fbpx accordion-minus accordion-plus account-aside-cards-ico account-aside-consultations-ico account-aside-logout-ico account-aside-profile-ico account-aside-reading-ico account-aside-settings-ico account-aside-wishlist-ico account-categories-edit account-categories-save account-mobile-nav-arr account-sidebar-active bonus-ico btn-find-ico btn-gradient-fb-ico btn-ico-edit business-ico calc-ico cash-ico check-green close-ico compare-card-equal-ico compare-card-plus-ico compare-plus-ico compare-tooltip-arr compare-tooltip-close compare-tooltip-ico correct-ico correct-large-ico credit-card-bullet dashboard-btn-arr dashboard-email-ico dashboard-pass-ico err-info-ico facebook facetwp-selections-arr filter-arr filter-cross heart-ico-filled heart-ico hero-section-bg-animated-mask hero-section-bg-mask-2 hero-section-bg-mask home-slider-arr-icon incorrect-ico insta is-best-ico listing-mob-filter listing-mob-sort loader-ico lock-ico-filled-white lock-ico-filled lock-ico login-facebook login-google login-linkedin my-cards-toggle notification-close-ico notification-success-ico notify-like-clicked notify-like notify-me-ico-clicked notify-me-ico num-counter-item-ico personal-ico points-ico price-edit-blue profile-ico remove-card search-ico select-arr share-facebook-ico share-linkedin-ico share-mail-ico share-twitter-ico sign-in-google-ico slider-ico-1 slider-ico-2 slider-ico-3 slider-ico-4 slider-ico-5 slider-ico-6 stars-5-empty stars-5-filled-edit stars-5-filled tooltip-filter-ico-green tooltip-filter-ico-light tooltip-filter-ico-white tooltip-filter-ico tooltip-ico transfer-bonus-ico transfer-bonuses-close transfer-tooltip-ico twitter-widget-ico twitter ybcc-comparison-arr ybcc-comparison-card ybcc-socials-fb ybcc-socials-inst ybcc-socials-tw ybcc-socials-yt youtube
Explore Credit Cards Add Your Spending Profile
💳 Subscribe to Bonus Offer Notifications!
< Compare other cards
Your Best Credit Cards has partnered with CardRatings for our coverage of credit card products. Your Best Credit Cards and CardRatings may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on Your Best Credit Cards are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. Your Best Credit Cards does not include all card companies or all available card offers. Commissions do not affect or prioritize placement within our Card Explorer results and not all cards displayed earn us a commission. The editorial content on this page is not provided by any of the companies mentioned, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities. Opinions expressed here are the author’s alone.

* Suggested credit score ranges are supplied by QuinStreet, not from the issuers, and are guidelines, not a guarantee of approval.
VS

Compare the Features and Benefits of Citi Strata Premier® Credit Card and
Delta SkyMiles® Gold Business American Express Card

Detailed Comparison Overview

Key Facts
Annual Fee
Avg. Min. Credit Score
Ongoing APR
Balance transfers fees
Best Multiplier
Avg. Point Value
(Learn More)
Bonus Offer
Rating
Review
Key features
Unique Card Benefits
Extended Warranty
Purchase Protection
Trip Protections
Secondary Car Rental CDW Waiver
Earns Transferable Points
Concierge Services
No Foreign Transaction Fees
Free Checked Bags
Priority Boarding
Annual Statement Credits
Travel and Emergency Assistance Services
Does Not Report Credit Line to Personal Credit Profile
No Fees for Authorized Users
Amex Offers
Free Access to Credit Score
Annual Fee
$95
Avg. Min. Credit Score
670-850
Ongoing APR
20.49%-28.49% (Variable)
Balance transfers fees
Balance transfer fee applies with this offer; 5% of each balance transfer; $5 minimum.
Best Multiplier
3x Airfare
3x Gas Stations
3x Dining Out / Food Delivery
3x Hotels
3x Groceries
3x EV Charging
1x Everything Else
Avg. Point Value
(Learn More)
$0.01 - $0.016
Bonus Offer

For a limited time, earn 75,000 bonus ThankYou® Points after spending $4,000 in the first 3 months of account opening, redeemable for $750 in gift cards or travel rewards at thankyou.com.

