Link: Learn more about the Citi Strata Elite℠ Card and Citi Strata Premier® Card
Citi is putting a lot of effort into its travel credit card portfolio recently. In particular, we’ve seen the Citi ThankYou ecosystem invigorated a bit, thanks to American AAdvantage being added as a transfer partner.
If you’re looking to earn Citi ThankYou points, you should have either the Citi Strata Elite℠ Card (review) or Citi Strata Premier® Card (review), at a minimum. In this post, I’d like to compare the two cards a bit, and talk about the best strategy to take when deciding between these two products.
In this post:
Basics of the Citi Strata Elite & Citi Strata Premier
To start, let’s cover the very basics of the two premium Citi ThankYou cards that can unlock the full value of the points currency.
The Citi Strata Elite Card has a $595 annual fee (discounted by $145 if you have a Citigold account), and there are lots of reasons to consider applying for this card:
- The card offers useful bonus categories, including 12x points on hotels, rental cars, and attractions booked through Citi Travel, 6x points on air travel booked through Citi Travel, 6x points on Citi Nights dining, 3x points on restaurants, and 1.5x points on everyday spending
- The card offers a variety of credits that can help add value, including a $300 annual hotel credit, a $200 annual “Splurge Credit,” and a $200 annual Blacklane credit
- The card offers some lounge access perks, including four annual Admirals Club passes and a Priority Pass membership
The Citi Strata Premier Card has a $95 annual fee, and there are also several reasons to consider applying for this card:
- The card offers incredible bonus categories, including 10x ThankYou points on hotels, rental cars, and attractions booked through Citi Travel, and 3x points on dining, gas stations and EV charging, supermarkets, airfare, and hotels
- The card offers a $100 annual hotel credit, which can help justify the annual fee
One important thing to understand is that eligibility for the two cards is considered independently, so you can actually apply for both cards, be approved, and even earn the welcome bonuses. Given the big welcome bonuses the cards are offering, there’s a lot of merit to picking up both cards.
Why you want a “premium” Citi ThankYou card
Beyond the direct value proposition of the Citi Strata Elite Card and Citi Strata Premier Card, there’s another reason you’ll want to have at least one of these two cards.
In particular, it’s because having one of those cards unlocks the full value of the no annual fee Citi Double Cash® Card (review), which is one of the best cards for everyday, non-bonused spending.
The Citi Double Cash Card offers 1x points when you make a purchase, and 1x points when you pay for that purchase. While each point earned on the Citi Double Cash Card can be redeemed for one cent, in conjunction with either the Citi Strata Elite Card or Citi Strata Premier Card, you can also transfer points to Citi ThankYou airline and hotel partners at the best possible ratio.
That basically makes this a card earning 2x points per dollar spent, and those points can be even be transfered to American AAdvantage, if you have the right card combination. I’d consider that to be incredibly lucrative, personally.
My take on the value proposition of the two cards
While the Citi Strata Elite Card and Citi Strata Premier Card are the two premium cards earning ThankYou points that are easiest to maximize, the value propositions of the two cards are quite different, as I see it. How so?
Well, I think the Citi Strata Elite Card is a card you get primarily for the perks, and the product has a particularly strong first year value. That’s because many of the card’s benefits are awarded per calendar year rather than per cardmember year, so it’s hard not to come out ahead.
So between the credits and lounge access, I think a lot of people find the card to be worthwhile. When it comes to actually spending on the card, I’d say that’s more of a mixed bag:
- Earning 6x points on dining on Citi Nights is great, but it’s the only bonus category on the card that really gets me excited
- While it’s nice that the card earns 1.5x points on everyday spending, I’d rather earn a total of 2x points on spending (1x points after making a purchase, and 1x points after paying for that purchase) by also picking up the no annual fee Citi Double Cash Card
The Citi Strata Premier Card, meanwhile, is a card that you primarily get for the rewards structure. I don’t think there’s a mid-range credit card with more well rounded bonus categories, as earning 3x points in so many widely useful categories is hard to beat. There’s not much to the card beyond that, other than the $100 hotel credit potentially offsetting the card’s annual fee.
The point is, in some ways I almost view the decision of whether to get the Citi Strata Elite Card and/or Citi Strata Premier Card independently. If you can make the math work on the perks of the Citi Strata Elite Card, then go with that card. If you can maximize the rewards structure of the Citi Strata Premier Card, then go with that.
For some people, there could be merit to getting both cards, to take advantage of the sign-up bonuses, perks, and return on spending. And ideally also have one of these cards in conjunction with the Citi Double Cash Card, so that you can maximize your return on everyday spending.
Bottom line
The Citi Strata Elite Card and Citi Strata Premier Card are the two premium cards that are open to new applicants and unlock the full value of the ThankYou ecosystem. Furthermore, both cards let you get full value out of the Citi Double Cash Card, which is a product that’s worth having.
To me, the decision of which of the two cards is a better option comes down to what kind of consumer you are. If you’re looking for a premium card with strong perks and are willing to pay the annual fee, the Citi Strata Elite Card is worth giving a try. In particular, the card has a big welcome bonus and strong first year value proposition. Meanwhile if you’re looking for a mid-range card with a great rewards structure, it’s tough to beat the Citi Strata Premier Card.
Given that eligibility for the two cards isn’t mutually exclusive, there’s potentially merit to giving both cards a try, and seeing how they work out for you.
What’s your take on the value proposition of the Citi Strata Elite vs. Citi Strata Premier, and which do you consider to be more valuable?
The Strata Premier $100 hotel credit, makes the card FREE. It's insanely easy to use and credits at time of booking, unlike the Sapphire Preferred where you have to wait. And you get 10x points on the remainder of your hotel reservation cost.
The only issue is that Citi's travel portal basically adds a surcharge to those bookings, which, in some cases, makes the stays significantly more expensive than booking directly. So, I think Premier is great for the first year, SUB, but Elite may be more of a keeper card, if you can effectively use all its credits to offset that fee, because, if so, I think, that one ends up far ahead.
If the point is to just unlock AA and other transfers at 1:1, a lot easier to do $100 off $500 on a one night stay and take the 10x points. May be inflated by a few bucks but not by $100 and will get some points to compensate (Citi also giving you $5 for the inflation to start with as $95-$100=$-5).
Just so much easier than the Elite hoops - you run into...
If the point is to just unlock AA and other transfers at 1:1, a lot easier to do $100 off $500 on a one night stay and take the 10x points. May be inflated by a few bucks but not by $100 and will get some points to compensate (Citi also giving you $5 for the inflation to start with as $95-$100=$-5).
Just so much easier than the Elite hoops - you run into the same problem anyway with the $300 off 2 nights. If you were getting more than 6x dining on weekend nights, fine, otherwise what’s the “point”?
Not inflated on the last hotel booking I just did in Boston. No surcharge.
I had the Strata Premier for a year to earn the SUB, then downgraded to Strata no-fee, which has the unique 3x category for barbers/hair salons. In order to make the Premier a 'keeper' card, you'd need to at least use the $100/year on Citi's travel portal, which can be a bit tedious.
I opened the the Strata Elite earlier this year, and have already used its various credits ($100 credit on Blacklane was...
I had the Strata Premier for a year to earn the SUB, then downgraded to Strata no-fee, which has the unique 3x category for barbers/hair salons. In order to make the Premier a 'keeper' card, you'd need to at least use the $100/year on Citi's travel portal, which can be a bit tedious.
I opened the the Strata Elite earlier this year, and have already used its various credits ($100 credit on Blacklane was actually pretty good in NYC; $200 Splurge for AA gift cards is a quick 'win,' too, and the $300 hotel credits, again, a little tedious, but, it works; I prefer the Amex Platinum $300 FHR 1 night credit, personally). And I've been using the Citi Nights 6x for drinks/dinners on Fridays and Saturdays (after all my Resy stuff from Amex got used up). So, I'm actually warming up to keeping the Strata Elite, honestly.
Oh, and the Admirals Club passes are worthless to me. Got the Citi AA Exec card already, so... but who knows, maybe that's a 'deal-maker' for some of y'all...
First I think this was a pretty fair and balanced article outlining the pros and cons of each card.
I agree with Ben that the only thing that’s valuable about Elite spending is a 6x dining bonus for 24 out of 168 hours of the week. The question is how many extra points you have to get a year to justify jumping through the coupon hoops in a world where there are better cards...
First I think this was a pretty fair and balanced article outlining the pros and cons of each card.
I agree with Ben that the only thing that’s valuable about Elite spending is a 6x dining bonus for 24 out of 168 hours of the week. The question is how many extra points you have to get a year to justify jumping through the coupon hoops in a world where there are better cards with coupons to hold. And most people don’t want more than one coupon card. So if you spend $1k a month on Fri and Sat nights that’s an extra 36k points compared to a 3x dining card. Not bad! What if you only spend $500 a month? Then just get a custom cash card and get 5x points instead of 6x. 12k points extra vs 18k. Just not worth the hoops for 6k points extra.
Look, Citi completely bungled the Elite launch, and the WSJ article was mortifying. If you are a HNWI, unless you are playing the game, you probably already have an Amex Plat or a CSR and the Elite offers nothing that folks don’t already have other than a handful of AA club passes - nothing to get off the couch for.
Meanwhile the Premier together with a doublecash (and a regular Strata for transit and haircuts!) has to be the best spending card comboout there right now. What beats it? Maybe C1VX/Savor? Certainly not CSR/FUn anymore. Citi has a winner if it wants card spend and should be promoting that. Too bad they really wanted to convert their HNWI into Elite cardholders and are falling flat on their face.