Citi Strata Elite Review: Premium Perks Can Offset Its Premium Fee

Flexible reward redemptions

Rewards earned with the Citi Strata Elite℠ Card are in the form of ThankYou points, which can be redeemed for travel, cash back, gift cards, purchases with participating retailers, charitable donations and more. Your points can also be transferred to one of Citi’s airline and hotel partners. One notable transfer partner is American Airlines — it hasn’t been a partner for other card issuers’ rewards programs, so this sets the Citi Strata Elite℠ Card apart.

Welcome bonus

There’s a generous welcome offer: Earn 80,000 bonus Points after spending $4,000 in the first 3 months of account opening. (NOTE: Per Citi, as of this writing, there's a different offer if you apply in person at a physical Citi retail branch.)

High rewards rate

These are some big numbers indeed, some of the highest you'll find in these categories:

You’ll earn 12 ThankYou points per $1 on hotels, car rentals and attractions, and 6 points per $1 on air travel, when you book through cititravel.com. You’ll also earn 6 points per $1 at restaurants, but only on Fridays and Saturdays between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m. Eastern Time. Outside of those times, you’ll earn just 3 points per $1. The base rewards rate for all other purchases is 1.5 points per $1, which is higher than the usual 1 point you see with most cards.

Travel and lifestyle credits

The Citi Strata Elite℠ Card comes packed with a long list of credits that add up to around $1,500 in value:

• A $300 annual hotel credit for stays of two nights or more booked through cititravel.com.

• A $200 annual Splurge Credit for purchases with your choice of up to two of these brands: 1stDibs, American Airlines (including flights, but excluding some purchases such as car rentals or hotel reservations through American), Best Buy, Future Personal Training, and Live Nation. Exclusions apply. Log in at citi.com/splurgecredit before you make an eligible purchase to activate up to two Splurge Credit merchants. You can change your merchant choices at any time. 

• A $200 annual credit (in the form of two $100 credits) for Blacklane chauffeur service bookings.

• Up to a $120 reimbursement for TSA PreCheck or Global Entry fees every four years.

• Four passes per year to American Airlines Admirals Clubs, valued at more than $300.

• A Priority Pass Select membership, valued at $469.

You'll also enjoy a number of other perks:

• Get a $100 experience credit when you book a hotel stay through The Reserve by Citi Travel, which offers a selection of high-end hotels. You’ll also get free breakfast and Wi-Fi, room upgrades, and early check-in/late checkout.

• Get access to ticket sales and presales for concerts, sporting events and more through Citi Entertainment.

• Participate in complimentary cocktail tutorials, videos and courses through the Death & Co lifestyle platform (for those ages 21 and up).

• Access Mastercard Collection benefits, such as priority reservations at restaurants, and tickets to live events. The Citi Strata Elite℠ Card is the first card in the new high-end Mastercard World Legend benefits tier.

Ability to optimize

High annual fee

Relatively speaking, while a $595 annual fee isn't as expensive as what you'll find on some other premium credit cards, it could certainly be a dealbreaker, especially if you don’t plan on using enough of the card’s annual credits to offset that cost. One of the other members of the Strata "family" of cards — the Citi Strata℠ Card or Citi Strata Premier® Card — could be an alternative choice. Here’s how the cards compare:

Complicated benefits

Like certain other premium credit cards, the Citi Strata Elite℠ Card offers perks that require some strategy on your part. To get value out of the card, you’ll need to know which statement credits you’re most likely to use.

Still, Citi’s statement credits are a bit simpler than others. They’re mostly annual or semi-annual credits, whereas other cards dole out some of their credits in small monthly increments. That means just a few purchases could wipe out the annual fee. For example, if you use the hotel credit, cash in the Splurge Credit for an American Airlines flight or new appliance at Best Buy, and renew your Global Entry membership, that’s $620 in value.

But if you’d prefer even greater simplicity with a high-end feel, the Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card offers a $300 annual credit on Capital One Travel bookings and a 10,000-point anniversary bonus (worth $100 when redeemed for travel). That alone more than offsets the card’s $395 annual fee. The card also offers airport lounge access, a credit toward TSA PreCheck or Global Entry, and more.

Poor cash-back redemption rate

If you choose to redeem your ThankYou points for cash back, note that they’ll be worth only 0.75 cents each with the Citi Strata Elite℠ Card. If that’s your preferred way to redeem points, consider other cards that allow you to redeem for cash back at a value of 1 cent per point. The Citi Double Cash® Card, for example, earns 2% cash back on all purchases — 1% when you buy, and 1% when you pay it off. Those rewards come in the form of ThankYou points, but in this case they're worth a full penny each.