Citi Premier Card
Get ready for your next adventure with the Citi Premier credit card. Get up to 3x the ThankYou points on air travel, hotels, gas, groceries, and restaurants. Here's our review on this card, what benefits it offers, and more.
- Annual Fee
- $95
- Extra Card Fee
- $0
- Card Type
- Credit
- Purchase
- 15.99%
- Cash Advance
- 25.24%
- Balance Transfer
- 15.99%
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Citi Premier Card review
Want to earn lots of high value, flexible rewards points? The Citi Premier Credit Card may be for you.
Here's everything you need to know about this card, and how it stacks up to its competitors.
- Citi Premier credit card rewards
- Citi Premier credit card benefits
- Citi Premier credit card downsides
- Citi Premier Mastercard vs Chase Sapphire Preferred
- Alternatives to Citi Premier
- FAQ
Earning rewards with the Citi Premier Mastercard
The earn rates are what really separate this card from the pack. You'll earn plenty of ThankYou points at these high rates:
- 3 points per $1 spent on air travel, hotels, gas, groceries, and restaurants, and
- 1 point per $1 spent on all other purchases.
Citi Premier Mastercard welcome bonus
The welcome bonus is also stellar.
You'll get a whopping 60,000 points after spending $4,000 in the first 3 months. Relatively easy to earn, and a lot of points to start your ThankYou bank.
Redeeming your ThankYou Points
What are ThankYou points worth? There's a variety of ways for you to redeem.
The only way to redeem for travel is by transferring them to various airline programs (16 in total). Most of them transfer at a 1:1 ratio.
You can view the full list of airline programs here, but here are some of the bigger programs you may want to use:
- JetBlue TrueBlue,
- Air France-KLM Flying Blue,
- Emirates Skywards, and
- Virgin Atlantic Flying Club.
TrueBlue will probably be the most popular option. We value a JetBlue point at 1.5 cents each when redeemed for flights, giving a ThankYou point the same value.
Here are your other options beyond transferring to airline partners, and what each point is worth:
- gift cards – 1 cent per point (CPP),
- payments towards a student loan or mortgage – 1 CPP, and
- cash – 0.5 CPP.
3 Citi Premier Mastercard benefits
Beyond the rewards, what else makes this card special? Here are 3 other reasons to consider adding it to your wallet.
1. Annual hotel savings benefit
The annual hotel benefit can be easy savings every year.
Once per year, book a hotel stay greater than $500 through thankyou.com, and you'll get $100 off your stay.
2. No foreign transaction fees
Make purchases that aren't in U.S. dollars? You'll save on every foreign transaction with this card.
Many credit cards charge a 3% fee for transactions in a foreign currency. But this card completely waives those charges, saving you some extra cash.
3. Plenty of airline transfer options
If you want to transfer to airline programs, there's a wide variety of options for you to choose from. There's only 1 U.S. based airline, but many of the other ones will let you redeem points on other U.S. carriers thanks to various partnerships and airline alliances.
3 Citi Premier Card drawbacks
There's lots to like, but here's 2 things you'll want to know, especially about the rewards program.
1. No option to redeem for any travel
It's a rare flexible rewards card that doesn't include an option to redeem for any travel purchases, either made through a specific vendor or just bookings made anywhere.
If you want to redeem points for travel, you have to either transfer your points to an airline partner, or find a gift card from a travel vendor.
2. Only one U.S. airline available for points transfers
While there is a long list of airline partners you can transfer points to, only one of them is a U.S. airline.
To redeem for flights within the U.S., you'll either need to be able to fly with JetBlue, or transfer to a partner airline of either United, American, or Delta, and then redeem points with these airlines.
While not the end of the world, it can be more difficult to redeem for flights in an airline program when redeeming with a partner, and not the airline of the program itself.
3. Annual fee of $95
One thing to keep in mind is the annual fee. You'll pay $95 per year for keeping this card in your wallet.
It's not overly high, but another fee you'll have to pay.
Citi Premier vs. Chase Sapphire Preferred card
There's another popular flexible rewards card out there that seems similar on the surface – the Chase Sapphire Preferred.
| Credit card feature | Citi Premier | Chase Sapphire Preferred |
|---|---|---|
| Annual fee | $95 | $95 |
| Welcome bonus | 60,000 points | 60,000 points |
| Rewards earn rate | * 3 points per $1 spent on air travel, hotels, gas, groceries, and restaurants * 1 point per $1 spent on all other purchases |
* 2 points per $1 spent on travel and dining * 1 point per $1 spent on all other purchases |
| Foreign transaction fee | 0% | 0% |
| Special features | * Transfer points to 16 airline partners * $100 annual hotel credit |
* Transfer points to 10 airline and 3 hotel programs |
There's a lot that's similar with these cards. From the identical annual fees, large welcome bonuses, no foreign transaction fees, and transfer options, they can seem like there's not much separating them.
Except for annual rewards. The best option for redeeming points on either card is to transfer them to JetBlue, where each point is worth 1.5 cents each.
And with their different reward rates, you're getting a vastly different average earn rate with these cards.
With the Citi Premier card, you're looking at a return of up to 2.7% on your purchases, since you're earning 3 points per $1 spent on a variety of categories.
With Chase however, you're only getting an average return of 1.68%, since you're only earning up to 2 points per $1 spent on purchases.
Comparison to other flexible rewards credit cards
How does it compare to other flexible rewards credit cards? Here are some other popular options to consider.
| Credit Card | Welcome Bonus | Annual Fee | Earn Rates |
|---|---|---|---|
|
|
60,000 points | $95 | * 3 points per $1 spent on air travel, hotels, gas, groceries, and restaurants * 1 point per $1 spent on all other purchases |
|
|
60,000 points | $95 | * 2 points per $1 spent on travel and dining * 1 point per $1 spent on all other purchases |
|
|
20,000 points | $0 | * 3 points per $1 spent on gas, travel, select streaming services, and dining * 1 point per $1 spent on all other purchases |
|
|
Up to 100,000 miles | $95 | * 2 points per $1 spent on all purchases |
|
|
15,000 points | $95 | * 3 points per $1 spent on groceries * 2 points per $1 spent on gas * 1 point per $1 spent on all other purchases |
There's some varying annual fees and earn rates here – let's see how they stack up in these 2 categories.
Annual fee comparison
4 of these cards have an annual fee of $95, while one of them has no fee whatsoever.
Generally speaking, if you want a high-end flexible rewards card you're going to have to pay for it.
Comparison of rewards
There's a mixed bag when it comes to earning rewards with these cards.
Our no annual fee card is at the bottom, but none of these other cards can compare to the Citi Premier credit card.
FAQ
What does the Citi Premier credit card offer for rewards?
The Citi Premier credit card offers up to 3 points per $1 spent on purchases. Earning Citi ThankYou points, they can be transferred to multiple airline partners, redeemed for gift cards, or redeemed as cash.
What is the annual fee of the Citi Premier credit card?
The Citi Premier credit card has an annual fee of $95.
What are some Citi Premier credit card benefits?
The Citi Premier Mastercard benefits include an annual hotel credit of $100, no foreign exchange fees, and the ability to transfer points to multiple airline partners.
What's the Citi Premier Card welcome bonus?
The current welcome bonus for the Citi Premier Card is 60,000 points when you spend $4,000 in the first 3 months.
