Feb. 11, 2026
S3 E12: Citi ThankYou® Points Overview: Cards and Sweet Spots
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Click MORE to see Ad disclosures For a long time, the Citi ThankYou ecosystem has lived in the shadow of other rewards programs, but some massive changes in the last year have brought it back onto my radar. Between the addition of American Airlines as a transfer partner and a brand-new premium card—the Citi Strata Elite—there is new value to unlock. I’m especially excited to dive into the Preferred Hotels partnership, which is a hidden gem for anyone who loves booking unique, independent prop...
Click MORE to see Ad disclosures
For a long time, the Citi ThankYou ecosystem has lived in the shadow of other rewards programs, but some massive changes in the last year have brought it back onto my radar. Between the addition of American Airlines as a transfer partner and a brand-new premium card—the Citi Strata Elite—there is new value to unlock. I’m especially excited to dive into the Preferred Hotels partnership, which is a hidden gem for anyone who loves booking unique, independent properties using points instead of just the big corporate chains.
In this episode, I’ll walk you through the current card lineup, including how to navigate calendar year credits to make sure you're getting way more value than the annual fee. We’ll also talk about my favorite hotel "sweet spots" where your points can effectively double or even quadruple in value. I’ll show you exactly how to make the most of this often-overlooked program.
ACTION STEPS:
- Browse the Maps: If you already have points, check out the new map and database of Preferred Hotels to find high-value properties. https://katiestraveltricks.com/guide-to-booking-preferred-hotels-map/
- Mark Your Calendar: If you want to maximize the "triple dip," set a reminder for early December to look into the Citi Strata Elite.
- Stay the Course: If you are a beginner, stick to your current three-year plan and keep this info for later so you don't get overwhelmed by too many programs at once. See the three-year plan here https://katiestraveltricks.com/3-year-plan/
- More Affiliate Card Offers Page: Visit this page to see more card offers available and support our work https://katiestraveltricks.com/more-affiliate-offers/
New Here?
Hi, I’m Katie from Katie’s Travel Tricks! I am here to help you learn the secrets that my family has been using for over a decade, using everyday expenses and welcome offers to supercharge your points earning. When you learn to do this, you can cover entire vacations every year.
Our family has been to Hawaii, Asia, the Caribbean, Europe — and more — all thanks to strategically earning and redeeming points. We've done this on a limited travel budget and now want to help you do it, too.
More from Katie’s Travel Tricks
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Advertiser Disclosure: Some of the card links and other products that appear on this podcast are from companies which Katie's Travel Tricks will earn an affiliate commission. Katie's Travel Tricks is part of an affiliate sales network and receives compensation for sending traffic to partner sites, such as CreditCards.com. The content in this podcast is accurate as of the posting date. Some of the offers mentioned may no longer be available. Editorial Disclosure: Opinions expressed here are the autho...
00:00 - Why Citi ThankYou Matters Now
02:10 - Card Lineup And Earning Basics
04:16 - Strata Premier: Pros And Limits
07:11 - Strata Elite Benefits Unpacked
11:14 - Calendar-Year Credits And Double Dips
13:26 - Triple Dip Timing And Caveats
15:22 - Ongoing Earning And Card Pairings
17:02 - Redemption Basics And Cash-Out Quirks
18:13 - Choice Hotels 1:2 Sweet Spot
20:32 - Preferred Hotels 1:4 Power
23:02 - Building The Preferred Hotels Database
25:08 - Real Examples: Hawaii, Tokyo, Ireland
27:12 - Search Friction And Workarounds
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Today I'm giving an overview of City Thank You Points, and we're going to also talk a little bit about one of City's lesser-known sweet spots, which is Preferred Hotels.
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I'm especially excited about Preferred Hotels because it has a lot of independent hotels, and I love the opportunity to use points to book unique options.
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Welcome back to Points for Normal People.
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I'm Katie and I'm here because I know that travel costs add up, especially for a family.
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But I believe travel isn't just for the rich.
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That's why on Points for Normal People I share the tips and tricks that my family has been using for over a decade to help you use your everyday expenses and credit card welcome offers to supercharge your travel points so you can pay for entire vacations every year.
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City Thank You Points as a Points ecosystem has been around for a long time, but is still not as well known as programs like Chase Ultimate Rewards and American Express Membership Rewards.
