My Citibank Cards

The vast majority of my credit cards are issued by Chase and American Express. But I do have a smattering of cards from other issuers, including Citibank, US Bank, Barclays, and Wells Fargo. That is really in activity order, with my Citi cards getting more spend than the others (aside from Chase & Amex). I’ll write a separate post on my US Bank cards, but Barclays & Wells Fargo aren’t worth a post.

Citibank recently added American Airlines as a transfer partner, and for me, that made these cards a LOT more valuable. I fly AA pretty often, so this was great for me.

I have 4 credit cards with Citibank: Strata Premier, Double Cash, and two Custom Cash Cards.

The Strata Premier is an extremely good earning card with a low $95 Annual Fee. It earns 3X points on Restaurants, Grocery, Gas and some travel categories. If you are trying to minimize the number of cards that your P2 has, the Strata Premier plus a catch-all 2X card (like the Double Cash or Bilt) is a good combo. It also has a $100 hotel credit when you spend $500 in the Citi travel portal, but I’ve never used it.

I need to have a Strata Premier (or Strata Elite) to transfer my points to airlines and hotels at 1 to 1. The free cards transfer but at less than 1 to 1.

The Double Cash earns 2X everywhere, so it is a great catch-all card. It’s a Mastercard, so it’s widely accepted (vs. Amex). But since it’s a Mastercard and not a Visa, we can’t use it at Costco in-store.

The Custom Cash cards are no longer available to apply for or even product change to. Not sure what Citi is up to, but glad I have two. These cards give you 5X points on your top spending category up to $500 per billing cycle. Most quarters, I use one for gas and one for a limited set of grocery stores that don’t accept Amex. But that really varies depending on what sign-up bonus I’m working on and what categories the Freedom card is earning 5X on.

I do use the Citi cards, but they are a distant third to Chase and Amex in terms of overall usage.