The Citi Strata Elite℠ Card is Citi’s premium credit card. The card has a big welcome bonus that makes it worth applying for — 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 transferred 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, $200 annual “Splurge Credit,” $200 annual Blacklane credit, four annual Admirals Club passes, a Priority Pass membership, and more.
In this post, I’d like to focus on one aspect of the Citi Strata Elite Card that’s unique, involving the card’s dining rewards structure, and talk about whether it’s worth putting any mental energy into it.
Link: Learn more about the Citi Strata Elite℠ Card
The Citi Strata Elite Card offers 3-6x points on dining
The Citi Strata Elite Card earns Citi ThankYou points (there are lots of great uses of these points), and has the following rewards structure:
- 12x points when you book hotels, rental cars, and attractions through Citi Travel, and 6x points when you book air travel through Citi Travel
- 6x points on dining spending on Fridays and Saturdays between 6PM and 6AM ET, and 3x points on dining during other times
- 1.5x points on all other eligible purchases
As you can see, these bonus categories are somewhat limited. The bonus on purchases through the Citi Travel portal are nice, though there’s often an opportunity cost to booking that way.
Meanwhile for everyday spending, I’d generally prefer to use the no annual fee Citi Double Cash® Card (review), which is one of the best cards for everyday, non-bonused spending. The card offers 1x ThankYou points when you make a purchase, and 1x ThankYou points when you pay for that purchase, meaning you can earn up to 2x ThankYou points.
So it’s the dining category where I find the Citi Strata Elite Card to be interesting. You can consistently earn at least 3x points on dining, which is among the better cards for dining spending, but not the best in the industry.
But the “Citi Nights” concept is really fun. The idea is to offer a better reward on dining spending on Fridays and Saturdays, between 6PM and 6AM ET (so that means into Saturday and Sunday morning). That absolutely is an industry leading return on that spending. Based on my valuation of 1.7 cents per ThankYou point, that’s like a return of over 10% on dining spending, which is great.
Maximizing this is super straightforward:
- There’s no registration required to earn 6x points on dining, so it’s automatic, as long as you use the card for an eligible purchase
- There’s no cap on how much spending you can earn 6x points on, and this applies to both the primary cardmember and any authorized users you may have
- This applies to dining globally, though no matter where in the world you are, the eligible periods are the same
- Eligibility for 6x points is determined based on how an establishment categorizes itself with its merchant code, as is the case with any card offering bonus points on dining
This is an industry-leading bonus category, but…
Being able to earn 6x points on dining with the Citi Strata Elite Card is an awesome, unrivaled return on dining spending. Obviously the catch is that you only earn 6x points for 24 hours per week, while the other 144 hours of the week, you earn 3x points.
So I kind of struggle with this, in the context of overall credit card fatigue, and wanting to maximize value, without feeling like everything is a chore. I’ve now taken advantage of Citi Nights a few times, but that’s also because I’ve been completing minimum spending on this card, so it’s top of wallet anyway.
Once I reach the minimum spending requirement, will I keep using the card for Citi Nights in the same way, though?
- I otherwise use the Citi Prestige Card for my dining spending, which earns 5x points on that spending
- So I’m losing 1x points incrementally if I don’t use the card for Citi Nights, though I realize for others, the opportunity cost is bigger (since the Citi Prestige Card is niche, and isn’t open to new cardmembers)
- For me it’s a function of not overstuffing my wallet, and prioritizing only having so many cards in my typical “rotation”
- While mobile payment is of course a consideration, sit-down dining is one area where mobile payment isn’t as common (well, and Las Vegas hotels, I guess), so it’s not always practical
That’s my take, as this is one of those marginal rewards where I’m torn between the absolute desire to maximize rewards, and the preference to just maintain a simple strategy. I’m curious how others approach this.
I’d probably take a different approach if I consistently dined out on weekends, but as a parent of two young kids, that’s not a consistent part of my life anymore. Hell, when I do dine out on Friday and Saturday “nights,” often the check is paid before 6PM ET.
To those with the Citi Strata Elite Card, does the 6x points on Citi Nights cause you to switch all your dining spending to the card, do you remember to only use this card over Citi Nights, or do you not bother, because it’s too complicated?
Bottom line
There are several interesting aspects to the Citi Strata Elite Card, and among them is the ability to earn 6x points on dining on Citi Nights, which is between 6PM and 6AM ET on Fridays and Saturdays (into the mornings of Saturdays and Sundays).
This is super easy to maximize, there’s no registration required, and there’s no cap on how many points you can earn. There’s definitely strategic value here, it just depends how you value the rewards vs. the hassle.
Where do you stand on the usefulness of the 6x points with Citi Nights on the Citi Strata Elite Card?
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