Another benefit of the Citi PremierPass Elite card is the 'flight point' match - so you charge $10K, get 10K Thank You Points, also get 10K Flight Points which are transferred as Thank You Points. So for $10K in spend, you get $400 airline ticket, a 4% return. If you use for premium cabins, the return is 6%.
The return can be even higher since you get 20k bonus points for signing up and spending $600 within the first 3 or 4 months. However, for PPE there is a $75 annual fee, and the OP would like to avoid annual fees. I would recommend a fee free Citicard with Thank You Points and then link an expedia.com account to your TY account in order to get fixed flight points redemptions.