Rating
YBCC Card Rate Stars Filled
YBCC Card Rate Stars Empty
(4.45) Our Review

Our ratings are determined by the authors and editors on our team. Each individual card feature is compared against all other cards we offer and the total score is an average of those 4 ratings.

Review

Thanks to its long list of bonus categories and a generous sign-up bonus, the Citi Strata Premier® is one of the most lucrative points-earning cards at the $95 price point.

You can earn ThankYou® points through a variety of means, but one of the best aspects of the Premier is the broad array of bonus categories. You’ll get 3X points on five categories including air travel and hotels, restaurants, supermarkets, and gas stations + EV charging stations.

On the redemption side, the airline and hotel travel partners can unlock some incredible opportunities. One such sweet spot is redeeming Virgin Atlantic Flying Club points for partners such as Delta or ANA (although that latter redemption isn’t as good as it once was).

virgin atlantic flying club, citi thankyou points, transferable points, partners, citi premier

Two of the Citi Strata Premier card’s main competitors include the Chase Sapphire Preferred® card and Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card. Those cards also offer transferable points — Chase Ultimate Rewards and Capital One Miles — as well as the same $95 annual fee.

Double up by Transferring Points from the Citi Double Cash Card to the Citi Strata Premier Card

The single biggest “weak spot” with the Citi Strata Premier Credit Card is that certain non-bonus categories only earn one point per dollar spent. The best credit cards give you two points per dollar spent in any category. Citi recently responded to the complaints by allowing customers to transfer points from the Citi® Double Cash Card to their ThankYou® Point balances.

What is the Citi Double Cash Card?

The Citi Double Cash Card is possibly the most user-friendly credit card out there. The Double Cash earns two ThankYou® points per dollar spent on every purchase, one cent when you make a purchase and another when you pay for the purchase.

There is no annual fee and no sign-up bonus for the Double Cash. It was created to be simple.

These points can be easily setup to be in the same ThankYou® account as your Premier card.

How To Double Up With Citi Double Cash and Citi Strata Premier

The “double up” is easy. All you need is a Citi Double Cash Card and a Citi Strata Premier card. Since the Double Cash has no annual fee, there’s no downside to having it.

Remember, the Citi Strara Premier Card pays 3X in certain categories (Air/Hotel, Gas, Restaurants and Supermarkets) and 1X in everything else. The Citi Double Cash card pays 2X on everything.

If your purchase is in a Citi Strata Premier card bonus category, go ahead and make the purchase with your Citi Strata Premier card.

If it’s in any other category, make the purchase with your Double Cash card. That way, you’ll get one percent when you make the purchase and another percent when you pay it.

The Citi Trifecta: Add a Citi Rewards+ Card for a 10% Points Rebate

If you want to take full advantage of the Citicards family, add in a no-annual fee Citi Rewards+ card. While the 15,000 ThankYou® Points that you’ll receive when you sign up (and spend $1,000 in the first three months) are nice, the real bonus comes from the redemption discount.

Every calendar year, Citi will rebate 10% of the first 100,000 ThankYou® Points that you spend. It’s a 10,000 annual TYP bonus! Best of all, you don’t ever need to spend on the card. Just having it in your profile and linked to the same ThankYou® account will ensure that you get the rebate.

Alternate Citi Trifecta

Add a Citi Custom Cash card, which earns 5% on your top bonus category each month, up to $500 in spend, and features some unique bonus categories like Home Improvement Stores, Drugstores, and Live Entertainment (Concerts and Shows). It also comes with a 20,000 point signup bonus worth at least $200.

Citi Application Limits (a.k.a. Citi Velocity Rules)

Citi will not approve more than two cards in a 60-day period, although we recommend 65 days, just to be safe. So if you want a Citi Strata Premier, Double Cash and Rewards+ card, you’ll have to pick one to wait and apply for on Day 66. We’d recommend waiting on the Rewards+, since the benefits are back-ended.

Each of these cards are limited to one signup bonus per 48 months.

Note: This card was recently rebranded from the Citi Premier® to the Citi Strata Premier®. You will be eligible for a signup bonus only if you have not received a signup bonus on either the Citi Premier® or the Citi Strata Premier® in the last 48 months.

