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Compare the Features and Benefits of Citi Strata Premier® Credit Card and
United Quest℠ Credit 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
Concierge Services
No Foreign Transaction Fees
Earns Transferable Points
Secondary Car Rental CDW Waiver
Annual Statement Credits
Free Checked Bags
Priority Boarding
Global Entry / TSA PreCheck Reimbursement
Primary Car Rental CDW Waiver
Travel and Emergency Assistance Services
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
Concierge Services
yes
No Foreign Transaction Fees
yes
Earns Transferable Points
yes
Secondary Car Rental CDW Waiver
yes
Annual Statement Credits
no
Free Checked Bags
no
Priority Boarding
no
Global Entry / TSA PreCheck Reimbursement
no
Primary Car Rental CDW Waiver
no
Travel and Emergency Assistance Services
no
Free Access to Credit Score
no
Annual Fee
$250
Avg. Min. Credit Score
670-850
Ongoing APR
21.24%-28.24% (Variable)
Balance transfers fees
Either $5 or 5% of the amount of each transfer, whichever is greater.
Best Multiplier
3x Airfare
2x Transit
2x Car Rentals
2x Dining Out / Food Delivery
2x Hotels
2x Streaming Services
1x Everything Else
Avg. Point Value
(Learn More)
$0.012
Bonus Offer
Earn 70,000 United MileagePlus® Miles and 500 PQP after spending $4,000 on qualifying purchases in the first three months of opening an account.
Rating
YBCC Card Rate Stars Filled
YBCC Card Rate Stars Empty
(4.25) 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

The United Quest Card is a fantastic option for United flyers that travel with the airline at least several times per year. There are also a number of unique perks that you don’t see on other airline credit cards. Let’s take a closer look.

First, a $125 annual United credit is easy to use since it’s applied as an automatic statement credit as you make United purchases on the card. You’ll also automatically get 5,000 United miles back into your account after you redeem United miles for an award flight — up to two times per anniversary year. Finally, this card also benefits those that overpack when they travel — the Quest card provides not one, but two free checked bags for the primary card holder and one companion traveling on the same reservation. That’s a potential luggage reimbursement savings of up to $320 per round trip.

Two of the perks, the $125 United credit and up to 10,000 mileage reimbursement, already go far in making the $250 annual fee worth it, especially since these are unique benefits that aren’t duplicated on other United credit cards.

In addition to offering a generous United Quest Card bonus, the card also includes a 25% discount on food and beverages on United operated flights and a wide array of travel and purchase protections. On the bonus category front, there’s a wide array including the ability to earn 3X miles on United Airlines purchases (after the $125 United credit is applied), 2X miles on the broad category of travel, 2X miles on dining, including eligible delivery services, and 2X miles on select streaming services.

dining-united-quest-credit-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 6,000 PQPs per year.

More frequent United Airlines flyers may want to consider the $525-per-year United Club Infinite card, a more premium card that offers airport lounge access. Meanwhile, those United travelers who travel a bit less frequently may want to consider the $95-per-year United Explorer card.

Read more
Unique Card Benefits
yes
Extended Warranty
yes
Purchase Protection
yes
Trip Protections
yes
Concierge Services
yes
No Foreign Transaction Fees
yes
Earns Transferable Points
no
Secondary Car Rental CDW Waiver
no
Annual Statement Credits
yes
Free Checked Bags
yes
Priority Boarding
yes
Global Entry / TSA PreCheck Reimbursement
yes
Primary Car Rental CDW Waiver
yes
Travel and Emergency Assistance Services
yes
Free Access to Credit Score
yes

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