Travel Party of 5 | Points & Miles for Family Travel

Alaska vs Citi: Which New Premium Travel Card Is Right For Your Family?

• Raya & Duane

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This is the link from DOC that mentions the 85K in flight Alaska offer - at the time of publishing this the link would not load for me but I'm leaving it here in case it gets fixed. 

If it's still broken, here is the regular link for the 80K offer for the new Alaska Ascent card plus the other 2 Alaska cards mentioned in this episode. 

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The credit card market has 2 new exciting-ish options with Citi's premium Strata Elite and Alaska's revamped lineup including their first-ever premium card.

• Citi Strata Elite ($595 annual fee) offers 80,000 points, transferable to American Airlines, plus $300 hotel credit and $200 "splurge credit"
• Alaska's new Atmos Rewards Ascent Visa ($395 fee) gives 100,000 points and a 25,000-point companion discount
• Alaska's two lower-tier cards (Summit and Business) offer 80-85k points with $95 annual fees
• Bank of America's approval rules require under 3 or 7 new accounts in 12 months depending on banking relationship
• Alaska miles excel for "positioning flights" at just 4,500 points per person to reach major international airports
• Alaska's new program allows fee-free points transfers between family members
• West Coast families may find more value in Alaska cards while those near AA hubs might prefer the Citi option. My overall pick would be the new Alaska card and the Alaska rewards program in general!




Speaker 1:

City has a new premium card on the market, and Alaska has a bunch of new and or updated cards as well. How do you know what the best card is for you and your family? Listen in, we're diving into that on today's episode. Hi, I'm Raya. And I'm Dwayne. And we are your hosts of the Travel Party of Five podcast, where we share how we travel as a family of five around the world.

Speaker 2:

We will also share how we use points and miles to travel as affordably as possible and sometimes even completely free.

Speaker 1:

So if you're wanting to travel more with your family but you're not sure how, we'd love for you to listen in.

Speaker 2:

So welcome to our podcast, where we hope you learn a thing or two to get you closer to your next trip.

Speaker 1:

Hello friends and welcome back to Travel Party of Five. I am again solo today. My name is Rhea. I am your host. You can find me on Instagram at Travel Party of Five and if you don't already follow me, please go do that and say hello over there. Also if you're new here. We are a family of five who travels almost exclusively using points and miles and we share about all that fun stuff plus points and miles news on this podcast. Normally my husband, dwayne, is here as well, but today it is. You've just got me.

Speaker 1:

And if you are a longtime listener of this podcast and want to support us, there's a couple of ways you can do that. The first way is to leave us a review or a rating wherever you listen. That is always so appreciated and helps more people find the podcast. And the other way is if you are we do or I do paid points consultations. So if you are newer to points and miles and you have gotten the hang of like accruing the points but you're not really sure how to redeem them, that is the hardest part and I do paid 60 minute consultations where I kind of walk through where do you want to go, what points do you have and how can you do that, and sometimes in full transparency maybe this isn't the right thing to say to sell the offer, but sometimes I have to tell you things you don't want to hear, which is like you cannot stay in that hotel because you don't have any of that points for that hotel. At this point I can tell you how to earn the points and then we can talk about booking it for sure. But I think like if you're new to points and miles and you want to get the hang of redeeming points, like I'll put a link in the show notes to the schedule page and like let's hop on a call and like let's chat about it. I really love doing those. I've had a lot of fun on the calls that I've had so far and there's been a good amount of them, which has been really nice. So, anyways, that is my spiel.

Speaker 1:

Today we are going to talk about the new ish, and I say new ish because these cards have been out for a few weeks now and I wanted to get this episode out sooner. But last week's episode was on the Southwest companion pass and I thought that needed to go first because there is an expiration date on the elevated offer for the Southwest personal cards and it's coming up soon. So if you haven't listened to that episode yet and you're wanting to get a Southwest Companion Pass for your family or maybe two, which is what I always recommend if there's two parents go back and listen to that, because there's a couple different methods you can use and there's an elevated offer that, I think, as of the day this releases, you still have a few days to apply for that. Okay, anyways, now let's dive into today's main topic, which is talking about the new city elite card that just came out, as well as the new and updated Alaska cards, and we're going to talk about, maybe, which one might make the most sense for a family traveling. So we'll start with the Citi Strata Elite. So this is Citi's very first like premium credit card, and by premium I mean the annual fee is $600. Actually, sorry, it's $595. Previously, citi has not really played in the premium card space, and the piece that makes this, in my opinion, the most interesting is that, right before this card was announced, citi announced that they now are a transfer partner of American Airlines, and previously there were no transfer partners to American Airlines. So the only way to earn American Airlines points or miles rather, was to open American Airlines branded credit cards and then spend on those credit cards and or use like the AA shopping portal. So when I look at these city credit card offers, I really am seeing American Airlines miles, which are super valuable to me as someone who lives in kind of an AA hub which is Phoenix. But let me not get ahead of myself. Let's talk about the card first and kind of the overall details.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so the City Strata Elite card, which is the name of it, along with all the other City cards, earn City thank you points. Okay, and thank you points. They do have other transfer partners besides American Airlines. In full transparency, I want to be clear we actually have not delved or dove dived into the city ecosystem yet, so we don't have any city cards and therefore we don't have any city thank you points. However, they do have transfer partners like Air France, flying Blue, british Airways, eva Air, now American Airlines, like we talked about, avianca, life Miles, and then they also have a couple of hotel transfer partners, maybe more hotel partners than any other major bank, but they're not like the ones you'd normally think of. So they transfer to Choice, leading Hotels of the World Preferred Hotels, wyndham and Accor Properties, and so we've talked about Accor specifically on this podcast several times before. But none of those are like the major hotel points programs and if you're a beginner I would like I would not pay much attention to them at first like learn the Hyatt's, the IHG's, the Marriott's, the Hilton's, and then we can talk about these other ones.

Speaker 1:

Similar to the other major banks, they have a really high multiplier when you book like car rentals, hotels or like other stuff through City Travel, which is their travel portal, and so it's 12x for hotels, car rentals and attractions and then 6x for flights booked through their portal. And then they also have this is so random but they have like 3x on restaurants at all times and then between these really random hours of 6pm and 6am Eastern Time, friday and Saturday nights, it's 6x on restaurants. So I think that's really odd. I would kind of just assume 3x at all times and be happy if I somehow looked into a 6x window. I guess if I was using it, you get a priority pass, select membership that's the one that comes with two free guests. You get a $300 hotel credit every calendar year, so I guess you could you could double dip that if you opened up the card midway through the year, you could get one you know for that year and then you could get a second one before your one year anniversary comes up. Again, you have to use that when you have. I'm sorry you have to book that through their travel portal though, which I never love to do.

Speaker 1:

They have let me see they have global entry $120 credit towards global entry, some kind of black lane credits. I'm not going to go into all these, like all these little ones. The only other one I thought was kind of interesting was they have a $200 splurge credit that's what they call it. This, again, is per calendar year. So, again, if you open the card up now, you could get one this year and one first half of next year before your card anniversary. So that's a way to really make up that annual fee in the first year. So that's a way to really make up that annual fee in the first year, especially if you're not going to keep the card. The splurge credit is up to $200 in credits, like a statement credit on like the following things so Live Nation, best Buy, american Airlines, something called Future Personal training no idea what that is and something called first dibs. Again, no idea what that is either, but maybe if you do and these are things you already spend money on then this could be interesting to you, especially knowing that you can double dip and again do the credit now and then the credit again in the first half of next year and beyond that.

Speaker 1:

I mean it has like a lot of the similar like. It has some trip protections, it has some trip cancellation. It has secondary car rental insurance If you're if you're okay, let me sorry If you're a United States resident and you're in the US, the coverage is secondary, but if you are outside of your country of residence it is primary. So I guess that's something worth noting. If you are planning to rent a car internationally, that could be. That could be super helpful. And you know there's a few other small credits here and there.

Speaker 1:

But again, when I look at this I literally think, okay, I can pay $600. And I can get 80,000 American Airlines miles. That is the current elevated offer. It is 80,000 points after spending $4,000 in the first three months there. There was at one point a hundred thousand point offer, but you had to either get it in branch or maybe call a city branch and ask them to email you the offer. To my knowledge, that has since expired and is no more. If you find out otherwise, let me know and I'll post it on Instagram. But I would just kind of assume the fee right now is 80,000. Or, I'm sorry, the bonus right now is 80,000 points after $4,000 in spend, and that again transfers one to one to American Airlines.

