Guide To Citi Strata Premier Card Bonus Categories

Link: Apply now for the Citi Strata Premier℠ Card

There’s a lot to love about the $95 annual fee Citi Strata Premier℠ Card (review), including that the card is currently offering a great welcome bonus. One particularly compelling aspect of the card is that it’s the mid-range credit card with the best bonus categories, in my opinion.

In many ways the Citi Strata Premier Card is a competitor to the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card (review). While there are pros and cons to both cards, a huge advantage of the Citi Strata Premier is the superior bonus categories. In this post I wanted to take a closer look at how those bonus categories work.

Citi Strata Premier Card 3x ThankYou points bonus categories

What makes the Citi Strata Premier Card lucrative long-term is that it offers 3x points in five different categories. The Citi Strata Premier offers 3x points on:

• Restaurants
• Gas stations & EV charging
• Supermarkets
• Airfare
• Hotels

How does Citi define each of these categories? In other words, specifically, which kinds of purchases qualify, and which don’t? Let’s go over each category below. I’d also like to mention that the card is ideal for purchases abroad, given that:

• The Citi Strata Premier has no foreign transaction fees
• The Citi Strata Premier bonus categories apply globally, rather than being US-centric

3x points on dining & restaurants

The Citi Strata Premier offers 3x points on dining and restaurant purchases, which generally include cafes, bars, lounges, fast food restaurants, takeout, and delivery.

You generally won’t earn bonus points for purchases made at bakeries, caterers, and restaurants in other establishments (like hotels, department stores, grocery stores, discount stores, convenience stores, and warehouse clubs).

That makes the Citi Strata Premier one of the best cards for dining and restaurant purchases.

3x points on gas stations & EV charging

The Citi Strata Premier offers 3x points on gas station and EV charging purchases. The gas station category typically includes gas and other gas station purchases, while the EV charging category includes most places where you can charge your car.

You generally won’t earn bonus points for gas and EV charging purchases at warehouse clubs, discount stores, department stores, convenience stores, or other merchants that aren’t classified as gas stations or EV charging.

That makes the Citi Strata Premier one of the best cards for gas station purchases.

3x points at supermarkets

The Citi Strata Premier offers 3x points at supermarkets.

You generally won’t earn bonus points for purchases made at general merchandise or discount stores, freezer or meat locker provisioners, dairy product stores, miscellaneous food and convenience stores, markets, drugstores, warehouse clubs, wholesale clubs, specialty vendors, bakeries, candy stores, nut stores, confectionary stories, and meal kit delivery services.

That makes the Citi Strata Premier one of the best cards for grocery and supermarket purchases.

3x points on airfare

The Citi Strata Premier offers 3x points on airfare. This includes all airfare purchased directly with airlines or through a travel agency. Not just ticket costs qualify, but generally, other fees associated with airline tickets as well.

That makes the Citi Strata Premier one of the best cards for airfare purchases.

3x points on hotels

The Citi Strata Premier offers 3x points on hotels. This includes hotels booked directly or through a travel agency. This also includes incidental purchases at hotels, and not just the room rate.

That makes the Citi Strata Premier one of the best cards for hotel purchases. Also keep in mind that the Citi Strata Premier offers a once annual $100 hotel credit, which can be applied toward a single hotel stay of $500+ when booking through the Citi Travel portal.

Citi Strata Premier Card 10x ThankYou points Citi Travel portal

In addition to the widely useful 3x points categories offered by the Citi Strata Premier Card, the card also offers 10x points on hotels, rental cars, and attractions, booked through the Citi Travel portal. Based on my valuation of points, that’s like a 17% return on that spending.

Now, it’s worth emphasizing that this won’t be for everyone. If you’re staying at a major hotel chain, you typically won’t earn points or receive elite perks on third party bookings. However, for someone who isn’t terribly brand loyal, or if you’re staying at an independent hotel, this could be very rewarding.

Maximize ThankYou points with Citi no annual fee cards

If you want to maximize the Citi ThankYou points you earn, you can’t beat having the Citi Strata Premier Card plus some of the no annual fee Citi cards that can potentially earn ThankYou points:

• The Citi Double Cash® Card (review) can earn you up to 2x points for everyday spending, making it one of the best cards for non-bonused spending
• The Citi Rewards+^® Card (review) rounds up purchases to the nearest 10 points, and can help you maximize your points by offering 10% of your points back on the first 100,000 ThankYou points redeemed every calendar year, including those earned on the Citi Strata Premier Card
• The Citi Custom Cash® Card (review) earns 5x points on your top eligible spending category every billing cycle (on up to $500 of spending), with categories including drugstores, fitness clubs, gas stations, grocery stores, home improvement stores, live entertainment, restaurants, select streaming services, select transit, and select travel

At a minimum, you can’t beat the combination of the Citi Strata Premier Card and Citi Double Cash Card, so that you can earn 2-3x points on all purchases. Picking up other cards can make a lot of sense as well.

Bottom line

The Citi Strata Premier Card offers incredibly well-rounded bonus categories, as you can earn triple points on gas and EV charging, at supermarkets, restaurant, airfare, and hotel purchases. When you add it all together, you can easily average multiple points per dollar spent, making this one of the most compelling mid-range cards out there.

Hopefully the above sheds some light on how each bonus category is defined, since it can sometimes get confusing to figure out which purchases qualify for each bonus category.

If you don’t yet have the Citi Strata Premier Card, this is a fantastic time to apply.