Tutorial for using our Rewards Card Advisor
Enter your Budget Information
STEP 1: Enter your monthly budget information in the requested fields.
STEP 2: If applicable, enter the total number of flights, in miles, anticipated for the year.
STEP 3: To assist in tracking your budget, this area automatically keeps a running total of your budget as you enter data into the fields provided.
STEP 4: Check appropriate boxes for 1st and 3rd+ year results.
STEP 5: Click "Submit" to start the calculations.
Interpreting the results
Results are grouped by category. Each row summarizes the results for one of six rewards categories: Gift Cards,
Hotel, Flights, Merchandise, Cash-back, and total points.
For example, this row contains the 5 best rewards cards for gift card redemption value, based on the budget
information you entered.
The results are also organized by column. Each column summarizes the rewards card redemption value, by rank. For example,
this column contains the best (1st Rank) cards from each rewards category. In this example, "A" and "F" cards returned the greatest value
for Gift Card and Hotel rewards redemption, respectively.
Following this same logic, this column contains the 5th Rank cards from each rewards category.
To close with two examples
(from the above chart) is a rewards card that returns the 2nd-best value for gift card rewards and
returns the 3rd-best value for hotel rewards. Left-clicking on either of these labels takes you to the
card issuer's respective site for more information. Digging deeper, we also note that for :
• on average, we obtain around $515 in hotel rewards when all points are redeemed in this category.
• while this card is 3rd in ranking for hotel rewards, its composite score of 15.97 out of 40 suggests that when it's evaluated as a whole, with its
other rewards categories, it performed quite poorly compared to other rewards cards.
• since its composite score(50 max) is also quite low, this card offers an extremely poor cash-back option (in this case, none at all since both scores are identical.).
• lastly, the rate of return for this card is 13.42%. This would be considered unusually high if it wasn't explained by the first year bonus incentive.
Compare other card benefits
CHECKBOX: Select up to 5 cards for comparison.
COMPARE: When more than one card is selected, the "Compare" button, located below the Key to Metrics, becomes enabled. Clicking here brings up another page which allows you to compare the other benefits and features of the cards selected. Note: JavaScript must be enabled on your browser for this feature to function properly.