Speaker 1:

This isn't a card I'm super excited about Maybe I'm supposed to save that for the end but it's a personal card, so it counts towards 524. I am at 424. And I have to be very stingy with my personal cards right now, and for me this one is not making the um, it's not making the cut. We also already have almost 300,000 AA miles right now, so I'm not hurting for those. However, I could see this being part of my strategy over the next year to uh, build up those AA miles again once I spent them, because I have a redemption in mind for them. I just haven't quite been able to make it work yet.

Speaker 1:

So, okay, let's jump into the Alaska cards, because I find these like a lot more exciting actually. Okay, so there are now three different Alaska cards that you can get to earn Alaska miles. Two of them are kind of rebranded versions of the old cards, and then there is an entirely new premium credit card that didn't exist before. So the premium credit card, let's start with that one. That is, the Atmos Rewards Summit Visa. Let me take a pause here and also say that Alaska has, in addition to having this new premium card, they have completely rebranded their awards program Because, if you remember, alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines merged recently and so eventually, like all of your, I think what will happen is all of your Hawaiian miles will eventually become Alaska Atmos rewards, and so I think it's Atmos like atmosphere. I've heard some people call it Atmos. I am, I am sticking with Atmos. That is what's just easier for me to say, but if you want to say it differently, you go right ahead.

Speaker 1:

So let's start with the premium card, the new one so it is called the Atmos Rewards Summit Visa and the current welcome offer, which I'm unclear if this is elevated or if this is what it will always be, but currently it is 100,000 points plus a 25,000 point companion award, and that is after you spend $6,000 in the first 90 days and the annual fee is $395. So this is Alaska's kind of answer to the premium credit card market that has exploded in the summer of 2025. Except, if you'll note, their annual fee is literally half of like a Chase Sapphire Reserve card, which is incredible, especially for 100,000 Alaska points. And if you joined the waitlist which, spoiler alert, I actually did not do this because, you know, sometimes you just drop the ball on things and let me like take a brief kind of detour and just say that if I could give anyone any advice in that are like just getting started in points and miles, it's that accept that you are going to make mistakes and you are going to miss things and that is just going to be the way that it is. The world is not going to make mistakes and you are going to miss things and that is just going to be the way that it is. The world is not going to end. It is frustrating, but, like who cares? You know no big deal. So if you join the waitlist, you can earn an extra 5,000 points by applying through the link that you got via email. Okay, but again, I didn't have that link and I didn't get that link, and so the offer for me would be a hundred thousand points.

Speaker 1:

So let me quickly recap all the benefits of this premium card, because there's a few that I think are super awesome for families. So I already mentioned you get the global 25k companion fare. That's every card member year, so it's not calendar year. So essentially how that companion fare works is once you've met the minimum spend, then you're going to get a 25,000 point discount on a companion's award ticket when you're booking travel for two people on the same itinerary. So like you would book your flight on points and then, whatever the points cost is for the second person you're going to get, you're going to get 25,000 points off of that price. So that's a great like savings, especially if you are a family who is obviously going to travel, likely with more than one person, and if you each like, if each parent had this card, you would have two of them. So that is that would be amazing. You also get 10,000 status points every card member year If you're looking to earn status. I guess that's helpful.

Speaker 1:

Free same day flight changes that's awesome. Two full day lounge passes every calendar quarter, which includes up to two children. So you would get eight of those every year right to per quarter. Some Wi Fi passes, waived partner booking fees. So when you book on Alaska and it's with a partner, you currently pay I think it's a $12 fee in addition to the basic taxes and fees. So here's an example. I have booked an Alaska flight several times. We actually like to use them as positioning flights and I'll talk more about that towards the end when I kind of do a recap. But when I book even for us to fly from Phoenix to LA or San Francisco, normally the taxes on a points booking domestically would be $5.60. But on Alaska it's like $19. And the reason is because they charge like a 12 or $13 partner booking fee per person and so when you have this card you don't pay that fee. So that is another interesting thing to me, because that would save me, I don't know a couple hundred bucks a year. They also will pay you a $50 credit for delays or cancellations over two hours.