Best Ways to Use Citi ThankYou® Points

There are several ways to redeem your Citi ThankYou® Points and, not surprisingly, some are better than others. Here are the most popular options.

Best: Transfer Points to an Airline Partner

The best use of ThankYou® Points is to transfer them to one of Citi’s airline or hotel partners.

Citi ThankYou Transfer PartnersTransfer RatioApproximate Transfer Time *
AeroMexico1:1Generally instant
Air France Flying Blue1:1Instant
Avianca LifeMiles1:1Instant.
Cathay Pacific AsiaMiles1:1Instant
Etihad Guest1:1Instant
Emirates1:!Instant
Eva Air1:1~1-3 days
Jet Airways InterMiles1:1Instant
JetBlue TrueBlue1:1Instant
Malaysia Airlines Enrich1:1~1-7 days
Qantas1:1Instant to 1 day
Qatar Privilege Club1:1~2 days
Singapore Airlines1:1~1-2 days
Thai Orchid Plus1:1~3-7 days
Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles1:11-2 days
Virgin Atlantic1:1Instant to 2 days
Hotels
Choice Hotels1:2 (Citi Prestige / Premier / Chairman cards)

1:1.5 (No fee Citi ThankYou cards)
Instant
Wyndham Rewards1:1 (Citi Prestige / Premier / Chairman cards)

1:0.8 (No fee Citi ThankYou cards)
TBD
Leaders Club5:1TBD
Preferred Hotels and Resorts "I Prefer"1:4TBD
Accor Live Limitless1:0.5TBD

All points transfer at a rate of 1:1 from ThankYou® Points into the partner miles. ThankYou® Points are particularly useful for international travel, since many of the partners are non-US airlines. You can, of course, use international airline miles to fly on domestic partners.

Some examples include: transfering to Singapore Airlines’ KrisFlyer program to fly their famous Singapore Suites, transferring to Turkish Miles&Smiles to get the absolute best award pricing for Star Alliance flights (hello, 7,500 mile one way flights from the mainland to Hawaii!), transferring to Virgin Atlantic for deals on flights from the US to Europe on Delta-metal and flights within North America on Delta as well as great rates on ANA flights to Japan and beyond.

Prefer spending points for hotels?

Citi transfers to Choice Hotels where some amazing bargains lie, especially at premium hotels.

If you have a Citi Strata Premier or Citi Prestige, you will get 2 Choice Privileges points per 1 Citi ThankYou® point transferred.

You can use this to book Choice Hotels properties, which include Comfort Inn, Sleep Inn, Quality Inn, EconoLodge, Rodeway Inn, Ascend, and Cambria, among others. And there is solid value on the discount side of its hotel offerings.

But if you like a bit more upscale…. that is where the Choice Hotels partnership with Preferred Hotels and Resorts comes into play.

You can search the above link to see all of the options, but here’s one example.

The Excelsior Palace Hotel on the Portofino Coast in Italy can easily exceed 400 Euros per night. Or it can be booked for 55,000 Choice Privileges points equal to is just 27,500 Citi ThankYou points. That’s ~ 2 cents per point in value.

Use for Travel or Gift Cards

It’s not our preferred way to use ThankYou® points, but if you don’t want to transfer your points to miles, you have the option to use them for gift cards. Citi offers gift card rewards from more than 100 partners, so you’re not going to be at a loss for options.

You can also book travel through Citi’s dedicated Travel℠ portal. There’s no real advantage in doing it this way other than that you can use your points to do so.

The downside to these options is that the per point value is not particularly good. You’ll receive a penny per point, which is generally less than the value of a mile in the “best use” scenario above.

Summary

We are big fans of the Citi Strata Premier. For a while, it lacked travel protections, but those are once again a feature of this card so on top of 3X bonus categories covering most categories a frequent traveler needs, it also has a range of trip protections.

3X ThankYou points on air travel and hotels, restaurants, supermarkets, and gas stations + EV charging stations is quite a generous range of bonus categories. for such a.minimal annual fee And as we mention above, it pairs well with other ThankYou-earning cards like the Citi Couble Cash, Citi Custom Cash, and the Citi Rewards+.

