Link: Learn more about the Citi Strata Premier® Card
There are lots of reasons to consider the $95 annual fee Citi Strata Premier® Card (review), including that the card offers a great welcome bonus. One particularly compelling aspect of the card is that it’s the mid-range credit card with the best bonus categories, in my opinion.
Compared to other mid-range credit cards, I’d say the single biggest advantage of the Citi Strata Premier Card is the superior bonus categories. In this post, I’d like to take a closer look at how those bonus categories work.
In this post:
Citi Strata Premier Card 3x ThankYou points bonus categories
What makes the Citi Strata Premier Card lucrative long-term is that it offers 3x points in five different categories. The Citi Strata Premier offers 3x points on:
- Restaurants
- Gas stations & EV charging
- Supermarkets
- Airfare
- Hotels
How does Citi define each of these categories? In other words, specifically, which kinds of purchases qualify, and which don’t? Let’s go over each category below. I’d also like to mention that the card is ideal for purchases abroad, given that:
- The Citi Strata Premier has no foreign transaction fees
- The Citi Strata Premier bonus categories apply globally, rather than being US-centric
3x points on dining & restaurants
The Citi Strata Premier offers 3x points on dining and restaurant purchases, which generally include cafes, bars, lounges, fast food restaurants, takeout, and delivery.
You generally won’t earn bonus points for purchases made at bakeries, caterers, and restaurants in other establishments (like hotels, department stores, grocery stores, discount stores, convenience stores, and warehouse clubs).
That makes the Citi Strata Premier one of the best cards for dining and restaurant purchases.
3x points on gas stations & EV charging
The Citi Strata Premier offers 3x points on gas station and EV charging purchases. The gas station category typically includes gas and other gas station purchases, while the EV charging category includes most places where you can charge your car.
You generally won’t earn bonus points for gas and EV charging purchases at warehouse clubs, discount stores, department stores, convenience stores, or other merchants that aren’t classified as gas stations or EV charging.
That makes the Citi Strata Premier one of the best cards for gas station purchases.
3x points at supermarkets
The Citi Strata Premier offers 3x points at supermarkets and grocery stores.
You generally won’t earn bonus points for purchases made at general merchandise or discount stores, freezer or meat locker provisioners, dairy product stores, miscellaneous food and convenience stores, markets, drugstores, warehouse clubs, wholesale clubs, specialty vendors, bakeries, candy stores, nut stores, confectionary stories, and meal kit delivery services.
That makes the Citi Strata Premier one of the best cards for grocery and supermarket purchases.
3x points on airfare
The Citi Strata Premier offers 3x points on airfare. This includes all airfare purchased directly with airlines or through a travel agency. Not just ticket costs qualify, but generally, other fees associated with airline tickets as well.
That makes the Citi Strata Premier one of the best cards for airfare purchases.
3x points on hotels
The Citi Strata Premier offers 3x points on hotels. This includes hotels booked directly or through a travel agency. This also includes incidental purchases at hotels, and not just the room rate.
That makes the Citi Strata Premier one of the best cards for hotel purchases. Also keep in mind that the Citi Strata Premier offers a once annual $100 hotel credit, which can be applied toward a single hotel stay of $500+ when booking through the Citi Travel portal.
Citi Strata Premier Card 10x ThankYou points Citi Travel portal
In addition to the widely useful 3x points categories offered by the Citi Strata Premier Card, the card also offers 10x points on hotels, rental cars, and attractions, booked through the Citi Travel portal. Based on my valuation of points, that’s like a 17% return on that spending.
Now, it’s worth emphasizing that this won’t be for everyone. If you’re staying at a major hotel chain, you typically won’t earn points or receive elite perks on third party bookings. However, for someone who isn’t terribly brand loyal, or if you’re staying at an independent hotel, this could be very rewarding.
Maximize ThankYou points with Citi Double Cash Card
If you want to maximize the Citi ThankYou points you earn, you can’t beat having the Citi Strata Premier Card in conjunction with the no annual fee Citi Double Cash® Card (review). The card offers 2x points for everyday spending (1x points when you make a purchase, 1x points when you pay for a purchase), making it one of the best cards for non-bonused spending.
It’s tough to beat the combination of the Citi Strata Premier Card and Citi Double Cash Card, so that you can earn 2-3x points on all purchases. The points earned on the Citi Double Cash are also more valuable if you have the card in conjunction with the Citi Strata Premier, since that allows you to transfer all points to the ThankYou airline and hotel partners at the best ratio possible.
The only catch is that the Citi Double Cash has foreign transaction fees, so I’d only recommend using it for domestic purchases.
How do Citi Strata Elite Card bonus categories compare?