Speaker 1:

You get your first checked bag for free on both Alaska and Hawaiian flights and up to six companions traveling with you. You get priority boarding for up to six companions and if you have an eligible Bank of America account so I think that's like a checking or savings account then you also get a 10% bonus on earned miles with by having both of those accounts together. The reason for that is this card is issued by Bank of America we're going to talk more about that in a minute too and then, if you're again looking to earn status, you can earn one status point for every $2 spent. You get the kind of almost like like of course you get this, the $120 TSA pre-check global entry credit. I feel like every card under the sun has that. I have like $1,000 in credits I could use towards, just towards that alone. And then you also get two free signature cocktails per lounge visit just by holding this card. So, generally, like, basic alcohol will be free, but there's always like paid, you know, signature cocktails you can buy, and so that gives you two of those for free. So, again, that's a $395 annual fee If you fly Alaska. A good amount. That all of those benefits I think are super, super helpful.

Speaker 1:

Let's briefly talk about the other two Alaska cards that you can get that are basically kind of like just rebranded versions of the ones they already had, and then we'll do like kind of a summary and why I think this is so good for families. Okay, so the other two cards are the Atmos Rewards Ascent Visa this is a personal card and then the Atmos Rewards Business Visa card and again that is obviously a business card. So for the personal card, actually, yeah, they're separate, they're a little different. So for the personal card, the offer I originally thought was 80,000 points plus a $99 companion fare after you spend $4,000 in 120 days. So you actually get four months to do the spend on this card and the annual fee is $95.

Speaker 1:

However, I saw on frequent miler that there was an 85 K like in flight offer for the ascent card. So I'll link the frequent miler article in the show notes. We don't have these cards. So therefore we don't have any kind of referral links or anything. So unfortunately don't have these cards. So therefore we don't have any kind of referral links or anything. So unfortunately, you know are bad. But I will link to the frequent miler article that shows the 85k offer and you, if you guys want to apply through that, you can do that and I'm sure they would be very happy. The new business card has a similar offer. So I'm going to say between 80 to 85,000 points, depending on what's available when this episode airs, but again, 80 to 85,000 points plus the $99 companion fare. Again, this one is after $5,000 spend in three months, so $1,000 more than the personal card and a month less time to meet it, but still only the $95 annual fee. So there is now a total of three different Alaska cards that you can get, and if you were to open them all, you would earn somewhere around like 260,000 miles per player. So if you had you and a player to did it, that's over 500,000 miles, which is incredible.

Speaker 1:

I applied for both Duane and myself for the business visa because, again, we are for 24, both of us. I dropped down to 324 in two months I think, but Duane doesn't drop down to 324 until like summer of 2026. So we again have to be very stingy with our personal card applications, and especially because I am trying very hard to get each of us one more chase business card before the referral deadline ends, which is in October I think it's October 7. So I am not willing to go over 524 until I've exhausted that option. And so I applied both of us for the business visa card and we were both denied. And I am not surprised that we were denied, because I'm going to talk about some of the Bank of America rules really quickly, but it was disappointing and a bit of a bummer, because I would really love these Alaska miles. We use Alaska miles a decent amount and again I'm going to talk about that too.

Speaker 1:

So, first and foremost, let's talk about Bank of America and their rules for approval, because I don't think I have any Bank of America cards and so I actually didn't really know much about this until a few days ago. So, in the same way that Chase has a 524 rule, bank of America has either a 312 rule or a 712 rule, depending on whether or not you have an existing relationship with them. That relationship could be like a checking account, a savings account, like some type of BOA, like deposit account, so if you do not have any of those, then they will not approve you. If you have opened three or more accounts with any bank for the last 12 months so that's the 3-12 rule If you do have a checking account or like a savings account with them. If you do have a checking account or like a savings account with them, then that bumps that number up to seven, so you can have up to seven like cards opened in the last 12 months. I myself have opened 10 credit cards in the last 12 months.

