If you’ve been around Citi’s ThankYou ecosystem for a while, you probably still think of this card as “the Citi Premier.” Citi has since refreshed and renamed it the Citi Strata Premier℠ Card, keeping the same general idea: solid everyday bonus categories, plus the ability to turn ThankYou Points into travel by transferring them to airline and hotel partners.
It’s also now part of a broader “Strata” lineup (including the no-annual-fee Citi Strata Card, which replaced/modernized the old Rewards+ concept, and Citi’s higher-end Strata Elite).
If you want one Citi card that can earn well on everyday life and unlock travel transfer flexibility, the Strata Premier is still Citi’s main “workhorse” option.
Citi Strata Premier℠ Card
Annual Fee
The Citi Strata Premier has a $95 annual fee.
Welcome Bonus
Public offers can change, but Citi’s own Strata Premier benefits page currently references a welcome bonus of 60,000 ThankYou Points after $4,000 in spend in the first 3 months. (Always worth checking the current application page before you apply.)
Citi has rules about when you can receive a signup bonus. Here are the requirements from Citi’s website:
Bonus ThankYou Points are not available if you received a new account bonus for a Citi Premier or Citi Strata Premier account in the past 48 months or if you converted another Citi credit card account on which you earned a new account bonus in the last 48 months into a Citi Premier or Citi Strata Premier account.
Spending Bonus Categories
This is the part of the card that does most of the heavy lifting. The Strata Premier currently earns:
- 10X points on hotels, car rentals, and attractions booked through Citi Travel
- 3X points on air travel and other hotel purchases
- 3X points at restaurants
- 3X points at supermarkets
- 3X points at gas and EV charging stations
- 1X points on everything else
What changed vs. the older “Premier” version? The big headline is the addition/standardization of the 10X Citi Travel multiplier and the broader “gas + EV charging” language, which is now explicitly called out in Citi’s Strata Premier materials.
No Foreign Transaction Fees
The card has no foreign transaction fees, which is basically mandatory for a card that’s marketed as travel-friendly.
ThankYou Points (transfer partners in a nutshell)
Citi ThankYou Points are flexible points. You can redeem them in a few ways, but the Strata Premier is most valuable because it lets you transfer points to airline and hotel partners—often the best path to outsized value versus a fixed-rate portal redemption.
I’m keeping the full partner list (and ratios) in a separate post, but here are the big names most people care about:
Key airline partners
- American Airlines AAdvantage (major U.S. option)
- Air France / KLM Flying Blue
- Avianca LifeMiles
- Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles
- Virgin Atlantic Flying Club
- Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer
- Qatar Airways Privilege Club (Avios)
- JetBlue TrueBlue (often useful domestically)
Key hotel partners
- Choice Privileges
- Wyndham Rewards
- Accor Live Limitless (ALL)
- Preferred Hotels & Resorts
Two quick transfer notes
- Transfers are typically one-way (double-check award availability before you move points).
- Ratios and transfer times vary by partner—always confirm the current details in your ThankYou account before submitting.
Transferring / Combining / Sharing Points
One reason the Strata Premier is so useful is that it’s built to be the “engine” of a Citi setup: you can earn ThankYou Points on multiple Citi cards, then redeem/transfer more strategically from the account that gives you the best options.
If you share points with another ThankYou member, keep one key rule in mind: shared points expire 90 days after they’re received. So point-sharing works best when someone is about to redeem immediately (not as a long-term storage plan).
$100 Annual Hotel Benefit
The Strata Premier includes a simple, easy-to-use travel perk: once per calendar year, you can get $100 off a single hotel stay of $500 or more (excluding taxes/fees) when booked through cititravel.com (or by phone, per Citi’s terms).
This benefit doesn’t singlehandedly “justify” the annual fee for everyone, but it can meaningfully offset that $95 if you already book at least one paid hotel stay a year.
Travel Protections
This is another area where the refreshed Strata Premier is stronger than many people remember. Citi now markets the card with travel protections like trip cancellation/interruption, trip delay, lost/damaged luggage, and car rental coverage.
From Citi’s current “Guide to Protection Benefits” for Strata Premier, highlights include:
- Trip Cancellation / Interruption (Common Carrier): up to $5,000 per covered trip (and $10,000 per eligible account per 12 months)
- Trip Delay: reimbursement for reasonable additional expenses when delayed more than 6 hours, up to $500 per covered trip (limit of 2 claims per 12 months)
- Lost or Damaged Luggage: up to $3,000 per covered trip (and 2 claims per 12 months)
Rental Car Coverage (MasterRental)
Citi’s MasterRental coverage is one of those benefits people tend to oversimplify, so it’s worth stating clearly the way the benefit guide does:
- Secondary coverage within the eligible renter’s country of residence
- Primary coverage outside the eligible renter’s country of residence
That’s explicitly spelled out in the Strata Premier protection guide.
Extra Perks
The Strata Premier also includes a handful of standard “good to have” items Citi highlights, like Citi Entertainment, digital wallet support, and $0 liability on unauthorized purchases.
Final Thoughts
The Citi Strata Premier still does what it’s always done best: earn strongly in everyday categories, then give you the option to redeem simply (portal) or get more ambitious (transfers). The refresh mainly modernized the “travel side” with clearer Citi Travel multipliers, added/spotlighted protections, and kept the annual fee at a level that doesn’t feel like a second job to justify.
If you want a single Citi card that can anchor ThankYou Points—without jumping straight to a premium annual fee—the Strata Premier is still the logical place to start.
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