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Citi Strata PremierSM Card (See rates and fees.)
Last week Citi introduced the new “Strata” card. It’s a rebranded Citi Premier Card with some minor improvements, but the big effort behind it is important. It tells me that there’s real life in the Citi ThankYou Rewards travel portfolio.
Citi Premier is no longer available, and existing cardmembers get switched to this new card. They aren’t losing anything. These are the same cards, more or less, which is why having had Premier counts as the same card (or card family) for purposes of new cardmember bonus eligibility.
- Initial bonus: Earn 70,000 bonus ThankYou® Points after spending $4,000 in the first 3 months of account opening, redeemable for $700 in gift cards or travel rewards at thankyou.com – when I go to Citi’s site directly, though, I see an offer for 75,000 points.
- Earn: 10 points per $1 spent on Hotels, Car Rentals, and Attractions booked on CitiTravel.com; 3 points per $1 on Air Travel and Other Hotel Purchases, at Restaurants, Supermarkets, Gas and EV Charging Stations; 1 Point per $1 spent on all other purchases.
- Annual fee: $95
- Additional benefits: $100 hotel credit on stay of $500 or more booked through the Citi Travel portal, once per calendar year.
EV charging earn is new, and 10x on eligible spend through the travel portal becomes a benefit of the card (it was previously deemed a limited-time offer). They’ve also added several travel protections to the card, rolling back a previous elimination, recognizing that they – like other issuers – went too far with cuts in the past.
Points can be transferred to a variety of frequent flyer programs, including:
- SkyTeam: Aeromexico Club Premier, Air France KLM Flying Blue, Virgin Atlantic Flying Club
- oneworld: Cathay Pacific Asia Miles, Malaysia Airlines Enrich, Qantas Frequent Flyer, Qatar Airways Privilege Club
- Star Alliance: Avianca LifeMiles, EVA Air Infinity MileageLands, Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer, Thai Airways Royal Orchid Plus, Turkish Airlines Miles & Smiles
- Non-alliance: Emirates Skywards, Etihad Guest, JetBlue TrueBlue,
In some ways I wanted something more revolutionary, rather than modest changes and a rebrand of Premier. But the effort behind this card says they’re still interested in investing in marketing a travel card with transferable points and that’s really great. It’s also important that they have a great acquisition bonus, and it’s even better if you go to Citi’s site directly.
This is one of the few cards that extends warranties by 2 years – so you end up with a total 3 year warranty where the manufacturer’s warranty is 1 year. Alot can go wrong in the third year of ownership. I buy all my electronics with this card, and the warranty is the only reason I keep it.
After they killed the once wonderful Citi Prestige most Citicard’s have been a big yawn
Costco visa is ok I suppose and Citi Cashback card ditto
Wait for Citi Strata Elite.
Citi premiere is the only cc I’ve ever been rejected for … twice! Maybe third time’s the charm lol.
If Citi adds AA as a partner, then we’re talking… the other 2 US carriers partner with their banks so why not Citi just finally allow AA to be a permanent transfer?