Speaker 1:

So I knew my chances of getting approved were pretty slim, and Duane is like right at seven or eight, not cards open but inquiries. And so I'll tell you what I did, even though it didn't work. So I I opened up a bill, a bank of America checking account, just a few days ago for myself, because I wanted to give myself the best chance I could, even though it didn't work. However, there's a $500 bonus right now if you deposit $10,000 or more within like I don't know exactly what the timeframe is, maybe 30 days or so 90 days, it's probably 90 days, it's usually 90 days. So I opened up the checking account, I immediately pushed a little over $10,000 from a different account and I think that will satisfy the requirements, although I'm not 100% sure. So I will be checking it and I just thought at the very least I'm going to earn $500 for opening up this bank account bonus and at the very best, having this bank account is going to help me get for opening up this bank account bonus and at the very best, having this bank account is going to help me get approved for this card Spoiler alert. It did not, but I'm still going to get the bonus.

Speaker 1:

And then for Dwayne, I didn't open him up an account, I just applied after I was denied and he was also denied. So again, not surprising, but disappointing. So if you are planning to apply for any of these cards, then I would just keep those rules in mind. We use travel freely to keep track of all of our cards and kind of the dates that we opened them, so that we know, and that was how I was able to know. I was able to look back and say, okay, in the last 12 months you know, these are the cards that I've opened and unfortunately it looks at inquiries, not cards opened. So Dwayne has only opened a few cards this year but he has a few inquiries because I keep applying him for chase cards and he keeps getting denied. I keep applying him to for chase cards and he keeps getting denied.

Speaker 1:

So two other benefits that I think go with any of these Alaska cards are that if you hold, if you're a cardholder, you can transfer your Atmos rewards to a network of up to 10 other members back and forth with no fee. Currently, to transfer you have to pay a fee, so it allows you to do that with no fee. So that means like if your kids earn miles or your husband or your wife, you can transfer them to your account for $0, which is amazing. The other thing that I forgot to mention when I was talking about the Alaska Ascent card so again, that's the new premium card that they just released is one of the multipliers is 3x on foreign purchases and as someone who travels pretty often, that is an incredible like value, especially to not have to worry about oh, I'm at a restaurant, oh, I'm at a grocery store, like nope, I'm just going to use this card for 3x on everything while I'm abroad and I'm going to call it a day like that's amazing.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so before I jump into kind of how we use Alaska points and why I think they're, they can be really great depending on where you live and your situation, I wanted to talk a little bit about the new rewards program, because there are a few key things in there that I think, for families, are going to be super helpful. So, number one you, you can choose how you earn Atmos points, and this is different from any other loyalty program I've ever seen, so you have to choose it kind of at the beginning of the year. It's not like you can choose it flight by flight. But you essentially can decide whether you want to earn by distance, flown by a war, by segment, right, like I think it's like a set amount per segment or ticket price. So if you're flying long distances, like it makes sense to do the distances, if you fly a lot of like short flights, then maybe the segment and if you're spending a lot of money on like international business class and maybe you want to do the ticket price, so but it's it's really cool that they give you the choice to do that. I think we are unlikely to earn Alaska status at this point, so that's like not super interesting to me, but we do tend to fly shorter Alaska flights and so I do like knowing that I can try to maximize kind of the mileage that we're that we're getting. The other cool thing, or one of the other cool things, is that they're going to let you earn status points on award bookings, which is kind of unheard of, so that's really fantastic. So like I guess maybe there's a way I could earn like a very low level status based on that.

Speaker 1:

But the way that we have used Alaska and I have preached about this on this podcast probably 15 times. But we like to use Alaska for positioning flights, so a positioning flight would be like okay. So we live in Phoenix. The Phoenix airport is just like historically not great for international nonstop flights and the points availability is also kind of limited because of that, and so a lot of times we can find cheaper points flights and or better and like better in terms of like timing and all that when we fly out of a bigger airport. For us those are LAX, san Francisco. Those are really the two big ones. Occasionally San Diego or Las Vegas might have different options. For some reason Virgin Atlantic really likes Las Vegas as an airport. So those are all airports that are fairly close to us and so if I am looking early enough, I can find usually Alaska saver fares from Phoenix to LA or Phoenix to San Francisco or Phoenix to Vegas or Phoenix to San Diego for 4,500 points per person. One way that is incredibly cheap. That is 22,500 points total for a family of five and I can spend those you know 20, let's call it 23,000 points and then get my family to an airport where I can probably save 20 to 50% on the points cost of a international flight from there. So even when you add in the 23,000 points that I'm spending to position us to the new airport, I'm still saving an incredible amount of points, 90% of the time. So that is how we have really found value in Alaska miles.

