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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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 Partners | Transfer Ratio | Approximate Transfer Time * |
---|---|---|
AeroMexico | 1:1 | Generally instant |
Air France Flying Blue | 1:1 | Instant |
Avianca LifeMiles | 1:1 | Instant. |
Cathay Pacific AsiaMiles | 1:1 | Instant |
Etihad Guest | 1:1 | Instant |
Emirates | 1:! | Instant |
Eva Air | 1:1 | ~1-3 days |
Jet Airways InterMiles | 1:1 | Instant |
JetBlue TrueBlue | 1:1 | Instant |
Malaysia Airlines Enrich | 1:1 | ~1-7 days |
Qantas | 1:1 | Instant to 1 day |
Qatar Privilege Club | 1:1 | ~2 days |
Singapore Airlines | 1:1 | ~1-2 days |
Thai Orchid Plus | 1:1 | ~3-7 days |
Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles | 1:1 | 1-2 days |
Virgin Atlantic | 1:1 | Instant to 2 days |
Hotels | ||
Choice Hotels | 1:2 (Citi Prestige / Premier / Chairman cards) 1:1.5 (No fee Citi ThankYou cards) | Instant |
Wyndham Rewards | 1:1 (Citi Prestige / Premier / Chairman cards) 1:0.8 (No fee Citi ThankYou cards) | TBD |
Leaders Club | 5:1 | TBD |
Preferred Hotels and Resorts "I Prefer" | 1:4 | TBD |
Accor Live Limitless | 1:0.5 | TBD |
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.
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+.
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.
If you’re a business owner contemplating on getting a personal United credit card, it’s worth taking a closer look at the United Business Card first. Cardholders earn 2x unlimited miles on a diverse range of bonus categories, including United purchases (which includes United flights, seat upgrades, wifi or onboard purchases), dining including eligible delivery services, gas stations, office supply stores, and local transit and commuting. All other purchases accrue 1x miles. And don’t forget, beyond the initial hard inquiry when applying for a business card, it won’t report to your personal credit as long as you remain in good standing.
The annual fee is waived for the first year, but will cost $99 every year thereafter. Fortunately, maximizing the card is effortless thanks to its number of tangible benefits. You can get every first checked bag free on United flights and even earn an annual $100 United credit after purchasing seven United flight purchases. Coupled with the opportunity to enter the United Club twice per year ($59 value each time), that’s roughly a $200+ value off the bat toward travel.
Other non-tangible, yet equally useful, benefits that the United Business Card provides include priority boarding, a 25% discount on inflight purchases, and the ability to earn up to 1,000 Premier Qualifying Points every year. Depending on how often you’re flying United every year, these perks offer elite-like benefits just by holding this card.
And don’t forget the ability to earn PQPs towards elite status from spend. You’ll earn 25 Premier Qualifying Points (PQPs) for every $500 you spend on purchases – up to 1,000 PQPs per year.
If you were purely looking to earn United miles, however, you might well do better with the Chase Ink Business Preferred® Card which would earn 3X Chase Ultimate Rewards points on the first $150,000 spent on all travel purchases, has similar trip protections, and its points transfer 1:1 to United – but also to more than a dozen other airline and hotel partners.
We have a detailed comparison of the United Business Card vs. the Chase Ink Business Preferred Card.
Chase is the issuer of this business card and is quite generous when it comes to providing travel and purchase coverages with high limits. Plus, Chase tends to offer partner benefits exclusively for cardholders. Currently, cardholders can register for one year complimentary DashPass benefits from DoorDash. This perk gets you unlimited deliveries on orders of $12 or greater with no delivery fee and lower service fees overall.