We recently saw the launch of the Citi Strata Elite℠ Card (review), which is Citi’s new $595 annual fee card. This card is also in the Citi ThankYou ecosystem, so I know many people may be trying to decide between this and the Citi Strata Premier Card.
For what it’s worth, the Citi Strata Elite Card arguably doesn’t have bonus categories that are quite as good, especially if you’re also willing to pick up the Citi Double Cash Card. Specifically, the card offers:
- 12x ThankYou points on hotels, rental cars, and attractions, booked through the Citi Travel portal
- 6x ThankYou points on air travel booked through the Citi Travel portal
- 6x ThankYou points on restaurants on Citi Nights purchases, on Fridays and Saturdays between 6PM and 6AM ET (regardless of where in the world you are)
- 3x ThankYou points per dollar spent at restaurants any other time
- 1.5x ThankYou points on all other eligible purchases
As you can see, the bonus categories generally aren’t as well rounded, especially if you take the Citi Travel portal bonus categories and the Citi Nights bonus out of the equation.
However, there are lots of other reasons to consider picking up this card, including a $300 annual hotel credit, a $200 annual “Splurge Credit,” a $200 annual Blacklane credit, four annual Admirals Club passes, a Priority Pass membership, and more. The card also has a particularly good first year value.
Bottom line
The Citi Strata Premier Card offers incredibly well-rounded bonus categories, as you can earn triple points on gas and EV charging, at supermarkets, restaurant, airfare, and hotel purchases. When you add it all together, you can easily average multiple points per dollar spent, making this one of the most compelling mid-range cards out there.
Hopefully the above sheds some light on how each bonus category is defined, since it can sometimes get confusing to figure out which purchases qualify for each bonus category.
The Citi Strata Premier Card can definitely be worth considering, and eligibility restrictions are fairly limited.
So this is my go to card for the 3x categories except airfare (AmEx)
With Venture X (2x) for everything else. Keep the other cards just for credit score length of credit (well 3 Chase free nights CC) or first year SUB
With Chase, Sapphire, reserve changing their points order for cruise bookings, what credit card do you recommend for frequent cruisers?
No reason to also not pick up the Citi Strata (Regular flavor) card to combine with Premier and DoubleCash. For an extra $0 you get 3x select transit and 3x a category of your choice.
Select transit includes car rentals, ferries, commuter railways, subways, taxis/limousines/car services, passenger railways, bridge and road tolls, parking lots/garages, bus lines, and motor home and recreational vehicle rentals.
Self select categories are: Fitness Clubs, Select Streaming Services, Live Entertainment,...
No reason to also not pick up the Citi Strata (Regular flavor) card to combine with Premier and DoubleCash. For an extra $0 you get 3x select transit and 3x a category of your choice.
Select transit includes car rentals, ferries, commuter railways, subways, taxis/limousines/car services, passenger railways, bridge and road tolls, parking lots/garages, bus lines, and motor home and recreational vehicle rentals.
Self select categories are: Fitness Clubs, Select Streaming Services, Live Entertainment, Cosmetic Stores/Barber Shops/Hair Salons and Pet Supply Stores.
And pair with a $0 Custom Cash for 5x a category of your choice up to $500 a month.
The value is incredible and Citi should be congratulated for having these no/low fee ThankYou point earning cards.
So this is my go to card for the 3x categories except airfare (AmEx)
With Venture X (2x) for everything else. Keep the other cards just for credit score length of credit (well 3 Chase free nights CC) or first year SUB I’d be interested in select category if it could be ActBlue. Otherwise Venture X for saving democracy
I love the Citi Strata Premier Card. The only complaint is when I tried to charge it on airline tickets, often times the airline website/app was unable to charge it, especially foreign airlines like AF/KLM. Called Citi and they didn't even see the attempt sometimes, and they claimed it's the airline issue. Well, when I had this issue from several airlines, you wonder.
It's not a Citi issue. It's stupid mastercard. And sometimes a popup will be shown on foreign provider site to call m/c. Sometimes not.
Also, Citi requires lots of phone call-only (no other 2fa options) verification for authorization even from US providers.
"You generally won’t earn bonus points for gas and EV charging purchases at warehouse clubs"
Incorrect. Sams Club gas purchases ALWAYS, not generally, return 3x pts on this card.
Read the whole sentence!
"You generally won’t earn bonus points for gas and EV charging purchases at warehouse clubs, discount stores, department stores, convenience stores, or other merchants THAT AREN'T CLASSIFIED AS GAS STATIONS OR EV CHARGING."
Hey Ben- Sharing it here is lame, but you don’t seem to have a place to submit tips.
Looks like Wizz is moving to take advantage of Ryanair’s little hissy fit in space by replacing lots of the capacity.
*in Spain