Speaker 1:

The other thing, and again this is very specific to the Phoenix area, but Starlux has announced a nonstop flight from Phoenix to Taipei starting, I think, january of 2026. And that is because they're building like a new semiconductor plant here in Phoenix and the company is based in Taipei and wants its employees to be able to have, you know, a nonstop flight here and there. And I actually think China Airlines has since also announced they will have a nonstop flight. So there's some competition there, which is great for us people who live in Phoenix.

Speaker 1:

So what I would do if I were you and you don't live in Phoenix, I don't know, maybe you live in like Idaho somewhere or Montana and you don't have great flights out of your home airport. But Seattle, okay, in Washington is not that far. So I would look up and see, okay, how, like, what is the points cost on Alaska? Because Alaska has a distance based award chart for me to fly from, you know, idaho over to Seattle to Seattle. And so for us, as a like kind of a guide, la, san Diego, las Vegas, those are all roughly five, a five to six hour drive from the Phoenix area. San Francisco is longer, it's about nine hours, but I can fly to all four of those airports for 4500 miles. So, whatever that distance is, those are the airports that are within that, um, that range.

Speaker 1:

So figure out what that distance is for your airport and then, if you have some Alaska miles, you have a lot more flexibility when you're looking up points flights because you're not stuck flying out of. You know, bozeman, montana, you can fly to I don't know wherever else. Maybe it's Colorado, maybe it's Seattle, you know, maybe you live in Kentucky, but you can fly to DC right for the for the 4500 mile, one way per person flight. So figure out what those other airports are for you, because there likely are some, unless you really live in, like I don't know, south Dakota, maybe I don't know, but that is where we have found the best value in Alaska miles. And again, then maybe Alaska has some like other nonstop flights from your city that are coming soon, right, that's the case for Phoenix. I understand that's not the case for every airport, but these are the things that I think about when I'm thinking about the value of these miles.

Speaker 1:

Okay, with Alaska you can obviously book on partner airlines like American. In fact, the 4500 mile flights they're all on American airlines. For me they're never on actual Alaska planes. If you want to go to Hawaii, right, that's like Alaska can for sure, your miles can for sure get you to Hawaii. So before I go off the rails ranting about how much I enjoy Alaska Airlines, let me bring it all back to comparing the city strata elite, which is again the new city premium card, to the new Alaska.

Speaker 1:

I'm just going to say the Alaska Ascent card, because that really is the new one. The points that you'll get are roughly the same. Right, the City Elite was 80 to 100,000 points, the Alaska was around 80 to 85,000 points. The annual fees are kind of comparable Alaska is 395 versus the City Strata Elite is 595. So $200 difference. You do get the companion fare with the Alaska card and, I think, the city card.

Speaker 1:

If you are planning I'm sorry, let me back up the City Strata Elite if you are have plans to use those miles for American Airlines, I think absolutely go for it, maybe if you're like more advanced in points and miles and you understand all of the other transfer partners that you can get from your city thank you points, then maybe the city card is the way to go for you.

Speaker 1:

I think if you're a beginner to this, if you live on the West Coast, if you have an airport that you can reposition to that's pretty close and can find consistent flights for 4500 miles per person, and you have a bigger family where you might occasionally pay cash for some flights and you might be you know, your kids might be earning some Alaska miles that you can then transfer to yourself, then I think the Alaska the Ascent card, but also the Alaska program in general is going to be the better fit. I, once I kind of get through my chase plan, which is to apply one more time and give it a try, I will likely take a little rest from applications and then apply for the Ascent card, the personal card on Alaska, either for myself or for Dwayne, depending on how I can get the card inquiries to line up with the 7 out of 12 that that it needs to be. So that is kind of my plan and how I'm thinking it through. If you have questions on either one of these cards, go ahead and send me a message on Instagram.

Speaker 1:

At travel party of five. We don't have any of these cards, so we have no referral links. I can't remember if I mentioned that earlier or not, but it's all over the internet and the interwebs and I'll link to that frequent miler article that does, I think, have a link in it if you want to apply. So let me know if you have questions, and I hope that this was helpful and we will catch you on the next episode. Bye.