Should You Get a New Premium Card in 2025?
Premium Card Summer is over: Chase overhauled its Sapphire Reserve (making it more expensive and more complicated), Amex raised the annual fee on its Platinum by $200 but added a ton of value, Citi launched its new premium card, while Capital One… just cut back on lounge benefits. After years of relative stasis in the premium card field, 2025 marked the biggest premium card shakeup in years (that’s not even counting premium co-branded cards like the Atmos Summit that launched or evolved in 2025).
With the field now set going into 2026, how do these cards stack up? Could Bilt outdo them all in 2026? And is now the time to take advantage of all-time great bonuses on these cards?
The premium transferable-points cards currently on the market
Capital One Venture X: Still Can’t-Miss and Lazy-Proof
Fee & credits summary
For a $395 annual fee, you get a $300 credit to use with Capital One Travel, plus you’ll receive 10,000 miles (worth $100+) every time you renew your card, making the card effectively free to hold, year after year, with only a single simple credit to keep track of.
Lazy factor
Not only is the fee easy to recoup, the points are easy to earn and use, too. The double points on all base spending is the best on the market, though it has no bonus categories outside of the Capital One Travel portal. Sure, Capital One’s transfer partners are underwhelming, but that can be a blessing in disguise. You can simply purchase any travel you want, using whatever criteria you want, then “erase” the purchase using Capital One miles at a respectable 1¢-per-point rate. If you want to squeeze more value out of them, Capital One does have a few good partners that can deliver elevated value, especially on premium travel, at the cost of some complexity.
Notable perks
You can get access to Priority Pass and Capital One’s own lounges. Unfortunately, starting February 1, 2026, you won’t be able to bring guests into the lounges for free, and it will cost $125 to grant authorized users their own lounge access. But given its value, your travel partner may just be able to get their own card.
Verdict
Still the best after all these years, the Capital One Venture X is still the best way to dip your toe into points and miles, and even points veterans can’t go wrong with its easy value. But if you often travel with a companion, a card that includes guest access at lounges might be a better fit, and if you only want a single card, a more rewarding option like the Strata Elite might be the way to go.
Amex Platinum: Most Premium
Fee & credits summary
You’ll have to pony up $895 once per year, but over the year that follows, you can recoup up to: $300 in digital entertainment credits (including Youtube TV and Premium, Disney, The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and more), $400 in credits at Resy restaurants, $200 in Uber cash, $200 in airline incidental credits, $300 in Lululemon credits, and $600 in hotel credits via Amex Travel’s Fine Hotels & Resorts and Hotel Collection. There’s also a $100 Saks credit, a $200 Oura Ring credit, and a $300 Equinox credit. Plus some of the perks below might have significant cash value if you already are, or would be willing to, pay for them.
Lazy factor
On the spending side, it’s pretty easy: use it to pay for flights, to use your Platinum credits, to redeem Amex Offers, and… nothing else. The 1-point-per-dollar earning is uncompetitive on everyday spending and dreadful on commonly-bonused spending like dining.
On the redemption side, things are complicated. You can reliably redeem your points for 1¢ each, but only on flights and only via AmexTravel. Delta is a strong transfer partner with often-amazing international main cabin award rates, but you’ll pay a small tax to transfer your points, will need a co-branded Delta card for the best rates, and will need a system or a paid service to locate the best deals. Amex has a deep roster of high-value transfer partners, but redemptions tend to be complex and most rewarding for expensive premium travel.
Notable perks
The card offers an outstanding array of perks, starting with access to Amex’s lounge collection, including Amex Centurion Lounges, Delta lounges (when flying Delta), Priority Pass lounges, and some Lufthansa lounges (when flying Lufthansa Group). The card also conveys Marriott Gold, Hilton Gold, and Leading Hotels of the World Sterling status. You’ll also get Clear+, Uber One, and Walmart+ memberships. Unfortunately, to bring a guest into the Amex or Delta lounges you’ll need to spend $75,000 each year for the privilege.
Verdict
You won’t earn many points from using an Amex Platinum card to buy things (except flights), but just having it in your wallet can expand your travel options greatly; and the card’s expansive roster of statement credits can cover its massive annual fee with room to spare. If you can balance the credits and are willing to figure out the redemptions, Amex’s partners will essentially pay you to keep this card in your wallet, all while providing you the best lounge collection in the industry plus several useful elite statuses and a fast track through airport security with Clear+.
Citi Strata Elite: Most Balanced
Fee & credits summary
At $595, the Strata Elite’s annual fee comes at a more “premium” price point compared to the Venture X, but still much more accessible than the Platinum. This is offset by a $300 credit toward a hotel stay booked via Citi (2 night minimum) and a $200 “Splurge Credit,” which can be used toward Best Buy, Live Nation/TicketMaster, or AA purchases. There’s also $200 in Blacklane credits, which might have some real value depending on where you live and your travel habits.
Lazy factor
With the addition of American Airlines as a transfer partner and a generous transfer ratio to Choice Privileges, Citi has two high-value, easy to use redemption options, in addition to the option to book travel through Citi at 1¢ per point. Citi also has an excellent collection of other hotel and airline partners for more advanced bookings.
With such strong redemptions, the 1.5x earning offers better real-world value per dollar than any other premium card’s base rate, in my opinion. The only non-Citi bonus category is dining at 3x, although twice a week that rises to 6x on “Citi Nights,” offering the most transferable points on dining in those time frames. If you want to book hotels and rental cars through an online travel agency, the CSE’s 12x points on those purchases is hard to beat.
Notable perks
The Strata Elite offers Priority Pass lounge access with two guests, but, unlike the other banks on this list, Citi doesn’t have its own network of lounges to offer to cardholders. Instead, cardholders receive four Admirals Club passes each year, usable when flying AA or a Oneworld airline. That might be a nice alternative when the Priority Pass lounges are full, but one you can only take advantage of a few times per year.
Verdict
With simpler credits than the Amex Platinum or Chase Sapphire Preferred, better lounge access for guests than the Venture X offers, and better points than all three, the Citi Strata Elite might be the goldilocks option for many people.
Chase Sapphire Reserve: Most Upside… and Downside
Fee & credits summary
For a $795 fee, you get access to over $2,000 worth of statement credits. Everyone should be able to take full advantage of the $300 credit toward any travel, but after that you’ll have to examine the list of credits to decide if you’ll really get meaningful value from the rest, or if you’re willing to shift your spending (e.g. from Spotify to Apple Music) to take advantage of them. If you can spend $75,000 in a membership year, you’ll unlock huge value: a $500 credit at Southwest Airlines, a $250 “Shops at Chase” credit, and elite status with Southwest, Hyatt, and IHG.
Lazy factor
Unless your spending habits already overlap with the credits, it will probably require a lot of attention to break even on the annual fee.
On the redemption side, Chase points can be used to cover purchases easily at 1¢ per point just like Capital One, but Chase goes further, allowing you to get that return on any purchase, not just travel (and possibly an elevated rate on some purchases). You can also get up to 2¢ per point when redeeming for travel through Chase’s travel portal, but that is only available on some, often premium, redemption options. As for transfer partners, Hyatt is a reliably high-value partner, while JetBlue, Southwest, and United redemptions are often solid if unspectacular, and Chase has some strong partners for premium redemptions too.
On the spending side, there are only four bonus categories: 8x on travel booked through Chase, 4x on flights and hotels booked directly, and 3x on dining. That is excellent value on flights booked through Chase and hotels booked directly (though you’ll often do better on direct booking by using a hotel co-branded card). If you spend a lot on travel and dining, these rates could justify pushing toward the $75,000 spending threshold where the Reserve gets much more valuable. But the rates on dining and base spending are matched by other cards with, in my view, better points, so I personally can’t imagine many scenarios where I would actually use this card if I had it.
Notable perks / drawbacks
In addition to Priority Pass access for the cardholder and two guests, you can also use the card to access the Sapphire Lounge, and select Maple Leaf lounges and Air Canada Cafes.
Verdict
If you have a Sapphire lounge in your home airport and can use enough of the statement credits to break even, the Sapphire Reserve is a solid option, but the card is really best for big spenders who can unlock the outstanding rewards reached after spending $75,000 each year. (You could pay your rent via Bilt to help get there while earning Bilt points, too, albeit with a 3% transaction fee.)
Bilt 2.0 Premium Card
In February 2026, Bilt 2.0 will launch with a $495-fee premium card. What will its benefits be? How will it earn? Will there be a welcome bonus offer? We won’t know until January.
We have some guesses. Earlier this year they floated statement credits towards hotel bookings, Walgreens purchases, and Bilt Fitness. Priority Pass lounge access is table stakes at this point. Bilt has been pushing more integration into the Bilt universe, with steps like replacing milestone rewards with Bilt Cash. I wouldn’t be surprised to see features like Bilt Cash, a Bilt status headstart, big spending bonuses on Bilt-affiliated merchants, and perhaps extra points or a higher cap on rent/mortgage points relative to the lower-tier cards.
I am hopeful that Bilt will deliver a fantastic product, but we simply do not know the earning rates, perks, or full credit structure yet. They are going to have to try to be a little more sustainable this time, so there’s always the possibility the product could be a dud. And there’s no guarantee the fantastic offers currently available on the other premium cards will last until the Bilt card’s reveal in January.
November 2025 Welcome Offers
Right now, we’re seeing some of the best offers we’ve ever seen on these top cards, and all at once to boot.
The Venture X is offering 100,000 points after spending $10,000 in the first six months. That is the highest offer ever on that card, and the highest we’ve seen since 2021.
The Amex Platinum is offering “up to” 175,000 points after spending $8,000 in the first six months. Although this is the highest publicly-advertised offer ever on this card, it’s not guaranteed (you might get offered less), and I know people who were offered 150,000 points almost two years ago, so the offer is hardly a major outlier.
The Citi Strata Elite currently offers 100,000 points after spending $6,000 in the first three months. The card launched with an 80,000 point offer, although you could get 100,000 in-branch. As a new card, it’s difficult to know what to expect on this card, but I strongly suspect a 100,000-point offer will also be available sometime in 2026. What makes the Strata Elite especially interesting right now is its calendar-year credits. You can get the card now, use the credits twice—before the end of 2025 and again in 2026—even if you end up cancelling or downgrading the card after the first year. This creates a bit of tension. That’s a great deal, so great that Citi might end up changing it later; getting the card in 2025 might be playing it safe. On the other hand, that wouldn’t leave much time to actually use the credits. You can use the hotel credit in 2025 for a stay in 2026, but you might not be able to retain the value from the credit if you later have to change plans.
The Chase Sapphire Reserve bonus is currently 125,000 points after spending $6,000 in the first three months. That’s down from a launch offer of 100,000 points plus a $500 Chase Travel credit. Many people think the points offer is better, and it’s the one I would choose, even though I think a $500 credit goes farther than 25,000 points for economy travel. Prior to the card’s refresh, the standard offer was 60,000 points. I doubt this new version will drop that far, but I suspect the “default” offer will settle lower than the current one.
As always, check your bank’s application rules (Chase 5/24, Amex once-per-lifetime language, Capital One’s strict rules, etc.) before applying. These offers are incredible, but approvals are not guaranteed.
Lazy Take 🦥
You can decide which of these cards, if any, is right for you. In rough terms, though, I would say:
Venture X: Best lazy value right now—simple credits, easy redemptions
Platinum: Best for luxury perks—the most lounges, Clear+, and hotel elite status
Sapphire Reserve: Best for big spenders—huge rewards after spending $75,000
Strata Elite: Best balance of earning, rewards value, with relatively simple credits
Bilt: TBD! Huge potential, but could underwhelm or be a bad fit for your needs
The current cards all have outstanding sign-up offers at the moment. Be sure to consider whether you have an Amex, Chase, or Capital One lounge at your home airport. In general, I think it’s hard to go wrong with the Venture X, and with the best bonus on the card since 2021 on offer, this is an ideal time to get it. But I suspect this arms race might last until Bilt 2.0 is announced, so it might be worth waiting to see what Bilt has in store—just know that there’s no guarantee that these offers will be around when you want them.