Citibank

My husband and I currently have the Citi Costco credit card because both of us are members obviously. My MIL, wanting to save membership cost, wants to cancel her membership and join ours. My question is, if I take my husband off and add my MIL, would my husband still be able to use his credit card for everyday purchases?

I’m planning some travel in 2026 and sat down to use some of my hotel benefits before the year rolls over and discovered that unless you’re going to Vegas, the hotel credits from Chase and Amex are ‘fake hotel credits’. What I mean by that is they only apply for hotels that are so absurdly expensive that no one in their right mind would stay there, and anyone staying there definitely doesn’t give a shit about saving a few hundred dollars a semi. I wish I lived closer to Vegas because those credits do seem to apply for decent priced Vegas rooms, and you could dip in and out of there for free / cheap.

Meanwhile the Strata Elite gives you $300 for any hotel bookable on Citi’s travel portal. No stupid curated collections or “fine hotel collections”. Just straight up savings. Plus I was able to go to Best Buy today and buy $200 of fun new kitchen appliances for free through the splurge credit.

Now I will say this about Amex Platinum - the more I have dug, the more value I’ve found. Being able to walk into Lulu Lemon once a quarter and grab a free hoodie off the clearance rack (for seventy bucks) is pretty cool, as is the legit free dining credit of $100 a quarter for Resy restaurants (assuming you live near a decent sized city). Plus Amex is paying for my subscriptions. Even if I weren’t getting it free, I’d keep the platinum.

Now Chase? Wow, they have really jumped the shark this past year. Almost every credit they have (except the free Apple Music, which is cool, and the blanket free $300 travel credit) is a pain in the ass to use. You simply are not going to be able to use that hotel credit on anything reasonable, making it a fake credit. And the dining credit is also hard as heck to use - more “curated collection” nonsense.

Between those big three, the real key difference for me was that the Citi gives 1.5x on everything (so it wouldn’t be a bad daily driver even) while the Amex and Chase both just do 1x on all-other purchases. Plus if you get a doubleCash Citi card, you can make your Strata elite points worth a full one cent cash value each - which is an awesome and recommended thing to do.

I’ve been on a bit of a credit card rewards odyssey these past 12 months or so, trying to get maximum value while there are no annual fees for these things. I can say that as far as those three cards, in my book, the Strata Elite absolutely wins, followed closely by the Amex Platinum (both of which I’d keep and pay the fee on, even if they weren’t comped), while the Chase Sapphire Reserve has lost its way.