Link: Apply now for the Citi Strata Elite℠ Card
The Citi Strata Elite℠ Card (review) is Citi’s new premium credit card. The card has a big welcome bonus — many people should be eligible for the product, and it’s a card that I recently applied for. There’s likely a particular interest in this card since Citi ThankYou points can be transfered to American AAdvantage.
The card has a $595 annual fee, but offers a variety of perks that can help justify that. These benefits include a $300 annual hotel credit, a $200 annual “Splurge Credit,” a $200 annual Blacklane credit, four annual Admirals Club passes, and more. In this post, I’d like to take a look at the details of the Priority Pass membership that’s offered by the card.
What are the restrictions associated with this benefit, how complicated is it to use, and how much should we value this perk? Let’s go over all the details…
In this post:
Details of the Citi Strata Elite Card Priority Pass membership
The Citi Strata Elite Card offers a Priority Pass membership for both the primary cardmember and authorized users. As you’d expect, there are some terms to be aware of:
- The Priority Pass membership is valid for both the primary cardmember and authorized users; authorized users can be added to the card for $75 each
- The Priority Pass membership is the “Select” version, which includes access to lounges, but not credits at restaurants, cafes, or markets, in the network
- The Priority Pass membership includes the ability to take in two guests on a complimentary basis, while additional guests will cost $35 per guest, per visit; note that some lounges may have guesting restrictions below that limit
- You can actually access Priority Pass lounges directly with your Citi Strata Elite Card, so there’s no need to have a Priority Pass membership card; however, you can register for a digital card at this link
- Some lounges may have capacity controls due to crowding, so lounge access is always subject to availability
How to register for Citi Strata Elite Card Priority Pass
Once you’ve registered for the Citi Strata Elite Card, how do you activate your Priority Pass membership? As mentioned above, you don’t actually have to activate your membership, which is pretty awesome. You can directly use your card to access Priority Pass lounges.
Now, if you’d like a digital Priority Pass membership card, then you can register at this link. That process is also easy, as you just have to enter your payment card number, and then you’ll be able to activate that membership online.
Valuing the Citi Strata Elite Card Priority Pass membership
Priority Pass lounges generally aren’t amazing. They’re typically on the basic side, though some lounge access is better than no lounge access. Furthermore, the further from the United States you get, the more value you’ll likely get from these lounges (in terms of comfort, food and drinks, lack of crowding, etc.).
The challenge in coming up with a valuation for the Priority Pass membership offered on the Citi Strata Elite Card is that so many premium credit cards offer Priority Pass memberships nowadays. So once you have one Priority Pass membership, the value of an incremental membership is pretty low.
With that in mind, a few thoughts:
- It’s convenient how you can just use the Citi Strata Elite as your Priority Pass membership, rather than having to take along an extra card
- The Citi Strata Elite charges $75 per authorized user, so among cards open to new applicants, it’s one of the best in terms of being able to give people Priority Pass memberships at a reasonable cost
- The downside to the Citi Strata Elite in comparison to competing cards is that Citi doesn’t have its own lounge network (at least not yet), unlike Amex Centurion Lounges, Capital One Lounges, and Chase Sapphire Lounges; however, the card does offer four Admirals Club passes per year
Bottom line
The Citi Strata Elite Card offers several valuable benefits, and among those is a Priority Pass membership. This is valid both for the primary cardmember and any authorized users, so that’s potentially a good deal, given that authorized users can be added for $75 each.
The cool thing to note is that you don’t actually need to request a Priority Pass card to access these lounges, but instead, you can just directly present your credit card.
What’s your take on the Citi Strata Elite Card Priority Pass membership?
i wouldnt rely on this "quirk". Make your life easier by just downloading the PP QR code into your iphone wallet. Especially overseas, i'm sure there could be confusion with staff trying to understand access should be automatically given by just showing the Citi Strata card.
These daily sales pitch posts for the Strata card is getting a bit much...
Capital One Venture X card also can be used directly to enter Priority Pass lounges.
Thanks for the tip.
One big challenge with Priority Pass is its geographic footprint in the United States. And, often PP lounges that are available are actual airline lounges with time-of-day restrictions. In spite of this, some people get a great deal of use and value from PP. But, you're right, if a person has more than one premium travel card, one assigns zero incremental value to PP.
Another Citi article. Alaska’s new credit cards coming shortly are much better.
@ Jacob -- Yes, I'm covering all the details of a newly launched card. And I look forward to writing about Alaska's new cards once they're officially released. :-)
Some articles appeal to some readers and not others. There are some readers who are interested in these particular articles. Are you suggesting that Ben not publish such articles because YOU don't want to read it? Are you suggesting that because YOU don't want to read it, no one else could possibly want to read it? Are you not able to skip such articles and only read those that interest YOU? You seem quite self-centered.