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That's not because it's less valuable.
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I think it's because it's more limited in opportunities to earn city thank you points.
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For instance, there are currently no business cards that allow you to earn city thank you points, and only a few personal cards.
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But a few things have happened in the past year or so to bring it back onto a lot of people's radar again.
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So in late 2024, City added a new hotel loyalty program as a transfer partner, Preferred Hotels.
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We're going to get more into preferred hotels at the end of this episode because it has some really unique redemption options.
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Then in July 2025, City added American Airlines as a transfer partner.
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This was huge news because no other bank points currency currently transfers to American Airlines.
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And American Airlines has some really good pricing on award flights, both domestically, but also especially when it comes to international partner award flights.
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And then right around that same time, City added a new card to its thank you card lineup called the City Strata Elite.
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All of these factors really increase the visibility and usefulness of this program.
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So let's talk about what you need to know about earning and redeeming City Thank You Points.
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There's a lot of similarities to how this program works compared to other bank points programs.
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So if you've listened to season one of this podcast where we went through Chase Ultimate Rewards, you'll have a really good idea for how that program works in general, and you can transfer a lot of that knowledge to how this program works.
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As of now, there are three main cards where you can earn city thank you points.
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The City Strata card is a no annual fee card with a modest standard welcome offer of 20,000 points.
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For a no annual fee card, it actually has arguably some of the best earning categories for everyday spending.
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Like it earns three points per dollar on supermarkets and gas.
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Now, most people probably won't necessarily get this card straight out because they're gonna want to jump to one of the annual fee versions that have bigger welcome offers.
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But it can be helpful to keep no annual fee versions in mind as a downgrade option.
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It's also important to note that while the City Strata card does allow you to transfer thank you points to transfer partners, the rates that it gives you are worse than the cards that have annual fees, and I'll go over those cards next.
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But if you have only this no annual fee strata card, your points options will be much more limited and you won't get as much value.
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The next card up in the tier is the City Strata Premiere.
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This is a$95 annual fee card.
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The bonus on this card has been sitting at 60,000 points after you spend$4,000 in three months for a while.
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But this offer used to go up to 80,000 points sometimes, so I'm hoping that we see that return in the future.
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When it comes to ongoing earning through spending, this is also a pretty strong card if you're using it for everyday spend.
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It gives you three points per dollar on supermarkets, dining, and gas, as well as air travel and hotels.
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If you book through city travel, you get 10 points per dollar on hotels, car rentals, and attractions.
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But it doesn't really have any benefits beyond that.
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Sure, it does advertise a$100 hotel credit annually, but you need to spend$500 on a hotel in city travel just to get$100 off.
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So it doesn't offer a lot of ongoing benefit value.
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And the city travel protections aren't great either.
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So for the trip cancellation coverage to kick in, for instance, you have to book round trip travel on the card, and all expenses must be paid for either with your card or city thank you points.
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That's pretty restrictive, especially compared to the stronger policies on the Chase Sapphire Preferred card, which is what we'd recommend for booking instead.
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Especially because if you're booking an airline ticket with airline miles and just paying for the taxes and fees with a credit card, the Sapphire's travel protections would kick in on that, where these ones on the City Strata Premiere would not.
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The one protection that is really strong on this card is the extended warranty protection, which is for 24 months, where most cards only offer 12 months of extended warranty.
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But just keep in mind you'd have to plan to keep this card indefinitely to make sure you'll have access to that benefit.
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An extended warranty does you no good if you've paid for an item on the card and it breaks during that extended warranty period, but you've already gotten rid of that card.
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Then beyond the$95 City Strata Premiere, we now have that City Strata Elite.
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This is the new card I mentioned earlier that was released in summer 2025.
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And I'll be honest, when I first looked over the card, I didn't pay too much attention to it because my first instinct was that it seemed too hard to make up the annual fee long term.
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Like the City Strata Premiere, the travel protections also aren't particularly great and they're limited in usage.
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But then I looked at it a little bit more closely and realized it does have some great perks that make it a good value for at least the first year that you hold it.
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The annual fee on this card is$595.
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So that's the starting point in my mind for the type of value that you need to make up to make it a keeper card.
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Of course, in the first year, you'd also be earning a welcome offer, but I still think you should be able to find a significant value to make up a good portion of that annual fee.
