Frequent Miler on the Air - Citi might nerf the Strata Premier | Coffee Break Ep99 | 3-31-26

Episode Date: March 31, 2026

A recent survey sent out by Citi has us speculating about changes Citi might be considering for the Citi Strata Premier℠ Card. This would include an increased annual fee and increased complexity. Citi might nerf the Strata PremierRead more about the Citi Strata Premiere refresh rumors here(02:55) - Current version vs potential version(09:44) - Why we're not a fan...Visit https://frequentmiler.com/subscribe to get updated on in-depth points and miles content like this, and don’t forget to like and follow us on social media.Music Credit – Beach Walk by Unicorn HeadsMentioned in this episode:Visit FrequentMiler.com Did you know that Frequent Miller is also a website? At frequentMiller.com, you'll find all the latest deals, news about points, miles, and rewarding credit cards, the single best, Best Credit Cards page on the web, guides to all popular rewards programs, and many other terrific resources. If you'd like to get our posts sent to your email, go to frequentMiller.com/subscribe and sign up for free. https://frequentmiler.com/subscribe/Check out all of our other travel podcasts from around the worldThis podcast is part of Voyascape, a podcast network that brings together the world's best travel podcasts. You can find all of our podcasts from around the world at Voyascape.com. If you are interested in advertising or sponsored content on any of our shows you can find out more at the link below.Voyascape Podcast Network

This is a Voyescape podcast. You can find all of our travel podcasts from around the world at voyescape.com. Welcome to Freakomiler's Coffee Break, where we focus on a single topic related to miles and points. And each coffee break is limited to 20 minutes or less, for your money back. Today's coffee break. City is thinking of nerfing the strata premier card. What's going on, Nick? What are they going to do to it?

us. Well, they're going to significantly complicate it. And, you know, nerfing it is probably the opinion you and I would share, although I got to say some readers looked at the potential changes and said, maybe this will be good for them. So let's talk about it. City sent out some surveys to card holders. And we should caveat all of this by reminding people that when card issuers give out surveys, it's not always an indicator of things to come. Sometimes we see some of those things happen. Sometimes we see none of them happen. Sometimes it all happens. So it's hard to know. None of this is set in stone. Nothing is changing yet. And if it does change, it'll probably be a while before it changes for existing card holders. So certainly don't go out and be like, oh, I'm going to cancel my card now.

Or I'm not going to renew my card because maybe they're going to change. Don't make any crazy decisions. We just want to talk through if this stuff happens, would it be good or bad and why? So the survey came out and it looks like the card is, or they're considering for the card anyway, an increase in annual fee. Currently, it's got a $95 annual fee, but the survey mentions a more expensive $195 annual fee.

Of course, they will offset that with a handful of coupons, and they're going to change a bunch of the bonus categories potentially. They surveyed major changes to the bonus categories right now, as things stand while we record this, the city strata premier card has a whole bunch of useful

3x categories, and gas, and grocery, and dining, etc. The new version of the card would be a mixture of 2x bonus categories and some 4x. So it's going to be a mix of things that I guess might be good for some and not good for others. Yeah. And sadly, a lot less 4x than 2x. You know, they're definitely moving down. And at a big picture is, you know, they're taking the playbook from Chase and, well, Well, if they do this, they're complexifying this whole thing, right? They're taking what was a simple, easy-to-explained card, $95, a whole bunch of useful 3x categories,

