Citi Strata Card Comparison

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All information about the  Citi Strata℠ Card  has been collected independently by 10x Travel.

In July 2025, Citi entered the world of high-annual-fee luxury credit cards with the launch of its new Citi Strata Elite℠ Card, a direct competitor to other high-end luxury cards like the Chase Sapphire Reserve® and American Express Platinum Card®. Almost simultaneously, Citi also released the new Citi Strata℠ Card, a no-annual fee card to replace the now-discontinued Citi Rewards+® Card. In fact, all existing Citi Rewards+® cardholders will be automatically transferred to the Citi Strata Card.

All of this happened about one year after Citi unveiled the Citi Strata Premier® Card, its middle-tier option with an annual fee of $95. So, as you can see, there have been quite a few changes to Citi’s credit card lineup in recent history, and many consumers may not be familiar with the Strata family of cards and the differences between them.

So, in this article, we’re going to take a look at the Citi Strata, Strata Premier and Strata Elite credit cards and compare the bonus, benefits and fees included with each. Hopefully, you can use this information to determine which card might be right for your wallet.

Citi Strata Card Comparison Overview

Before we dive into the specifics of each of these cards, here’s a quick overview of each card, its annual fees, spending bonuses and other benefits:

*Eligible self-select categories include fitness clubs, select streaming services, live entertainment, cosmetic stores/barber shops/hair salons and pet supply stores.

As you can see, the Citi Strata Elite card has a significantly higher annual fee than either the Citi Strata or Strata Premier card. However, if you use all of the benefits and statement credits offered by the Citi Strata Elite to the fullest, you’ll offset that annual fee and get great value out of this card.

However, if you don’t think you’ll use all of those benefits every year, then you’d be better off going with one of the other two cards, which have much more manageable annual fees and still offer excellent spending bonuses.

We’ll take a closer look at every feature of these three cards in the following sections.

Welcome Bonuses

When considering which of the three Citi Strata credit cards might be right for your wallet, you shouldn’t overlook the welcome bonus offered by each of these cards. Generally, you’ll have to spend a certain amount of money on your card within a certain time period after account opening to earn the bonus. However, if you meet this spending requirement, you should receive a sum of tens of thousands of points.

Citi Strata℠ Card

The Citi Strata Card tends to offer the smallest welcome bonus since it’s a no-annual-fee card:

Citi Strata Premier® Card

As the middle-tier card in the Citi Strata family, the Citi Strata Premier® Card typically has a smaller welcome bonus than the Elite Card but a larger one than the Citi Strata Card:

Citi Strata Elite℠ Card

The Citi Strata Elite℠ Card typically offers the largest welcome bonus out of the cards in the Citi Strata family:

These welcome bonuses are a quick way to earn tens of thousands of Citi points, which are worth hundreds of dollars. So, before you sign up for any of these cards, you should make sure you’ll be able to meet the spending requirement to earn the welcome bonus.

Spending Bonuses

In choosing the right credit card from the Citi Strata family, it’s important to consider which card offers spending bonuses that are most aligned with your spending habits. You may even want to look at your spending report from the previous year (which many banks provide to their clients) and calculate how many Citi points you would’ve earned with each card.

Citi Strata℠ Card

The Citi Strata Card has some of the best spending bonuses of any no-annual-fee card on the market, offering high bonuses in popular categories. This card offers 3X points at supermarkets, 3X points at gas stations, 2X points at restaurants and 5X points on hotels and rental cars booked through CitiTravel.com. Plus, you’ll also earn 3X points on a self-selected category, which you can change each calendar quarter.

If you’re looking for a low-commitment card that’s going to earn you a lot of points, the Citi Strata Card is an excellent option. Indeed, if you’re only interested in a no-annual-fee card, this might be the best option available.

Citi Strata Premier® Card

The Citi Strata Premier Card also offers excellent spending bonuses. However, this card’s spending bonuses don’t seem much better than those offered by the Citi Strata Card, and it’s hard to justify this card’s $95 annual fee with these bonuses alone. The Strata Premier offers 10X points on hotels and rental cars through CitiTravel.com, 3X points on air travel and other hotel purchases, and 3X points at gas stations, supermarkets and restaurants.

You may be able to make up for the Strata Premier card’s $95 annual fee if you plan on spending a lot on travel through CitiTravel.com. Otherwise, you’re probably better off going with the Citi Strata Card.

Citi Strata Elite℠ Card

With its high annual fee of $595, the Citi Strata Elite’s spending bonuses are high, but only in two key categories: travel and restaurants. This card offers a whopping 12X points on hotels and rental cars booked through CitiTravel.com and 6X points on air travel through CitiTravel.com. So, if you’re willing to book your travel through Citi’s travel portal, you could potentially earn a ton of points.