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One thing I missed at my very first glance, and one reason why this card makes it easier to make up the annual fee, is that almost all of the perks are based on a calendar year rather than a card member year.
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When perks are based on a calendar year, that means they reset every year on January 1st.
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So it can be possible to get benefits two or even three times in the first 12 months of holding a card.
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So I'll explain the benefits and then I'll explain more in detail how all that works.
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So one benefit that's really easy to use is what they call on this card the$200 annual splurge credit.
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The way it works is that you pick two out of four stores they have listed, and as you spend in those areas, you will be given a statement credit up to$200.
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Once you get to$200 in a calendar year, you don't get anything else.
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So the stores right now are American Airlines, Best Buy, Future Personal Training, and Live Nation.
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Live Nation actually also includes Ticketmaster.com.
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And you might hear that list and on first glance feel like that's not particularly useful to you.
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But if you select Best Buy, I want to remind you that Best Buy sells a ton of gift cards to all sorts of stores.
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So a lot of people who got this card just went into a Best Buy and bought$200 worth of a variety of gift cards to trigger this credit.
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Or you can also buy gift cards online from Best Buy.com.
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Just keep in mind that you can't buy a Best Buy gift card online because those are actually processed by a third-party site, not by Best Buy.com.
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People have lots of data points showing that you could buy an Amazon gift card online from Best Buy, and that that triggered the credit.
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Just remember you have to select your splurge credit store before you make any purchase.
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The City Strata Elite also comes with a$300 annual hotel credit per year.
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Again, this is calendar year.
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So you have it whenever you get the card.
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And then in that first 12 months of holding the card after January 1st, whenever that happens for you, it will reset and you'll have access to it again.
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Of the premium cards, this is the easiest hotel credit to use because it's broad.
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You do have to book a two-night stay, and it does have to be booked via City Travel, but there are no brand restrictions.
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And at this point, City Travel is actually powered by Agoda and the pricing is decent.
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I like that this is a very flexible credit, not tied to specific hotels like it is with so many other premium cards.
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So if you can easily use that$300 hotel credit plus the$200 splurge credit, that does bring your effective annual fee right down to$95, which is great.
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That puts it at the same effective annual fee as the City Strata Premiere, but with some additional benefits on top.
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So this card also has some annual black lane credits for a car service, but I will say that generally people found these harder to use and get a good value.
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It does include a credit for trusted traveler programs like TSA PreCheck or Global Entry every four years.
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That's very standard on premium cards.
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It includes a Priority Pass membership and access to Priority Pass lounges for the cardholder and two guests.
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It does not include Priority Pass experiences like Gameway, just to clarify.
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This Priority Pass Lounge membership is actually pretty easy to use as you can actually just show your City Strata Elite card and that will act as your Priority Pass membership card.
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Authorized users only cost$75 to add, and they would get their own Priority Pass membership and could also bring two guests in.
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So with the exception of the Ritz-Carlton card, where authorized users are free and get their own priority pass membership plus two guests.
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This is really the most affordable option for adding a second priority pass membership with guest access.
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I know someone in the comments might also point out the Bank of America card.
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There is a Bank of America card that has this option as well.
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City doesn't have its own lounge network like Chase and Capital One and American Express, but this card does include a unique benefit, which is four passes per year to American Airlines Admiral's Club Lounges, which you can access when you fly any One World Airline, assuming the airport that you're at has an Admiral's Lounge.
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A few unique things about these passes are first that these will actually appear in your American Airlines online account.
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So that's where you need to look for them.
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It's a QR code.
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Then once you activate them, they are good for 24 hours.
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So you can use them for multiple flights, and you can even use them on arrival to a new airport, like when you land.
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They also allow you to bring up to three kids under 18 into the lounge with the adult.
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So that makes these very family friendly.
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Officially, the terms say you can't share these and that the cardholder must be present.
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But in practice, we've found in our community that you can actually just screenshot these and send them to someone else, and then they can just use them.
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There isn't actually any name listed on the QR code, and I think that that's why sharing has worked at least so far.
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The fact that all of these are calendar year credits is especially great news for your first year of card membership, like I said.
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So let's say you open the card in July.
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You immediately have access to the splurge credit, hotel credit, even the Admiral's Lounge passes.
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You do have to use them by December 31st because that's when they expire.
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Then on January 1st, those benefits will reset and you get another$200 splurge credit, another$300 hotel credit, and another four Admiral's Club passes.
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You can even sometimes get three years of credits with one year of annual fee.
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And that's what's known in the points world as a triple dip.
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For a triple dip, you'd open the card in December, in the beginning to middle of the month, and use your credits very quickly.
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Then you'd use them again in January once they reset.
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The third part of the triple dip is the following year.
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And this works because you have 30 days even after an annual fee posts to get a refund on that annual fee if you decide at that point to close or downgrade a card.
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So the following January, your credits would reset again and you'd quickly use the credit again.
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And you likely will have just been charged the annual fee around January 1st.
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And so you still have 30 days from that point to decide if you want to close or keep or downgrade the card.
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A lot of people got really excited about the triple dip on the City Strata Elite at the end of 2025.
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And I suspect it might be popular again at the end of 2026.
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But the triple dip does require more to manage, a little more effort, so just know that anyone can get two years of credits, which immediately makes it easier to get more value than that annual fee on this card.
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The City Strata Elite also has some unique earning categories for ongoing spending.
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Like most premium cards, it has a high incentive, so high bonus earnings for any booking you do via its own travel portal, City Travel.
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It actually earns 12 points per dollar on hotels and cars booked.
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And while typically I don't always love portal pricing, since City's portal is powered by a Goda, we do see pretty good pricing, especially for independent hotels.
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Sometimes it's still 10% higher, but sometimes it's the same.
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But at least the prices aren't crazy.
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Then it earns six points per dollar on dining, specifically on Friday and Saturday nights from 6 p.m.
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to 6 a.m.
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Eastern time.
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So this is kind of an odd perk, but if you dine out on the weekends, it's pretty nice.
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It's actually even nicer if you are living on the West Coast because you have more time to use those.
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Otherwise, this card earns three points per dollar on dining and then 1.5 points per dollar on everything else.
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If you really wanted to double down on this ecosystem for everyday spending and earning through that, it would be great to pair this card with the no annual fee City Strata.
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And then you'd be getting across the board three points per dollar on supermarkets, dining, and gas.
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Now, like with some other ecosystems, there are also some cards that you can open that officially earn cash back, but the cash back can be moved over into the thank you points if you hold one of these city strata cards.
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So I'm only going to briefly touch on them, but City Double Cash Card allows you to essentially earn 2% back on all purchases.
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Officially, it's 1% back when you buy something and 1% back when you pay off your card.
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But if you've been listening, hopefully you're paying off your card in full every month.
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City Custom Cash lets you earn five points per dollar on up to$500 on your highest category of spending between restaurants, gas stations, grocery stores, travel, streaming services, drug stores, home improvement stores, fitness clubs, or live entertainment.
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So that one could also be maximized if you spend around$500 a month on one of those categories.
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You could use that card exclusively for that and be earning five points per dollar on that.
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Now, while that is a fair number of cards, it's five cards.
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Because there aren't any business cards, it is kind of hard to earn a lot of points for City just through welcome offers.
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And as you know, welcome offers are my favorite way to earn points fast.
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So we are just hoping that City will continue to expand the offerings and maybe even one day bring back a business card option.
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But let's get to the fun part, which is how to use these points.
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City does let you share points with another person, but it's important to note that if you do that, those transferred points will expire 90 days after being shared.
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So you'd only want to do that if you know how you'll use them and that you'll use them pretty quickly.
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Or at least you know where you want to transfer them.
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But it's good to know that you do have that option to combine points dashes with family or friends.
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The general redemption options you have mirror most other bank points currencies, but the sweet spots, of course, are a bit different.
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So you do have the option to use your points directly in city travel at a rate of one cent per point.
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You can also cash out your points for straight cash back.
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In kind of an odd twist, you actually get a better cash out rate on two of the no annual fee cards, the City Double Cash and the City Custom Cash.
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Both of these give you one cent per point.
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Whereas that$595 City Strata Elite only gives you 0.75 cents per point.
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There are also some gift cards you can purchase for about one cent per point.
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Sometimes it's slightly better than that with small promotions.
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And like most bank cards, the highest potential value comes when you transfer these to certain airline or hotel partners.
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One of my very first videos on YouTube was actually a deep dive into using city thank you points for choice hotels.
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When you transfer city points to choice, it's actually a one to two ratio, so effectively they double.
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Now this sweet spot is still alive and well.
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Now, choice doesn't have the greatest reputation within the US, but the hotels that I think are a particularly good option tend to be the ones in their Ascend collection.
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These are often independent hotels, and one of our very favorite hotel stays ever was the Hotel Aquarius in Venice, which we booked with Choice Points.
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On that same trip, we also spent a few nights at the Hyatt Centric in Murano, which is very close to Venice, but it just felt very corporate.
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Whereas I really loved the Hotel Aquarius because it was full of local art and glasswork, and it felt a little fun and funky and also historic.
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When we stayed, we actually paid more in points than it currently costs, but now when I'm looking, I also can't find any suites, which is what we had been able to book.
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But right now, as an example, most nights cost 20,000 choice points per night.
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That means you just need to transfer 10,000 city points to choice to book a night here.
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And these rooms often go for$250 or more, and they include free breakfast.
00:18:27.440 --> 00:18:35.759
Again, I'll add that when I booked, I was able to book a room that slept four, but now it looks like it might just be the smaller rooms that sleep two that are available.
00:18:35.920 --> 00:18:38.160
So a family might need to book two rooms here.
00:18:38.400 --> 00:18:45.680
I also have a map on my blog that shows all the Ascend collection hotels in the US that allow you to book into a suite with choice points.
00:18:45.920 --> 00:18:52.720
It might not be 100% up to date still because we made it a few years ago, but it is still fun to browse for some inspiration.
00:18:52.960 --> 00:19:02.000
There are some great properties on there, like some cabins near Yellowstone, some rooms on the coast of Oregon, big vacation homes in Big Baron, California, and more.
00:19:02.240 --> 00:19:05.119
And choice isn't the only hotel transfer partner.
00:19:05.359 --> 00:19:08.640
There's another newer sweet spot with preferred hotels.
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City points transfer to preferred hotels at a one-to-four ratio.
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That means if you transfer a thousand city thank you points to preferred hotels, you get 4,000 points.
00:19:18.799 --> 00:19:23.200
Now, this in and of itself doesn't mean anything unless you know what preferred hotels cost.
00:19:23.519 --> 00:19:30.000
But I will tell you that Capital One also transfers to preferred hotels, but only at a 1 to 2 ratio.
00:19:30.240 --> 00:19:35.039
So right out of the gate, you can see that this at least is double what Capital One would give you.
00:19:35.200 --> 00:19:39.759
The Preferred Hotels program is a collection of independent hotels around the world.
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And right now it seems like there's about 400 of them.
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So it's a pretty small program.
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But there are some really great properties.
00:19:47.119 --> 00:20:00.240
I also want to note that this hotel program is also a little bit funky for booking with points because Preferred Hotels actually also partners with choice hotels and allows you to use choice points to book some of their hotels.
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But the process for doing that isn't directly on the choice website or the preferred hotel website.
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And then some of the preferred hotels are only bookable with choice points, and some are only bookable on the preferred site with iPrefer points.
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And on both sites, the search function is cumbersome.
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But still, there are some good and unique hotel options here.
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And this is exactly the kind of project that I love to undertake, something where we can make it easier for everyone to wade through these options.
00:20:31.759 --> 00:20:38.799
So our team has been working on some really great resources to help you explore the options for booking preferred hotels with points.
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Basically, what we've done is create a database of all the preferred hotels, and our team has gone through them one by one to first of all find the room occupancy as well as what they cost in points.
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Because one of my pet peeves when I'm trying to find hotel options for my family is not knowing if we can really all fit into one room.
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So we have those all sorted out so you can really quickly see which hotels you could book for a family and be in one room.
00:21:06.240 --> 00:21:13.839
Then we also added information on if they can be booked with prefer I prefer points or choice points and how much it costs.
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And then we have a quick gauge on there what the cash prices are as well.
00:21:17.440 --> 00:21:19.599
Of course, cash prices can really vary.
00:21:19.839 --> 00:21:26.559
I'm really excited for this because it means you'll be able to search both the map and the charts to find properties that suit you.
00:21:26.799 --> 00:21:30.319
I just looked at our list and filtered to properties that sleep four.
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And one, for instance, is a property that came up in Waikiki.
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It sleeps four, it's called Alohilani Resort Waikiki Beach.
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So it's 75,000 I prefer points per night.
00:21:41.599 --> 00:21:48.160
But that means, because of the one to four ratio, that you could book four nights for 75,000 city points.
00:21:48.319 --> 00:21:51.359
And four nights at this property costs about$1,800.
00:21:51.759 --> 00:21:58.160
Now at some properties, you do have to pay resort fees, and at this one, you do pay$54 per night resort fee.
00:21:58.319 --> 00:21:59.519
But still, overall, it gets good.
00:22:00.160 --> 00:22:04.480
Reviews, and anytime we have a new option to book new hotels, I think it's a win.
00:22:04.640 --> 00:22:08.559
And with one welcome offer, you can cover four nights in Hawaii for a family.
00:22:08.720 --> 00:22:16.000
If you're a family, I'd even encourage you to look at some of those hotels that sleep only two to three, because some of them are pretty low priced.
00:22:16.240 --> 00:22:21.759
There are hotels in Tokyo, for instance, that cost just 50,000 IPfer points per night.
00:22:21.839 --> 00:22:27.839
So even if you got two rooms, that's 100,000 I prefer points per night for those two rooms.
00:22:28.000 --> 00:22:33.440
And then remember, if you transfer 100,000 city points to I prefer points, you'd get 400,000.
00:22:33.599 --> 00:22:38.000
So you could book two rooms for four nights for 100,000 total city points.
00:22:38.160 --> 00:22:42.559
There's even a castle in Ireland I saw that you can book for 50,000 points per night.
00:22:42.720 --> 00:22:45.599
And there are also a lot of hotels across the United States.
00:22:45.839 --> 00:22:52.079
Again, I want to stress that the search function of the preferred hotel's website is not easy to use.
00:22:52.319 --> 00:22:57.839
So even if you find a property you like, you might have to hunt and peck for available dates.
00:22:58.079 --> 00:23:04.400
There is just no easy way to see which dates have rooms available to book with points that we've found so far.
00:23:04.640 --> 00:23:09.440
You have to select dates and then wait for the next screen to load, which takes a minute.
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And then if there are rooms available to book with points, then you have to check a little box that says book with I prefer points to see what the options are.
00:23:18.720 --> 00:23:23.839
But I still think that's worth it if you're in that kind of a mood to look into hotel options.
00:23:24.000 --> 00:23:29.440
Beyond hotel transfer options, City Thank You Points also transfer to a variety of airline partners.
00:23:29.680 --> 00:23:32.079
The most notable is American Airlines.
00:23:32.319 --> 00:23:35.680
This transfer partnership started in July 2025.
00:23:35.839 --> 00:23:47.119
And if you listen to my previous episode on American Airlines miles, that stated that there were no bank points that transferred to American, which was true at the time, but now City does.
00:23:47.279 --> 00:23:54.079
And that's great news because you can use all of the American Airlines sweet spots now, and you can transfer your city thank you points to American.
00:23:54.240 --> 00:23:56.559
Another somewhat niche airline partner is Qantas.
00:23:56.640 --> 00:24:07.440
This one can be particularly helpful if you're wanting to go to New Zealand on points because a lot of airlines have very limited availability to New Zealand, but Qantas has pretty reliable availability.
00:24:07.680 --> 00:24:15.119
There are other airline partners as well, but a lot of them overlap with other programs, so I'm not going to do a deep dive into every single program right now.
00:24:15.359 --> 00:24:19.519
Before I wrap up, I want to mention a kind of odd affiliate link quirk.
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As a quick refresher, if you're new here, I support my business almost entirely by credit card affiliate links.
00:24:25.839 --> 00:24:30.400
That means that if someone applies for a card with my affiliate link, I earn a cash commission.
00:24:30.640 --> 00:24:36.160
At the same time, I'm committed to sharing the best offers out there, even if they don't earn me a commission.
00:24:36.400 --> 00:24:38.480
And so far, all that has worked out.
00:24:38.640 --> 00:24:46.559
I'm so grateful to so many people who take the effort to specifically go to my site before they apply for a card to use my affiliate links.
00:24:46.799 --> 00:24:51.680
Many, many cards I'm able to make it really easy to find my affiliate link for them.
00:24:51.920 --> 00:24:58.640
Like Chase and Capital One and American Express cards, I can just link right from my site to an affiliate link.
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