I was just approved recently for the Citi Strata Premier with a credit limit well over $7000.
I was concerned that I wouldn’t get the card as the Citi Premier card has been notoriously hard to acquire even with those with superb credit histories. But I took a chance since I figured they might be more lenient with the applications since this is a brand new product — I reckoned perhaps they might want to appeal to their shareholders with many new sign ups. (I’ve never had any other Citi credit cards other than the Citi Custom Cash I’ve had for a couple years now.)
I applied for this Citi Strata Premier with a Chase 5/24 status of 4/24 which I’ve held for a long while now. In my Investment Policy Statement, as part of my bonus hunting income, I had a rule in it to never go beyond 4/24, that way I always have access to a Chase card when the need arises. But I’ve gotten all the cards I need from Chase for now, both personal and business, so I figured I’d garden for a year; I will be Chase 4/24 again in the Spring of next year. While I garden I can still open business credit cards with other companies such as Wells Fargo, Bank of America, US Bank and American Express.
Besides being Chase 4/24 when applying for this Citi Strata Premier, my hard inquiries were as follows: 9 with TransUnion, 1 with Equifax and 9 with Experian. My credit scores were 784, 809 and 794 respectively.
Upon applying, my combined personal credit limit was $68k and I had 9 personal cards as well as several business credit cards. The personal credit utilization on my report was at 8.7%.
I have a personal checking account as well as Custom Cash card with Citi, and I am not sure if this helped with my approval. It was suggested to me in Profitable Content Pro discord channel that having multiple products with Citi perhaps helps with the approval as well as with an increased initial credit limit.
The income I reported on my application wasn’t all that much. Combined it’s under $50,000. But my mortgage/rent payment is low at under $500 per month.
Citi hit Equifax and increased my hard inquiry total there from 1 to 2. They did not hit TransUnion nor Experian so I still have 9 inquiries each with those.
The spend requirement is only $4,000 for the 75k ($750) sign up bonus, which is to be completed within 90 days. This is easily achievable for me. I will be cashing out all of the money as I don’t travel much and I like using the Chase ecosystem when I do travel — I reserve some Ultimate Rewards points for that.
The $95 AMF isn’t too bad, making this effectively a $655 sign up bonus. $655 / $4000 = 16.4% ROS, plus let’s say a conservative 1.1% average cashback which results in around a 17.5% ROS; not bad at all! Here is this Citi Strata Premier data in my ROS Calculator — tweak to your liking.
After 12 months, I will downgrade this card to another Citi card. I really like this card over the Chase Sapphire Preferred as there really is no card I want to downgrade to from the Chase CSP. However, with the Citi CSP I can downgrade to another Citi Custom Cash or perhaps get my first Double Cash, Rewards+ or perhaps the Shop Your Way card — if they allow it with SYW. (All very useful cards compared to Chase products I could downgrade to: Freedom Unlimited and Freedom OG would essentially get zero use.)
I’m very excited I was approved and don’t mind gardening my Chase 5/24 status for a year. Best wishes to any others who attempt this sign up!
The following is a recent video by RJ of Profitable Content on the Citi Strata Premier, via his Run On The Bank youtube channel.
Update
2024-07-19 I met the spend requirement by the end of last month. They paid very recently. Used all 77k points as statement credit reducing the balance owed next month by around $770.