You’ll also earn 6X points at restaurants during Citi Nights, which are from 6 p.m. on Friday to 6 a.m. on Saturday and from 6 p.m. on Saturday to 6 a.m. on Sunday ET. At all other times, you’ll earn 3X points at restaurants. These bonuses include restaurant delivery services.

This card also offers 1.5X points on all other purchases. However, outside of travel and dining, the Citi Strata Elite doesn’t earn elevated spending bonuses in any other categories. This card really makes up for its $595 annual fee with its statement credits and other benefits.

Other Benefits

In addition to welcome bonuses and spending bonuses, all three Citi Strata cards offer other benefits that can provide significant value if you use them to their fullest potential. Of course, the Citi Strata Elite’s suite of benefits is by far the most impressive, but the other two cards also offer some other benefits that are worth mentioning.

All three of these are Mastercards, which means that they all include certain Mastercard benefits. Both the Citi Strata Premier and Citi Strata Elite include Mastercard travel protections, including:

• Trip delay protection
• Trip cancellation and interruption protection (common carrier)
• Lost or damaged luggage reimbursement
• MasterRental® car rental coverage

These benefits could potentially save you hundreds or thousands of dollars. For one, you can often decline the car rental company’s insurance policy and instantly save hundreds of dollars. The Citi Strata Card, unfortunately, doesn’t include these protections.

All three of these cards do offer Mastercard ID theft protection, which monitors your information and alerts you if any suspicious activity is found.

Citi Strata℠ Card

Like most other no-annual-fee cards, the Citi Strata Card doesn’t offer much in terms of benefits.

Citi Strata Premier® Card

The Citi Strata Premier offers a benefit that’s worth up to $100 annually, which means that you can instantly get value out of this card if you use this benefit every year (since that $100 benefit will offset the $95 annual fee). Once per calendar year, you can receive $100 off a single hotel stay of $500 or more (excluding taxes and fees) booked through CitiTravel.com.

Of course, $500 is a fairly high price to pay for a single hotel stay and many consumers pay that much for hotel stays every year. So, if you don’t think you’ll use this benefit every year, then it may be a better idea to sign up for the no-annual-fee Citi Strata Card.

Citi Strata Elite℠ Card

As mentioned above, the Citi Strata Elite offers high spending bonuses, but only in two major categories. However, where this card really makes up for its $595 annual fee is with its statement credits and other benefits. On Citi’s website, they claim that this card offers nearly $1,500 in value from its benefits alone, which is true if you were to use all of these benefits year after year.

First off, the Citi Strata Elite comes with an up to $300 annual credit for any hotel stay of two nights or more booked through CitiTravel.com (applied at time of booking). It’s worth noting that there’s no minimum spending requirement like there is with the Citi Strata Premier’s hotel credit benefit (which has a minimum spending requirement of $500).

This card also includes up to $200 in annual Splurge Credit℠, which can be applied to purchases from your choice of up to two of the following brands:

• 1stDibs
• American Airlines (exclusions apply)
• Best Buy
• Future Personal Training
• Live Nation (exclusions apply)

For a Live Nation purchase to qualify, it “must be made directly on livenation.com or ticketmaster.com, and the purchase must be fulfilled by Live Nation or Ticketmaster.” And American Airlines purchases that qualify for this credit are “items billed by American Airlines or American Airlines Vacations as the merchant of record.” American Airlines purchases for “car rentals and hotel reservations, purchase of AAdvantage® status boost or renewal, and AA Cargo™ products and services” don’t qualify for this credit.

The Citi Strata Elite also includes up to $200 in annual statement credits (up to $100 biannually) to Blacklane, a private chauffeur service. You’ll get up to $100 in statement credits between January and June and again up to $100 in statement credits between July and December. Purchases must be made directly through the Blacklane app or website to qualify.

Additionally, Citi Strata Elite cardmembers will receive a complimentary membership to Priority Pass Select (enrollment required), which includes access to over 1,500 airport lounges worldwide. If you were to purchase a Priority Pass Select membership directly through the Priority Pass website, it would cost you $469 per year.

You’ll also receive four complimentary day passes to American Airlines Admirals Club airport lounges per calendar year. Since these day passes typically cost $79 per day, this benefit is valued at over $300.

The Citi Strata Elite also includes a statement credit for the application fee for either Global Entry or TSA PreCheck, which is available every four years.

We calculated the value of all of these benefits to be over $1,500 annually if you were to use all of them to their fullest extent. Of course, you probably won’t use every single one of these benefits every year. So, in deciding whether the Citi Strata Elite Card is right for your wallet, you should consider the value of the benefits that you expect to use every year.

Citi Strata Elite cardholders will also have access to The Reserve by Citi Travel®, which is a collection of participating hotels available through Citi’s travel booking portal that offer on-site benefits, including complimentary breakfast for two every day, free Wi-Fi and a $100 experience credit (varies by property).

Qualifying members of Citigold (a program for Citi banking clients who maintain at least $200,000 in a linked deposit, retirement or investment account) can also receive a $145 annual credit if they have a current Strata Elite account.