1-X everywhere else, and they're making it really complicated with higher annual fee. Yes, it's offset with some useful credits. And then, hey, look, you might get 4x sometimes, but only depending on what time of day it is. you know, and so it's not, it's not a trend that we like to see, but that seems to be for sure what they're considering. Yeah. So let's run down the whole thing. So currently $95 annual fee, the new may be possible fee will be $195. Right now, there's a coupon credit on the card that gives you $100 off of a hotel booking of $500 or more when you book through city travel. under the new proposed changes here, we would see a handful of different coupon credits. So first of all, a $120 statement credit or up to $120 every four years for TSA pre-check or global entry,

pretty standard on many of the premium travel cards, up to a $100 splurge credit, which will be $50 semi-annually once January to June, once July to December. And the eligible merchants for that would be American Airlines, Best Buy, or LiveNation, So that's interesting because they're taking basically the best options from the strata elite splurge credit and putting them here, but with a lesser amount and, you know, semi-annually instead of any time. Right. The hotel credit will become either a $150 credit for hotel bookings on city travel with a two-night minimum. It'll be $75 semi-annually again, 75 January to June, 75 July to December. So $150 total or $200 in credit towards the reserve collection.

bookings on city travel with a two-night minimum and $100 semi-annually. So if you remember that, I think you deserve at least a $50 statement credit. I mean, regardless, I'm not a fan of either of those. They're way too limiting and too small. So the two-night minimum to get a $75 credit twice a year, I mean, that's ridiculous. And then the reserve collection, I think there's, I've heard of one hotel that's in the reserve collection. and there's probably more than that, but.

But not many more than two, because I don't think I've seen two yet. Right. Right. All right. Keep going. Yeah. All right. And then they're going to add an annual, or potentially anyway, again, remember, this is all just rumored based on survey. But an annual dining credit, $100 up to $100 in credit. Applied at checkout at select restaurants. It'll be $50 semi-annually. I don't understand how that would work because it says applied at checkout. Do you have any thoughts about how that'll have? happen in practice?

No. I don't know. You know, maybe that what they mean is after you make the payment as opposed to a discount on the dining. If it's really just sort of open-ended like that and doesn't, you know, have any restaurant, you know, restrictions or whatever, then this is pretty good. I mean, it's pretty close to face value credit. So overall, you know, I know we haven't gotten to the bad part yet really. the really bad part. But overall, for $195, so $100 more than the current annual fee,

you're getting a bunch of credits. And I know I would easily use like that $100 splurge credit, even though it's broken up semi-annual and the annual dining credit if it works at all restaurants. So you're really talking about them making it easier to get the full annual fee back with rebates, which I guess is good, but of course it's more stupid credits to remember. Yeah, you know, it's more out of pocket up front. But like Greg said, you know, Best Buy being one of the splurge credit merchants makes a big difference because you can go into Best Buy and buy like, you know, an Amazon gift card or something for 50 bucks twice a year.

And so that, that to me would kind of take care of the $100 splurge credit and then dining like you said. If you're able to use that broadly, it would feel like it's not a huge devaluation at $195. I'm annoyed by coupon credits, but it would feel like it's not so bad until we get to the bonus categories. So let's talk about some of those. So the card currently offers 10x hotels, car rentals, and attractions book through city travel. And it would retain that with the rumored changes. So no change there.

Currently, it offers 3x on flights through city travel. So no extra points over what you would get on flights booked directly with airlines. but in the new world order here, so to speak, it would be 4x on flights booked through city travel. So 4x on flights, but only if you're booking those via city travel. Currently, the card earns 3x grocery, but under the survey changes, it would only earn 2x grocery, questionable. Currently earns 3x dining under the new framework. It would earn 2x dining, but, but hold on to your heads, Greg, 4x on city nights. Yeah, yeah, City nights.

So that's, what, 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. Eastern time on Friday and Saturday night. Doesn't matter where in the world you are. It's still based on Eastern time. So City likes everybody to be in New York City, I think. It's so stupid. It's such a, you know, to me, a dumb gimmick to make people think that they'll often get 4x. and I guess some people, if they do habitually dine out during those hours, great. But, you know, I hate that.

I mean, much rather just have a flat dining, you know. I wish I would just keep the 3x dining, you know. Right, right. I mean, I hate that too. I hate the time restriction. If you travel to Europe, then that's what, like basically midnight until 6 a.m., almost totally useless for the city nights. And, you know, I guess if you're in the West Coast, for me it'd be more useful because it started at 3 p.m. and continue well past them asleep.

So then I would feel like more of the day was covered, I guess, on Fridays and Saturdays. But like only so many restaurants, only so many people can possibly be eating out on Friday and Saturday night that it just seems like a, I don't know, such a gimmicky thing, like you said. So I'm annoyed to see that. Much rather 3X dining all the time. We hope you're enjoying the frequent miler on the air podcast. Did you know that Frequent Myler is also a website? At Frequentmyler.com, you'll find all the latest deals, news about points, miles, and rewarding credit cards, the single best best credit cards page on the web guides to all popular rewards programs and many other terrific resources. If you'd like to get our posts sent to your email, go to Frequentmiler.com forward slash subscribe and sign up for free.

Gas is currently 3x, 3x gas and EV charging stations that would drop to 2x with the surveyed changes. Currently 3x on flights, hotels and travel agencies when you book those things directly with airlines or hotels or travel agencies. In the future, that's going to be 3x on flights and hotels, but it seems like they're dropping the travel agencies there. And currently, you'd only earn 1x on transit, but under the new 4x.5.5. framework, you'd earn three X on select transit like car rentals, ferries, railways, stuff like that. So you'd earn a bonus category on that other transportation type stuff. And you'd get two priority pass lounge visits per year with the new surveyed changes. So what do you think?

Yeah, not a fan. You know, if you, it was such a, or it is today, I guess, a really compelling card. It's such an easy story to tell that most of the categories of spend that people spend a lot in regularly, gas, grocery, dining, and a lot of travel, you're going to get 3x with the current card. New one, I feel like most of your spend is going to be at 2x for most people. And yes, there's a couple places where you get 3 or 4x where you don't today, but it's mostly, I think for most people. people. It's a downgrade. So I don't like that. I don't like how they've added so much complexity to this idea. I think that's really the key thing. I mean, I'm disappointed that it's not easy to recommend under the new framework at all. And it's not easy to recommend because, like

you said, the complexity. It's the same mistake that Chase made with the Sapphire Reserve. I'm somewhat surprised to see City make the same mistake since it's been pretty clear that that hasn't worked out great for Chase, I don't think. So I'm kind of surprised to see, I don't know, surprise is the right word. City tends to do some crazy things and kind of march to the beat of their own drum. But I think, I don't know, what's your guess? Why do you think they're making it? Is it because of American Airlines?

Is it because you can transfer to American Airlines that they need to kind of reduce some of these popular bonus categories on the card? Is that what did this end? You think their costs are higher because the transfers? I don't know. It's possible. I actually, my first reaction when I saw this, was that, you know, with their strata leak card, one of the, one of the things that we all said

when we saw the 595 strata leak card is like, hey, it doesn't seem as good as the $95 strata premier for most types of spend, right? I mean, so that card earns, what, 3x dining and 1.5x everywhere else, basically, and then it's got that 6x city dining thing, right? I mean, 12 X through city travel. Well, yeah, yeah. Right, right. So it has some portal advantages too.

But very little. And so, you know, for most of your spend, you'd be much better off with a $95 strata premiere and has the same transfer partners. You know, so I kind of, so my first thought was they're trying to thread a needle here, which is to try to keep, you know, people still interested in the card by pretending there's some 4x you can get. but mostly, you know, lowering it to a 2x card so that it won't have a big advantage over the strata elite. I don't know if that's their motivation, but that's what I see when I look at it. I see. Yeah.

Well, it is, I don't know. I think it's a bummer in many ways here. Even if the annual fee will work out to be worth the difference in price, it's disappointing that the card itself won't be great for everyday spend for somebody. This is such a perfect player two card for a lot of people. I think. And it just won't be that anymore with all the complexity. It'll be the antithesis of a player two card because there's too much to remember in terms of what to use it for, what not to use it for, etc. So that's a bummer. It's also a bummer to have to pay $195 to access cities transfer partners,

because historically it's been possible to access transfer partners with a cheaper card with all of the other ecosystems. Yeah. Now, to be clear, you can access their transfer partners with almost any thank you card, but at a lower transfer ratio. And so to get the full transfer ratio, yeah, you need the, at least the strata premiere. And yeah, that's too bad. Now, if you don't mind the complexity, you know, keep in mind that this card does have some advantages, like more credits, like getting 3x on transit. So things like car, rentals, ferries, commuter railways, subways, taxis, like a whole list of things, garages. And so that's good.

And again, if you don't mind complexity, you could throw in a no-annual fee strata card. So that's not strata premier, but strata, which will give you back your 3x grocery and 3x gas stations and EV charging. But it does have a foreign transaction fee. So you wouldn't want to use it for those things. internationally, but still, you could keep most of the benefits of today's card, get a few more benefits by having both the new, you know, couponified strata premiere and the old strata and knowing which one to use when.

Which, you know, that kind of leads me into mentioning also that the downgrades, you know, as we see them in the city premiere, will probably be far less painful to. to someone who is deeply into the city ecosystem and is carrying a few custom cash cards already because you might be looking at this and saying, well, I'm already earning 5x on most of those categories because I've got two or three custom cash cards. So I don't care about the 3x. I'm happy to get the coupon credits for the additional $100. And if that's you, great. I think that there's definitely going to be a crowd of people for whom that's the solution, have a few custom cash cards. But that's a more complex thing for.

for most people. So it takes what was a really easy card and either forces you into a complicated strategy like that to have a no fee strata and the strata premiere or a couple of cuts or to getting a lower rate of return. And these 2X bonus categories are so weird because you get a double cash and get 2X in all everything. So there's no need to worry about which category.

So I wouldn't bother using the card for 2X. I'd get a double cash and be like, all right, use a double cash for everything. only use the strata premiere for the four and ten X categories. Well, except for when you're outside the country, then you got to refer to using your strata premiere or your strata elite and everything. Yeah, so it's very complicated.

And we're not going to get into details here, but I think it's going to have us in the future and others looking at simpler card combos that don't require, so many hoops to get good value. Like Wells Fargo has some good options where you get 3x or more in lots of different categories with carrying multiple cards for a total annual fee of $95 and they don't have foreign transaction fees on any of those cards. Or Capital One, where you could get like 2x everywhere and then throw in some 3x categories by adding in a card like

the saver. And so those are options that I think, are going to be looking more attractive if city really does this. I'm really hoping they don't. Yes, I concur. I hope they don't do this. I imagine they will do something because that's kind of how city rolls. But hopefully it won't be all of this. It won't be all the same.

I would bet, though, that the annual fee is going to increase and we will see the couponification. I just hope they rethink the bonus categories and make it a simpler story to tell. That's really what it comes down to, I think. Yeah, I agree. Don't forget. If you've enjoyed this and you'd like to get on our email list, you want to go to frequentmiler.com slash subscribe to join our email list, follow us on all the various social media, and check out our frequent mile around the air episodes dropping every Friday. If you love travel, but don't always have time to plan, we've got a podcast for you. It's called Travel in 10, and in every episode, in about 10 minutes, we give you a smart, practical overview of destinations all around the world. We cover what to see, where to stay, where to eat, and what actually matters when you're planning out a truck.

It's designed for real life. Listen on the way to the airport, in the car, or while you're thinking about your next getaway. So if you want expert advice, zero fluff, and travel inspiration that you can actually use, search for travel in 10 wherever you listen to podcasts, or you can also find us at voyage. Hi, I'm Mike Siegel, host of the Travel Tales podcast, and I'm a stand-up comedian who's been touring the world for years. And when I'm not traveling for work, I'm traveling for fun. And when I'm not traveling at all, I'm talking with friends, influencers, expats, and other. people from all walks of life about the thing I'm most passionate about, travel. So if you want to hear a fun conversation about travel and maybe even learn a few things along the way, check out the

Travel Tales podcast with Mike Siegel wherever you get your podcasts.