How We Rank Credit Cards and Welcome Offers
Not all “great” credit card offers are great for you.
A headline like “80,000 points!” doesn’t tell you how easy that bonus is to earn, how valuable the points are for your type of travel, or how much value you’ll actually keep after annual fees and breakage on credits.
SpendAndReward exists to give you a clearer, more realistic picture. This article explains how we think about card value and how we rank welcome offers and ongoing rewards inside the app.
1. Our Goal: Clear, Realistic Estimates
When we rank cards and welcome offers, our goal is not to find the mathematically “perfect” card for every person. That would require knowing your entire financial life, exact spending, and future travel plans.
Instead, we aim for:
- Clarity – show where a card’s value actually comes from (welcome offer, ongoing rewards, credits) in a way you can understand at a glance.
- Realism – use reasonable assumptions so estimates are not wildly optimistic about what most people will use.
- Consistency – treat cards by the same set of rules so comparisons feel fair and apples‑to‑apples.
Everything we show is an estimate, not a promise. Think of it as a helpful yardstick, not a precise forecast.
2. What We Rank: First‑Year Value vs Ongoing Value
Inside SpendAndReward, you’ll often see us talk about a card’s estimated first‑year value.
That estimate is meant to answer:
“If I open this card and use it in a reasonable way for one year, how much value might I get from it, after considering fees?”
We break this into two main components:
- Welcome offer value – points, miles, or cash you get for meeting a minimum spend requirement.
- Ongoing value – rewards and usable credits you can reasonably earn or redeem during a typical year.
Then we subtract the impact of the annual fee to get a rough “net” first‑year estimate.
3. Welcome Offer Value
Welcome offers are often the biggest chunk of value in a card’s first year. To compare them, we:
- Look at the bonus amount and type: for example, 75,000 points, 120,000 miles, or $750 cash back.
- Consider the minimum spend requirement and time frame: for example, “$4,000 in 3 months.”
- Convert the bonus into a rough dollar estimate using a baseline value per point or per mile.
We deliberately keep these point valuations simple and conservative. Some people squeeze much more value from a program; others redeem below average. Our goal is to avoid exaggerating how much a welcome offer is “really” worth.
We do not assume you will:
- Use complex transfer partners perfectly.
- Only book peak “sweet spot” redemptions.
- Travel in premium cabins on every trip.
Instead, think of our welcome‑offer number as a reasonable middle‑of‑the‑road estimate to compare against other cards and their fees.
4. Ongoing Rewards Value
A great welcome offer is nice, but a card should also make sense after the first year. We model ongoing rewards using:
- Base earning rate – for example, 1x points everywhere.
- Category bonuses – for example, 3x on dining, 5x on travel, 4x on grocery, etc.
- Reasonable spend assumptions – a neutral split across categories, not tailored to any one person’s exact spending.
In other words, we ask:
“If an average cardholder put a reasonable mix of spend on this card, how much value would the rewards generate in a year?”
Under the hood, the app uses the detailed reward structure for each card (including multipliers and promos when applicable) to estimate that yearly value. We then convert points or miles to a dollar estimate using the same baseline valuations we use for welcome offers.
This number will not match your exact life, but it gives you a consistent yardstick to compare cards against one another.
5. Credits and “Effective” Value
Many cards come with statement credits: airline fees, hotel nights, rideshare, streaming, lifestyle perks, and more.
These can be hugely valuable—or nearly worthless—depending on how you live. That’s why we distinguish between:
- Face value – what the issuer advertises: for example, “$200 airline credit.”
- Effective value – our more realistic estimate of what the average person might actually use.
In the app, credits are grouped and summarized, and you’ll often see an “Includes ~$X/yr in credits” line. If you expand the breakdown, you’ll see each credit with:
- The category (for example, Travel, Dining, Lifestyle)
- Estimated dollars per year
-
A reset label:
(Cal)for calendar‑year credits or(Mem)for cardmember‑year credits
We try to err on the side of not over‑promising here. If a credit is hard to use or very niche, we may discount its effective value compared to what’s printed in the marketing materials.
6. Fees, Costs, and Net Value
A card’s value doesn’t mean much if the fees eat it all. That’s why our rankings always consider the net effect:
- We include the annual fee for the card.
- We factor in any automatic fee credits that reliably offset part of it.
- We combine welcome offer value, ongoing rewards, and usable credits.
The result is a rough “first‑year net value” estimate:
(Welcome offer value) + (estimated ongoing rewards) + (effective credits) − (annual fee)
Some cards shine in Year 1 but weaken later once the welcome bonus is gone. Others are steady workhorses with lower bonuses but stronger ongoing rewards. Our goal is to make those tradeoffs easier to see.
7. What We Don’t Model (Yet)
There are important factors we don’t explicitly model in our rankings. You should keep these in mind on your own:
- Issuer rules and approval odds: things like “5/24”‑style policies, card‑family limits, and your likelihood of being approved.
- Interest rates and carrying a balance: our rankings assume you pay statements in full and do not model interest costs. If you carry a balance, rewards value is usually outweighed by interest.
- Late fees and penalties: we don’t try to predict behavior‑based charges.
- Very specific travel patterns: we don’t tailor valuations to a single airline or hotel chain unless you choose cards that lean that way.
For these reasons, our rankings are best used as a starting point, not a final verdict.
8. How to Use Our Rankings Wisely
When you browse the Explore Offers page or look at template recommendations for a merchant, here’s how we recommend using those rankings:
- Treat the top cards as a shortlist of candidates, not as instructions to apply.
- Ask whether the card’s credits and bonuses fit your real life. If you won’t use the airline credit or don’t stay at that hotel chain, mentally discount that part of the value.
- Consider your card portfolio as a whole: new cards should complement what you already have, not duplicate everything.
- Be mindful of application rules and your credit goals: it can be smarter to wait than to rush into every attractive offer.
The numbers we show are there to help you say: “This card looks good because of X, Y, and Z,” not just “This number is big, so it must be the best.”
9. What’s Next
If you want to go deeper, here are good next steps:
- Read our guide on getting set up: Getting Started with SpendAndReward
- Explore the current welcome‑offer picks in the app and see how the breakdowns look for a few cards that interest you.
- Try searching for a favorite merchant and compare “Your Top Cards” vs “Our Recommendations” to see how the model behaves in a real scenario.
Over time, we’ll keep refining our estimates and assumptions. When we make material changes to how we rank cards, we’ll update this page so you can see how the numbers are being generated.
Open SpendAndReward to see these rankings in action for your own wallet.