Points Redemption

One fairly significant difference between the three cards in the Citi Strata family that many people may overlook is that the Citi Strata Premier and Citi Strata Elite offer better transfer ratios to transfer partners than the Citi Strata Card. The following chart includes the transfer ratio for each card for each of Citi’s transfer partners:

Across the board, the Citi Strata Card offers an inferior transfer ratio to every partner compared to the Strata Premier and the Strata Elite. And these differences in transfer ratios can have a significant effect on the value that you get out of your Citi points.

For example, if you were to transfer 100,000 Citi points to the Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles program, you’d receive 100,000 Turkish miles if you had the Strata Premier or Strata Elite. But, if you had the Citi Strata Card, you’d receive only 70,000 Turkish miles.

If you value Turkish miles at 1 cent apiece, then the value of the Turkish miles you’d receive from this transfer would be $300 higher if you had the Strata Premier or Strata Elite compared to the Citi Strata Card.

However, when it comes to all other redemption methods aside from transferring to partner loyalty programs, the value per point you’ll receive is the same for all three cards in the Strata family.

For example, the value you’ll get per point when booking travel through CitiTravel.com is or when redeeming for cash back is the same whether you have the Citi Strata Card or the Citi Strata Elite.

Which Card Offers the Most Value?

The question of which card in the Strata family offers the most value depends on your individual spending habits, ability to pay an annual fee and more. Ultimately, to determine which card is the best fit for you, we recommend calculating the value of the points you could earn through spending bonuses (by applying each card’s spending bonuses to your last year’s expenses), the value of the benefits that you’d use from each card, and then subtracting each card’s annual fee from that total value.

For example, let’s say that your expenses from the previous year were as follows:

• Restaurants: $3,000
• Groceries: $6,000
• Gas: $2,500
• Air travel: $2,000
• Hotels: $2,000
• Other: $5,000

Once again, you can often find these expense category breakdowns in your banking app, which will make these calculations a lot easier. Then, you can apply each card’s spending bonuses to your expenses to find out how many Citi points you would have earned with each card. For example, here’s how many points you would have earned with the Citi Strata Premier Card:

Once you do this calculation for the Citi Strata Premier Card, you can do the same calculation for the Citi Strata Card and Citi Strata Elite Card. And, for simplicity’s sake, we can assume that each Citi point is worth 1 cent. Thus, in the example above, the value of the Citi points earned from spending bonuses with the Citi Strata Premier Card each year would equal $655.

After that, you should consider the value of the other benefits that you could get from each card annually. For the Citi Strata Premier Card, this is an easy consideration. Since the other notable benefit is the $100 hotel stay credit (which you need to spend at least $500 on a single hotel stay to earn), you can simply add that $100 value to your total annual value if you think you’ll use that benefit every year.

So, if you were to use the $100 credit, then the total annual value of the Citi Strata Premier Card in this example would be $755. Then, since this card charges a $95 annual fee, you should subtract $95 from that total value to get the net annual value, which would be $660.

Once again, we recommend doing these same types of calculations for all three cards and then comparing the net annual value. Whichever card offers the highest net annual value is the card that you should go with.

Of course, these calculations don’t take into account every feature of these cards. For example, some people may not be able to pay the $595 annual fee for the Citi Strata Elite all at once. Likewise, these calculations don’t account for the fact that you can get much more value out of your Citi points through transfer partners with the Strata Premier or Strata Elite than you can with the no-annual-fee Citi Strata Card.

Nonetheless, doing these kinds of calculations can give you a quick idea of which card might be best for your wallet.

The Bottom Line

For years, Citi has fallen behind other credit card issuers in terms of its rewards program and credit card options. However, over the past two years, with the release of the Citi Strata family of credit cards, Citi has put itself back in the race.

The Citi Strata Card is undoubtedly one of the best no-annual-fee credit cards on the market today. It offers excellent spending bonuses, including 3X points on gas stations, supermarkets and in one self-select category (which could be fitness clubs, streaming services and more).

The Citi Strata Premier Card, which has an annual fee of $95, also offers some great spending bonuses, including 3X points in major categories like gas stations, restaurants, supermarkets and air travel. Plus, this card includes a $100 annual hotel benefit that could instantly offset the card’s annual fee.

The top-tier Citi Strata Elite Card offers as much as $1,500 in value annually through its benefits and statement credits. Some of these include credits for hotel stays, a Priority Pass Select membership, four annual day passes to Admirals Club lounges, and up to $200 in annual statement credits for Blacklane private chauffeur services. With these benefits as well as the Strata Elite Card’s spending bonuses, you can easily offset this card’s $595 annual fee.

In determining which of these three cards would be best for your wallet, you’ll need to examine your own spending patterns and determine which of these cards’ benefits you would actually use. Nonetheless, if you’re looking for a new credit card, the Citi Strata family is a great place to start your search.