rank relative to the features on other cards in the category. Based on these calculations, each card receives an overall rating of 1-5 stars (with 5 being the highest possible score and 1 being the lowest). 

We analyzed over 150 of the most popular rewards and cash back cards to determine where each stacked up based on their value, cost, benefits and more. Here are some of the key factors that influenced this card’s overall score and how the score influenced our review: