Citi Premier® Card

In-Depth Review: Citi Premier® Card

If you enjoy traveling or regularly commute to work or school, the benefits of the Citi Premier® Card are quite advantageous. You can earn up to 3X ThankYou® Points on travel expenses and everyday purchases like gas, dining, and groceries with this card for a modest $95 annual fee.

Who Can Benefit from the Citi Premier Card?

The Citi Premier Card is a dependable travel credit card that can benefit several groups of people.
If you frequently travel for business or pleasure, the Citi Premier Card offers a range of benefits that can enhance your travel experience.

With its generous rewards program and travel perks, this card is ideal for frequent flyers and globetrotters alike. Additionally, if you enjoy dining out or exploring new cuisines, the Citi Premier Card offers bonus points on restaurant purchases, making it a great choice for food enthusiasts.

How to Get the Card

Credit Needed

A good to excellent credit score is generally recommended to be eligible for the Citi Premier credit card. This typically means a FICO score of 670 or higher, though having a score in the 700s or above would increase your chances of approval and potentially qualify you for better terms and rewards.

Pre-Qualify Before Applying

A great feature of Citi credit cards is the ability to pre-qualify before applying. This pre-screening process also applies to the Citi® Premier Card one of those offers.

These offers are based on credit score, borrowing history, and other readily available personal information. If you receive a pre-qualified offer, your chances of approval are generally favorable. Even better, there is no credit check needed to pre-qualify with Citi.

Here is the information you will need to get pre-qualified offers from Citibank:

• Full name
• Email address
• Last four digits of your SSN
• Current address

How to Earn Thank You Points

60,000-Point Welcome Bonus

The big rewards come fast and quick with the Citi Premier Card.  New accounts can earn an impressive 60,000 bonus points after spending $4,000 in the first three months of account opening. With a little forethought before a family vacation or anniversary celebration, you’ll hit that spending threshold quickly. And even better, those bonus points have a value of around $600 in gift cards or travel rewards at thankyou.com.

Earn Up to 3X Points On Purchases.

The appeal of the Citi Premier® Card increases exponentially for travel aficionados when you consider the big rewards cardholders earn on everyday purchases.

Before touching on the everyday rewards, it’s worth mentioning a special, limited-time-only Thank You points bonus on Citi Travel purchases:

• Special Bonus: Earn 10X points on hotel, car rentals and attractions booked on the Citi Travel portal through June 30, 2024.

With everyday use, the Citi Premier® Card earns the following Thank You Points per $1 spent on purchases:

• Earn 3X points on restaurants, supermarkets, gas stations, air travel,and hotels, and
• 1X points on all other purchases.

Thank You® Points don’t expire, and there’s no limit on the number of points you can earn.

How to Redeem Rewards

ThankYou points apply towards the following redemption options:

• Cash Back: Cash back applies to cash rewards, statement credits, and mortgage and student loan payments for Citi loans.
• Gift Cards: Citi rewards apply to gift cards from over 100 leading retailers and brands.
• Shopping: Cardholders can use ThankYou points to shop with Amazon, Best Buy, Expedia, PayPal, or 1-900-FLOWERS.
• Charity: Cardholders can also use their points to make donations to the American Red Cross or Smile Train.

ThankYou Rewards points also apply to travel bookings through the ThankYou from Citi travel portal. Reservations through the portal apply to flights, hotels, cruises, and rental cars. Pints also apply to select activities. Citi Premier® Card offers its best value when booking travel (up to 1.7 cents per point)

Citi Transfer Partners

Citibank offers point transfers to 15 airline partners. These point transfer partners are at a 1:1 ratio, making them a great value for those who are also members of the frequent flyer program of an associate carrier. The following are Citi ThankYou transfer partners:

Citi Travel Benefits

Citi Premier^® Cardholders also enjoy a $100 Hotel Benefit each year. This hotel benefit provides cardholders $100 off a single hotel stay of $500 or more, excluding taxes and fees, through thankyou.com, once per calendar year.

Other Citi® Benefits

The Citi Premier® Card comes with Citi Service benefits like other Citibank credit cards. These include:

• Citi Entertainment: Citi provides cardholders exclusive access to events and ticket presales for popular concerts, sporting events, and more.
• Citi Lost Wallet: Citi’s Lost Wallet service provides emergency card replacement and emergency cash should your card be lost or stolen.
• Citi Identity Theft Solutions: Citi provides comprehensive support in identity theft and offers expedited service to help get your life back on track should you fall victim.

Citi Entertainment

Perhaps the most noteworthy of these is the Citi Entertainment feature. Citi Entertainment provides “special access to purchase tickets to thousands of events, including presale tickets and exclusive experiences for the year’s most anticipated concerts, sporting events, dining experiences, and more.”

The Entertainment benefit is one of the more popular features of Citi credit cards, with users previously having exclusive access to concerts by artists like Taylor Swift.

Choose Your Due Date

Citi allows cardholders to choose a monthly payment due date that works for them. This feature lets you tailor your payments to your schedule, not the bank.

Other Protections

Other Citi features include:

Mastercard Benefits

Other notable features of the Citi Prestige include the usual Mastercard World Elite features and protections. Mastercard World Elite is the pinnacle of the Mastercard product line, offering the following benefits and protections:

Comparison

The Citi Premier is a travel juggernaut with a modest annual fee. Perhaps the closets competitor to the Premier is Chase’s Sapphire Preferred, which also features a $95 annual fee. Here is how the two cards stack up:

Tips for Maximizing Value with the Citi Premier® Card

To maximize rewards with the Citi Premier® Card, consider the following strategies:

• Take Advantage of Bonus Categories: Utilize the bonus categories to earn accelerated rewards. The card is particularly advantageous for anyone who commutes for work, anyone looking to earn some additional rewards on the weekly grocery haul, or anyone planning a vacation, as they can quickly accumulate points to offset those travel costs.
• Transfer Points to Airline Partners: Citi ThankYou® Points can be transferred to a number of airline partners. Transferring points strategically allows you to get more value for your rewards when booking flights.
• Always Pay In-Full: Points from credit cards are only valuable when keeping credit card balances low. That’s because carrying a balance increases the overall cost of a purchase, which in turn can reduce the value of your points.

What We Like About the Premier Card

“Premium” Thank You Points

The Citi Premier® Card is Citi’s premium rewards card, thanks to its $95 annual fee. But that fee also provides much greater award availability versus Citi’s no annual fee cards.

That’s because Thank You points with premium Citi cards are transferrable to Citi’s 15+ transfer partners, including names like JetBlue, Wyndham Hotels, Qantas, and Shop Your Way.

Conversely, cards like the Double Cash Card, Custom Cash Card, and Rewards+ earn “basic” Thank You points that cannot Citi travel partners.

No Foreign Transaction Fees

The Premier Card charges no foreign transaction fees when using the card abroad or on international websites. This feature is a great bonus, especially considering Citi no annual fee cards do charge a foreign transaction fee of 3% of the transaction cot.

Things to Consider

One disappointing aspect of the Premier Card is the absence of a Priority Pass Select membership. Although many credit cards with a $95 annual fee do not offer full-access Priority Pass, they sometimes provide up to ten visits per year.

This means that cardholders are unable to enjoy the benefits of lounge access, such as comfortable seating, complimentary food and drinks, and a quiet environment to relax or work in. Without this perk, travelers may have to rely on other methods to find a comfortable and convenient place to wait for their flights, such as purchasing day passes or using airline-specific lounges if available.

Citi Rating

How does the Citi Premier® Card stack up? Here is a selection of expert reviews for the card, as well as an overview of Citibank as a bank: