Please note: This promotion has ended

Tomorrow is going to be the worst day for credit card sign-up bonuses in a long time. At 10AM eastern the Chase Sapphire Preferred 50,000 point sign-up bonus is being pulled. If only it were a cruel late April Fools’ joke.

As I’ve mentioned several times before, Chase has only been directly offering a 40,000 point sign-up bonus on the card for a couple of weeks now, though the affiliate links (like mine) still offer 50,000 points until tomorrow morning. It’s actually a 53,500 point sign-up bonus, since you get a 7% bonus at the end of the year on all the points earned, including the sign-up bonus.

The card has amazing benefits which I’ve covered a hundred times before, including no foreign transaction fees, double points on dining and travel, a 7% annual points dividend, and access to an amazing shopping mall that can earn the average person tens of thousands of bonus points per year.

So rather than rehash all that, let me point out four things:

• This card will boost your confidence and get you dates. Do you have any clue how gratifying it is to hear on a near daily basis “wow, I’ve never seen one as thick as this before.” It’s a sexy card.
• The $3,000 minimum spent isn’t that hard to accomplish. You just have to spend $3,000 within three months to get the 50,000 points. Amazon Payments will let you send $1,000 per month to someone by credit card without any fees. There you go, your minimum spend is taken care of.
• Humans work at Chase. People always ask “I signed up for XYZ Chase card on XYZ date, can I get approved for the Chase Sapphire Preferred?” Even if you initially get denied, Chase has a great reconsideration line with humans empowered to overturn any decision. If you have an existing Chase card, they’ll in almost all instances let you close the existing card in lieu of a new one, and you still get the sign-up bonus.
• Signing up for credit cards doesn’t ruin your credit score. I’d argue it actually helped mine. The number of inquiries on your credit score makes up only a small part of your credit score. A larger part of your credit score is your utilization and length of credit history, both of which can be helped by having more long-term credit cards.

Any questions on the card? Let me know below and I’ll help ASAP.

On a somewhat unrelated note, I got two American Admirals Club passes in the mail today which expire on December 31, 2012. I have no use for them since I have an American Express Platinum which gives me access to Admirals Clubs. Instead let me know in the comments whether you have the Chase Sapphire Preferred card or not, and I’ll randomly pick a winner at 10AM eastern tomorrow.

American has just announced they’ll be adding several new benefits to their Citi Platinum Select AAdvantage credit cards, which apparently kick in today. The benefits are as follows:

First checked bag free

For benefit to apply, at the time of booking, Citi® / AAdvantage® account must have been open at least 7 days and reservation must include the primary cardmember’s American Airlines AAdvantage® number. This benefit is valid for travel booked and ticketed on or after April 2, 2012. If your credit card account is closed for any reason, this benefit will be cancelled. Eligible Citi® / AAdvantage® cardmembers may check one bag free of charge when traveling on American Airlines, American Eagle or the AmericanConnection® carrier to select domestic destinations. Up to four customers traveling with the eligible primary credit cardmember will also get their first checked bag free of charge if they are listed in the same reservation. Waiver does not apply to overweight or oversized bags. This benefit cannot be combined with any existing AAdvantage® elite program benefits, including any waiver of baggage charges. Please see AA.com for baggage weight and size restrictions. Additional terms, conditions and restrictions may apply. Applicable terms and conditions are subject to change without notice.

Based on the way I interpret it, you don’t actually have to use the credit card to make the purchase, but the same primary AAdvantage number just needs to be linked to the reservation and the credit card. Also, it applies to up to four people traveling on the same reservation, which is great.

Priority Boarding

For benefit to apply, at the time of booking, Citi® / AAdvantage® account must have been open at least 7 days and reservation must include the primary cardmember’s American Airlines AAdvantage® number. If your credit card account is closed for any reason, these benefits will be cancelled. This benefit is valid for travel booked and ticketed on or after April 2, 2012. Eligible Citi® / AAdvantage® cardmembers will have priority boarding privileges when traveling on American Airlines, American Eagle or the AmericanConnection® carrier operated and marketed flights. Priority boarding group will only be printed on the boarding pass of the eligible Citi® / AAdvantage® primary credit cardmember. Up to four customers traveling with and listed in the same reservation as the Citi® / AAdvantage® primary credit cardmember are eligible for priority boarding. These benefits will not be available for travel on codeshare flights booked with an AA flight number but operated by another airline. Applicable terms and conditions are subject to change without notice.

The most interesting thing here is that up to four people traveling on the same reservation can get priority boarding as well. In the past priority boarding for companions was more or less an unpublished benefit, though I suspect this means that elite members can also have four others board with them at the same time. At least that would seem logical…

$100 American Airlines Flight Discount

Earn a $100 American Airlines Flight Discount when you spend $30,000 or more in purchases on your
Citi® / AAdvantage® credit card during your cardmembership year (each 12 month period prior to your anniversary date) and your account remains open for at least 45 days after your anniversary. The Flight Discount expires one year from date of issue. The Flight Discount is redeemable toward the initial electronic ticket purchase of air travel wholly on flights operated by American Airlines, American Eagle or the AmericanConnection® carrier for itineraries sold and originating in the U.S., Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands. The Flight Discount is also redeemable for air travel on any oneworld® partner or American Airlines codeshare flight. The Flight Discount is redeemable online at www.aa.com. The Flight Discount is redeemable only toward the purchase of the base air fare and directly associated taxes, fees and charges that are collected as part of the fare calculation for travel on American Airlines, American Eagle or the AmericanConnection® carrier. The Flight Discount may not be used for flight products and/or services that are sold separately or non-flight products and/or services sold by American Airlines. If the ticket price is greater than the value of the Flight Discount, the difference must be paid only with a credit, debit or charge card, or with American Airlines Gift Cards. If travel booked with the Flight Discount is cancelled or changed by the cardmember, the Flight Discount will be forfeited and the cardmember will be responsible for any applicable fare difference and the applicable change fee. The Flight Discount will not be replaced for any reason. The Flight Discount is non-refundable, may not be sold and has no cash redemption value. If the $30,000 purchase requirement was met during your cardmembership year and your account remains open for at least 45 days after your anniversary, please allow 8-12 weeks for the Flight Discount delivery.

Okay, that’s nice if you spend $30,000 on the card anyway, though that would raise the question as to why the hell you’re spending $30,000 on this card in a year when there’s a better card for literally every spend category (Premier Rewards Gold card for airfare/gas/groceries and Chase Sapphire Preferred card for dining and travel, just to name a couple).

Earn 10% Back on Your Redeemed American Airlines AAdvantage® Miles

For benefit to apply, your Citi® / AAdvantage® account must be open and active at the time of redemption. The American Airlines AAdvantage® bonus miles you earn through this benefit will be based on 10% of the total AAdvantage® miles you redeem each month during the calendar year. The maximum number of AAdvantage® bonus miles you can earn annually from this benefit is 10,000 AAdvantage® bonus miles per calendar year, regardless of how many AAdvantage® miles you redeem in that calendar year. This benefit only applies to AAdvantage® miles redeemed from the primary cardmember’s AAdvantage® account. Discover all the ways to redeem AAdvantage® miles at www.aa.com/redeem. Please allow 6-8 weeks after your redemption for the American Airlines AAdvantage® bonus miles to post to the primary cardmember’s AAdvantage® account.

Okay, now this is awesome. The annual fee on the card is $95, and this benefit means I’ll save 10,000 miles per year, which is worth way more to me than $95. So this alone makes the card worth keeping for me.

25% savings on in-flight purchases

Citi® / AAdvantage cardmembers will receive a 25% savings on in-flight purchases of food, beverages, and headsets on flights operated by American Airlines when purchased with their Citi® / AAdvantage® card. Savings do not apply to any other in-flight purchases, such as wireless internet access, SkyMallTM and DutyFree. Offer is available on eligible flights as long as supplies last. Savings will appear as a statement credit 6–8 weeks after the transaction is posted to the cardmember’s credit card account. Additional terms, conditions and restrictions may apply. Applicable terms and conditions are subject to change without notice.

I can’t say I’ve ever purchased anything aboard an American flight, though it’s a cool benefit nonetheless. As an Executive Platinum member I get a complimentary snack and drink when I’m stuck in coach, so that more or less takes care of me.

Anyway, it’s nice to see the AAdvantage Citi cards doing some catching up. I’ve probably had more Citi AAdvantage cards than any other type of card thanks to the fact that they consistently offer huge sign-up bonuses of 50,000-75,000 miles. But I couldn’t bring myself to spend a cent on them beyond the minimum required for the bonus, since they offered virtually no benefits.

I still can’t bring myself to spend a cent on them, though at least I’ll gladly pay the annual fee to save 10,000 miles. And in fairness I do think the other benefits will make this a much more lucrative card for the average consumer.

Link: Chase Sapphire Preferred Card Application

My go to credit card for quite some time now has been the Chase Sapphire Preferred card, which is not only one of the most rewarding cards for everyday spend, but also has a great sign-up bonus of 50,000 points after spending $3,000 within three months. Last week Chase reduced the sign-up bonus and marketing materials on the card to reflect a new 40,000 point bonus, though for whatever reason they didn’t yet update the affiliate links. It was only a matter of time before that happened, and it seems like that time has finally come, as Chase is pulling those links as of Tuesday, April 3. So if you want to apply for the Chase Sapphire Preferred card under the old bonus, you’ll want to do so in the next few days.

You can check out this post for a rundown of Chase Sapphire Preferred benefits. As you can see, between the waived foreign transaction fees, double points on travel and dining, and 7% annual points dividend, it’s by far one of the best cards out there, and I’ll certainly be sad to see this offer reduced.

Link: Chase Sapphire Preferred Card Application

Over the weekend I ran a giveaway asking you guys to guess when Chase will drop the sign-up bonus on the Chase Sapphire Preferred card from 50,000 points to 40,000 points across the board. So far they’ve updated their marketing materials and reduced their sign-up bonus to to 40,000 points, though for whatever reason affiliate links (like mine) still offer the 50,000 point sign-up bonus.

The deadline to enter was 11:59PM eastern on Sunday night, and 436 of you entered before the deadline. Using random.org, the 10,000 Ultimate Rewards points are going to Michael H., who left comment 165.

Thanks so much to everyone that “played,” and I’m curious to see who actually ends up being correct.

DansDeals is reporting that starting in April, Citi ThankYou Points will be transferable to both Singapore Airlines Kris Flyer and British Airways Executive Club at a 1:1 ratio.

Back in the day Citi Thank You points were incredibly valuable. They could be redeemed at a fixed amount towards the cost of a revenue ticket, which meant it was possible to earn miles when redeeming points. Many people took full advantage of this by booking tickets in expensive markets that were thousands of dollars, then canceled them, and then applied the credit towards a new ticket (or several new ticket). Unfortunately that was before my days of credit card churning.

For the past few years their points have only been redeemable towards the cost of travel at a value of one cent per point, meaning a $100 ticket would cost you 10,000 points. There’s not a lot of value for me in that, since I’d much rather earn miles that can be redeemed towards international first and business class travel.

However, the points will now be transferable to both Singapore Airlines and British Airways, which makes me rethink the program.

While British Airways miles aren’t nearly as useful as they were before the devaluation, there are still some good redemption opportunities. Nonetheless I’m not especially tempted by them, since their best use is shorthaul economy awards as opposed to longhaul first class awards. Besides, I think British Airways is now officially the sluttiest loyalty program in the industry. They’re now “partners” with Ultimate Rewards, Membership Rewards, Starwood, and Thank You Points.

That being said, I’m very tempted by the prospect of earning Singapore Airlines Kris Flyer miles. As I posted about a few weeks ago, Singapore recently changed their mileage program to make first class awards on them much more attainable. As you can see in the linked post, with the new award chart you can fly first class on Singapore Airlines between San Francisco and Hong Kong for about 140,000 miles.

This makes it tempting to use a Thank You Points co-branded credit card for categories in which they offer bonus points. For example, the Citi Forward Card offers five points per dollar on restaurants. Five Singapore Airlines Kris Flyer miles is more tempting to me than the 2.14 Ultimate Rewards points I currently earn per dollar on the Chase Sapphire Preferred card, which is my current “go to” card for restaurant spend.

I actually think the more exciting news is for college students, as there’s a Citi Forward Card for College Students which comes with the same five points per dollar on restaurants. When I first started building my credit I got a Discover card for college students that earned me 1% cashback, which wasn’t really all that exciting. So if you’re just starting to build your credit, I’d say that this card is now easily the most tempting one out there.

Like I said, though, I’m not all that familiar with the ThankYou Points program. Are there any other cards that earn ThankYou points at a more favorable ratio? Either way, this makes the program much more valuable.

(In the interest of full disclosure, the two Citi links above are my affiliate links, and I earn a commission for anyone that’s approved through those links)

Please note: this promotion has ended

I wrote a couple of days ago about Chase dropping the sign-up bonus on their website from 50,000 points to 40,000 points on their Chase Sapphire Preferred card after spending $3,000 within three months.

At the time it wasn’t entirely obvious whether it was an error or a sign of the bonus dropping across the board, though unfortunately it’s becoming clearer and clearer. As far as I can tell they’ve now updated the sign-up bonuses across the board on their website, and also updated their marketing materials to reflect the reduced bonus, even for TV ads.

The only links that still offer the full bonus are the affiliate links. I can’t imagine this is intentional, since I’ve never before seen Chase offer a better sign-up bonus to their affiliates than what they’re offering directly (after all, they incur an additional expense by having someone sign-up through an affiliate link).

Typically the affiliate marketing agencies will send us emails telling us to update details of the cards when the sign-up bonuses change, though no such email has been sent out yet. I’m not sure whether this is an oversight or they plan on yanking it over the weekend or next week, though I’d say with near certainty they’ll give us updated links soon reflecting the lower bonus. The email may very well be one that tells us to update the link immediately with the old offer being deactivated, as opposed to providing advance notice.

If you haven’t signed up for the Chase Sapphire Preferred card yet, you really should. I’ve promoted it so heavily because there’s a drought of good offers right now, and this is both the best sign-up bonus and best all around credit card in the market right now, in my opinion. You can read all about the benefits here, including double points on dining and travel, a 7% annual points dividend, no foreign transaction fees, and more. Best of all, the points can be transferred to some of the most valuable points programs, including Hyatt and United.

I know a lot of people have been holding out for a better sign-up bonus, though I think it’s safe to say that it’s not happening, at least not anytime soon.

So anyway, to make this a bit fun, let me know in the comments section when you think Chase will pull the 50,000 point sign-up bonus affiliate links. I’ll randomly select one person who I’ll gift 10,000 Ultimate Rewards points. I’ll run the giveaway through 11:59PM ET on Sunday, March 25, and each person can enter once.

Just this week my American Express Premier Rewards Gold card came up for renewal, meaning I was hit with the $175 annual fee. I did the math for myself to figure out whether the card was worth keeping, and figured I’d share my analysis and thought process in deciding to keep the card.

While many cards come with waived annual fees the first year (along with big sign-up bonuses), it’s after the first year that it becomes harder to decide between keeping a card and canceling it. I’d say in general you’re best off keeping at least two cards long-term, with the following considerations:

• At least one card not issued by American Express (since they’re not accepted everywhere)
• At least one card with no foreign transaction fees (given that they can add up quickly when traveling abroad)
• Cards that maximize category bonuses, including gas, groceries, dining, travel, etc.

The obvious thing preventing people from keeping a dozen cards for a long time is the annual fee that most “valuable” cards have (there are some exceptions, like the Costco American Express, which offers 3% cashback on gas and 2% cashback on dining and travel, yet doesn’t have an annual fee). But in many ways keeping a card beyond the first year can be an investment in your credit score, ensuring you’ll be able to take advantage of great sign-up bonuses in the future. I say this because the length of your average account as well as your credit utilization make up about 45% of your credit score, which could be the difference between being approved for the next sign-up bonus and being denied.

Furthermore, some cards have annual benefits that more than outweigh the annual fee. For example:

• The Hyatt Visa offers one free night at category 1-4 hotels annually
• The Priority Club Visa offers one free night at any Priority Club hotel annually
• The Marriott Premier Visa offers one free night at a category 1-5 hotels plus 15 nights towards elite status annually
• The US Airways MasterCard offers 10,000 bonus miles annually
• The Alaska Airlines Visa offers a $99 companion certificate annually
• The Starwood American Express offers five nights and two stays towards elite status annually

But I think the key for many is to find a card with a low annual fee that maximizes your bonuses in a category that you spend a considerable amount in annually. Then, while it’s probably common sense to most of you, be sure that the additional points earned outweigh the annual fee.

If you’re an “average” credit card spender and also sign-up for at least a handful of credit cards per year to maximize sign-up bonuses, chances are that you’re usually working towards meeting the minimum spend on a new credit card. If that’s the case, you won’t get a lot of value out of the Premier Rewards Gold card beyond the first year, for example, despite the fact that if offers triple points on airfare, double points on gas and groceries, and 15,000 bonus points per year when you spend $30,000 on the card.

For me, I spent about $30,000 on airfare on the card last year (lots of it was for clients, family, an friends), earning me 105,000 Membership Rewards points. The next best card to put that on would have been the Chase Sapphire Preferred, which earns two points per dollar plus a 7% annual points dividend, for a total of 64,000 Ultimate Rewards points. I value Membership Rewards points at a minimum of 1.5 cents each (that’s a conservative valuation), so that $175 annual fee basically “cost” me ~12,000 points. Even with that factored in I earned 93,000 Membership Rewards points, which is still a better value than I would have gotten through any other card. That doesn’t even factor in that the card earns double points on gas and groceries, making it the card I put all my spend in those categories towards.

So there’s no “one size fits all” for which credit cards are best to keep past the first year. Some cards are worth keeping for the annual benefits, even if you don’t intend to spend a dime on the credit card (as outlined above). Other cards, however, are worth keeping because the points bonuses earn exceed the annual fee.

For the average consumer, I’d say the two cards that strike the best balance between a reasonable annual fee and great bonuses would be the Chase Sapphire Preferred ($95 annual fee) and Starwood Preferred Guest American Express card ($65 annual fee).

Between the two cards you have my above three requirements satisfied (no foreign transaction fees, one card not issued by American Express, and category bonuses). The Chase Sapphire Preferred card gets you double points on dining and travel (plus a 7% bonus on top of that), while the Starwood American Express essentially earns you 1.25 airline miles per dollar spent (since you get a 5,000 point bonus for every 20,000 points transferred). Furthermore, as we’re seeing right now with the 50% transfer bonus to US Airways, you can convert one SPG point into 1.875 US Airways miles. That’s almost like earning two points per dollar spent on everything, given that these transfer bonuses seem to happen at least once a year.

Furthermore, between the two cards you have just about all the major airlines and hotels imaginable covered, with the exception of Hilton. Chase Sapphire Preferred points can best be transferred to United, Hyatt, Marriott, and Priority Club, while SPG points can be used for SPG stays as well as transfers to American, Delta, and US Airways, just to name a few.

Which cards do you have that you consider to be “keepers?”

Full disclosure: I receive a referral bonus for anyone that signs up through the above links for some of the cards. As always I will only provide a referral link if it offers the best available sign-up bonus.

Please note: This promotion has ended

Here’s an interesting development. Up until now Chase has offered a 50,000 point sign-up bonus across the board on the Chase Sapphire Preferred card,  regardless of which channel you sign up through. Interestingly it seems they’ve dropped the sign-up offer on some parts of their website to 40,000 points now, with the same requirement of spending $3,000 within the first three months of membership.

This is pretty interesting, since affiliate links (and some parts of Chase’s website) still offer 50,000 points after spending $3,000 within three months. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a credit card company offer a higher sign-up bonus through affiliate channels than they do directly.

Anyway, if you’ve been considering the Chase Sapphire Preferred card I’d jump on it as soon as possible. Logically I suspect this update means one of two things — the 40,000 point sign-up bonus is an error, or Chase plans on lowering the sign-up bonus to 40,000 points across the board (they can tell their affiliates to pull the links at any time with no advance notice, so it’s certainly a possibility). Or maybe they’re just taking a really, really whacky approach towards marketing these cards by instilling fear in the mind of consumers that have been on the fence about getting the card.

And there’s no reason to be on the fence about this card, as it’s my all around favorite travel card. In addition to the great sign-up bonus you earn double points on travel and dining, a 7% annual points dividend, have no foreign transaction fees, and have some amazing airline and hotel partners you can transfer points to. You can read more about the card’s benefits here.

In February I shared my suggestions for a first time credit card churn. Reader Kelly left the following question on that post yesterday, which I suspect a lot of people have:

I’ve been using this site for a long time to research which cards have the best rewards, but I’ve never really understood churning or tried it.

So I guess this is similar to Rebecca’s question. In general, how do you define “churning”? And the part I am most confused about is – do you have to cancel a card before applying for it again? If so, how long do you have to wait?

For example, the Alaska Signature Visa that you said is still churnable… how exactly does one go about churning it? Thanks so much for unraveling this mystery for me.

While it’s probably not the intent of her question, Kelly actually raises a great point. For the most part, what we’re doing when we sign up for credit cards nowadays isn’t really “churning.” Credit card “churning” is typically defined as signing up for the same credit card multiple times for the sign-up bonuses. Nowadays it’s commonly used to refer to signing up for credit cards exclusively for the sign-up bonuses, even though you can only get the bonus on most cards once.

Back in the “good old days” many credit cards were “churnable.” For example, Citi let you apply for the same AAdvantage credit card every 60-90 days. Back then you had people that signed up for the same exact credit card 4-6 times per year. And Citi had three types of American Airlines credit cards, so some people were getting the bonus on American co-branded credit cards over a dozen times per year. Now, those were the days of 25,000 mile sign-up bonuses, but still.

I think most of us asked ourselves how stupid they could be for not catching on, though in the meantime they’ve closed that opportunity and you can’t earn the bonus multiple times (at least per the rules). Hey, can we really blame them?

So while you can easily rack up hundreds of thousands of miles and points per year by signing up for credit cards, you’ll eventually run out of cards… right?

Well, not necessarily, as there are still some cards that are churnable. Please keep in mind that this is very much a case of “your mileage may vary.” I share these based on the experiences I’ve had and also those I’ve read about. And I’d appreciate if you guys could share your experiences in the comments section below as to whether your experiences match my observations. However, I would suggest not calling up the credit card companies directly and saying “hey, can I apply for this card five times a year and earn the bonus each time?”

With that in mind, here are the cards that I’ve heard are still churnable:

US Airways Premier World MasterCard — 40,000 miles after the first purchase; no annual fee the first year

Alaska Airlines Visa Signature Card — 25,000 miles after the first purchase; $75 annual fee the first year

Hawaiian Airlines Signature Visa Card — 35,000 miles after spending $1,000 within four months; $79 annual fee the first year (it’s worth noting that Hawaiian miles can be transferred at a 1:2 ratio to Hilton HHonors)

And then there are some cards that are semi-churnable:

Gold Delta SkyMiles American Express Card — 30,000 miles after spending $500 within three months; no annual fee the first year

Note: According to DeltaPoints, American Express lets you earn the bonus on their Delta cards every 24 months. So if you open your account today, you can receive the same bonus again in two years, regardless of whether you closed the previous account or not. This is why I signed up for the Delta SkyMiles Gold card last year, despite the sign-up offer not being especially compelling.

Chase Ink Bold Business card – 50,000 points after spending $10,000 within three months; no annual fee the first year

Note: While the card isn’t “churnable” in the traditional sense, Chase rebranded the Ink Bold card in late November (the new benefits can be found here), and as such they treat it as a new card for the purposes of the sign-up bonus. If you signed up for the card under the old benefits, I’m told you can re-apply and earn the 50,000 point sign-up bonus again. Fortunately I applied before they switched the card over, so should be able to get the bonus again.

So that probably leaves a couple of questions:

a) Do you have to cancel your existing card before applying again? For all of the above cards you don’t to the best of my knowledge. Does anyone have experiences that contradict that?

b) When should you cancel the “old” credit card if you plan on applying for the same one again? Since having an existing card isn’t an issue for the above cards, it really doesn’t matter. So as usual my advice would be to keep the cards open for as close to a year as possible without paying the annual fee. One part of your credit score is how long your accounts have been open on average, so the higher the number the better your score.

b) So how do you explain to the credit card company that you need two of the same credit cards? There are plenty of good reasons to have multiple credit cards. Just explain that you need to keep expenses separate (be it because one card is for reimbursable business expenses and the other for personal expenses, or whatever your preferred excuse is).

Any other questions, or did I miss anything?

Full disclosure: I do receive a referral bonus if you choose to apply for the Chase Ink Bold or Delta SkyMiles American Express through the links above, and of course I’m incredibly appreciate if you choose to use my links. I don’t receive a referral bonus for the other cards listed.

USA Today published an article today entitled “Travel rewards credit cards. Which pay best?” The article uses analysis by nextadvisor.com to rank travel credit cards. The rankings are based on how much flight or hotel “value” you can get out of $100 worth of credit card spend. They based it on the following:

To cut through the fog of miles and points, as well as flight and hotel room availability, NextAdvisor sought to use the cards to book airline tickets and hotel stays on the same dates in the summer and fall for its analysis.

It would be nice if they expanded on what kind of a search they did, because it might give a bit of context. I think it goes without saying, though, that searching a couple of dates across summer and fall without considering the most efficient way to redeem those points isn’t an accurate basis on which to judge the value of points. But my bigger issue is that they seem to be comparing apples and oranges. For some cards they’re using the pay with points option, whereby you can redeem your points towards the revenue cost of a ticket, while for other cards they’re actually redeeming the points for award stays/flights (at least that’s the only way I can rationalize their numbers).

The other issue I have is that they’re judging how much travel value you can get out of $100 worth of credit card spend without considering in which categories that spend occurs. This is why I’d rather compare the value of points across programs on a 1:1 basis, as opposed to comparing them based on how much you spend. When you set a value to each point you can work the math for yourself and figure out what kind of a “return” you’d get based on the categories you spend the most in (then again, I can see that might be a bit detailed for such a piece).

Their top pick is the Capital One Venture Card, which earns two points per dollar spent. Those are points that can be redeemed for one cent each towards travel. However, the Chase Sapphire Preferred card offers double points on dining and travel plus a 7% annual points dividend, while the American Express Premier Rewards Gold card offers triple points on airfare and double points on gas and groceries. This analysis suggests you’re never spending money in a category which earns a bonus.

So when we look at their valuation, the Capital One Venture Card is at the top of the list with $2 of value per $100 spent, while the Chase Sapphire Preferred card is close to the bottom with only $1.05 of value per $100 spent. How they arrive at $1.05 is beyond me, since each Ultimate Rewards point can be redeemed for 1.25 cents towards travel (meaning a minimum of $1.25 per $100 spent). So at the very least that’s $1.34 per point towards travel (with the annual points dividend), and that doesn’t factor in double points for dining and travel. It also doesn’t factor in that using Ultimate Rewards points as cash towards travel is far from the best use of them, given their excellent transfer partners.

The funniest thing has to be that the United Explorer card is near the top of the list, with $1.94 of travel value for every $100 spent. Aren’t we forgetting that Ultimate Rewards points can be transferred 1:1 to United, not to mention that the card accrues more points per dollar spent than the United Explorer card?

Lastly (because I could go on and on), why aren’t any Membership Rewards branded credit cards on the list, in particular the Premier Rewards Gold card, which is probably the single most rewarding travel card if you spend in their bonus categories.

Anyway, as usual the lesson to be learned is that points valuations are subjective. The amount of “value” you get per point varies not only based on what you redeem points for, but how much you value those redemptions at. For example, when redeeming 120,000 miles for a first class ticket that would sell for $18,000, are you really getting a value of 15 cents per mile? Some would argue yes, while I’d argue the value is only equal to what you’d be willing to pay for the product. I’d realistically pay maybe $2,400 for first class, so I’d say two cents per mile is a much more realistic valuation for such a redemption.

If you do want to learn about what are no doubt the three best travel credit cards, see here (and in the interest of full disclosure I do get a referral bonus if you apply through one of the links below, which I’m of course very appreciative of):

• Chase Sapphire Preferred Card Application / Chase Sapphire Preferred Card Benefits

• Starwood Preferred Guest American Express Card Application / Starwood Preferred Guest American Express Card Benefits

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