Read more
Unique Card Benefits
yes
Extended Warranty
yes
Purchase Protection
yes
Trip Protections
yes
Secondary Car Rental CDW Waiver
yes
Earns Transferable Points
yes
Concierge Services
yes
No Foreign Transaction Fees
yes
Free Checked Bags
no
Priority Boarding
no
Annual Statement Credits
no
Travel and Emergency Assistance Services
no
Does Not Report Credit Line to Personal Credit Profile
no
No Fees for Authorized Users
no
Amex Offers
no
Free Access to Credit Score
no
Annual Fee
$0 Introductory Annual Fee for the first year, then $150 (Rates and fees)
Avg. Min. Credit Score
Good-Excellent
Ongoing APR
20.24%-29.24% (Variable)
Balance transfers fees
-
Best Multiplier
2x Shipping

U.S. providers only

2x Advertising (Online / TV / Radio)

U.S. providers only

2x Airfare

Multiplier only applies to flights booked on Delta, otherwise earn 1X

2x Dining Out / Food Delivery
1x All Other Eligible Purchases
Avg. Point Value
(Learn More)
$0.012
Bonus Offer
Earn 60,000 Bonus Miles after spending $4,000 in purchases on your new Card in your first 6 months of Card Membership. Terms apply.
Rating
YBCC Card Rate Stars Filled
YBCC Card Rate Stars Empty
(3.85) Our Review

Our ratings are determined by the authors and editors on our team. Each individual card feature is compared against all other cards we offer and the total score is an average of those 4 ratings.

Review

Delta flyers who own a business have several options to choose from when looking for a new business credit card. To maximize your business expenses and earn SkyMiles at the same time, the Delta SkyMiles Gold Business Card is an affordable option with an annual fee of $150.

Besides earning the splashy welcome bonus, there are many ways to rack up SkyMiles through each eligible dollar spent. You’ll earn 2x bonus miles on Delta purchases and at restaurants plus on U.S shipping and select U.S. media purchases, as well as 1x miles on other purchases. The shipping and select media categories have a limit of $50,000 per year each.

shipping-delta-skymiles-gold-business-american-express-card

The TakeOff 15 benefit is reserved for Delta’s cardholders, allowing you to score a 15% discount on the cost of Delta award flights. This discount is applied automatically on your Delta account whenever you conduct online flight searches, as long as your Delta Business Amex card is linked. This perk can help you save more of your SkyMiles for future travel. Furthermore, if your business spends more than $10,000 per year on the card, you can easily earn a $200 Delta flight credit every card membership year.

If you travel often and have to check a bag, you can enjoy a checked bag waiver, saving you $30 per flight. This perk applies to up to eight additional travelers on your Delta flight, which can add up greatly throughout the year and compensate for the ongoing $150 annual fee. Other essential travel benefits include no foreign transaction fee, baggage insurance plan, and secondary car rental collision damage waiver insurance, which will surely be of use for many business travelers.

Plus, receive an annual statement credit of up to $150 after using your Delta Gold American Express Card to book prepaid hotels or vacation rentals through Delta Stays on delta.com. Terms apply.

In short, the Delta SkyMiles Gold Business Card offers a solid foundation of benefits when flying with the carrier. If you’re looking for greater perks, such as lounge access before departing or upon arrival, you may want to consider other Delta business cards that carry higher annual fees but come with additional benefits.

Otherwise, this entry-level business card is the right choice to earn bonus miles on select business categories and earn Delta benefits.

Rates and Fees for the Delta SkyMiles® Gold Business American Express Card

Read more
Unique Card Benefits
yes
Extended Warranty
yes
Purchase Protection
yes
Trip Protections
yes
Secondary Car Rental CDW Waiver
yes
Earns Transferable Points
no
Concierge Services
no
No Foreign Transaction Fees
no
Free Checked Bags
yes
Priority Boarding
yes
Annual Statement Credits
yes
Travel and Emergency Assistance Services
yes
Does Not Report Credit Line to Personal Credit Profile
yes
No Fees for Authorized Users
yes
Amex Offers
yes
Free Access to Credit Score
yes

Learn more about these cards today

Your account has been successfully created!