Choosing the right credit card for your spending habits and financial situation can be daunting. The best credit cards come with generous welcome offers, lucrative bonus categories, and compelling benefits. At the same time, some also charge high annual fees, or make it tricky to redeem rewards.
Business Insider evaluates all of these elements in our comprehensive credit card reviews and guides. Credit cards come in many flavors, so we try to compare apples to apples by rating a card against others of the same type. For example, comparing a luxury premium card for travelers to a basic no-annual-fee card for students wouldn't be a fair assessment.
What to know about credit card ratings
Our ratings are a guide to help you compare your options. But only you can decide if a credit card is a good fit for your wallet based on your goals — whether that's saving money on interest with a 0% APR offer, earning points and miles for travel, or improving your credit score.
When reading through our guides and reviews, keep your personal needs in mind when considering a card's rewards, benefits, and fees even if we've rated it very highly. If you're a frequent flyer, a highly rated premium travel card like the Chase Sapphire Reserve® might prove invaluable and pay for itself many times over. But if you generally stay close to home, this card would be little more than a pricy slice of metal.
What's new: evaluating cards by primary purpose
We used to rate all credit cards by five primary attributes: annual fees, welcome offers, benefits, earning rewards, and redeeming rewards.
Moving into 2025, we've decided to evaluate different types of credit cards against products with similar offerings. We've separated all of the cards we review into one of three buckets depending on their primary function:
- Cash back
- Travel rewards
- Something else (typically credit-building)
Credit cards that earn cash back often feature a different rewards and benefits structure than cards that confer travel rewards and benefits, and it doesn't make sense to evaluate them by the same metrics.
Similarly, niche credit cards designed for a specific purpose may not earn rewards but can help build or rebuild credit, arguably more of a priority for a first-time credit cardholder than gaining airport lounge access.
We've also tweaked the metrics we use to evaluate credit cards. While credit cards vary, the criteria we demand from them do not, and our rating system summarizes each card's pros and cons so that you can make the best possible decision when applying for your next card.
What about business credit cards?
We rate business credit cards the same way: by separating them into cash back, travel rewards, and niche products. All of the scoring methodology you'll see below applies equally to business and consumer credit cards.
What we look for when rating credit cards
We've updated our rating system to encompass four primary considerations:
- Rewards
- Benefits
- Ongoing value
- First-year value
We continue to rate all credit cards on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being the lowest and 5 being the highest.
Here's how we define each criterion, and how much weight it carries in a credit card's overall scoring.
Rewards
Regardless of the card's primary function, this section of our scoring system reflects if the credit card earns ongoing rewards in the form of points, miles, or cash back. If a card doesn't earn any rewards at all, it automatically earns a Rewards score of 1, no matter how powerful it may be in other ways.
Rewards are most important on cash-back credit cards, so we've weighted this category the highest when compiling a credit card's final score. While earning rates are also important for travelers, travel rewards credit cards tend to offer the most value in the Benefits category, which we'll discuss next. Niche cards such as secured credit cards don't tend to offer rewards, but those that do earn bonus points in our book for doing so.
The Rewards metric does not include any potential welcome bonus offer, since those can vary from time to time, and we're focused on the long-term benefits of opening and keeping the particular card in question.
How much are rewards worth in a credit card's overall score?
Cash-back credit cards: 50%
Travel rewards credit cards: 30%
Niche credit cards: 20%
Benefits
Benefits differ from rewards because cardholders can utilize these perks no matter how much (or little) they spend on the card. These include privileges such as concierge service, features such as fraud monitoring and purchase protection, and complimentary benefits such as travel insurance or airport lounge access.
You'll often find a correlation between a credit card's benefits and its annual fee — for example, every U.S. credit card that comes with airport lounge access also charges an annual fee. But some of the best no-annual-fee credit cards offer benefits almost on par with those found on many of the best rewards credit cards, such as baggage delay insurance or trip interruption protection. And once in a blue moon, a credit card with a high annual fee offers few benefits for the cardholder.
We've weighted benefits most significantly for single-function products such as secured credit cards, because these soft benefits represent the primary purpose of these products. If you're looking for the best credit card to help you rebuild your credit, you want a card that can grow with you by offering automatic upgrades to an unsecured credit card with time and responsible use, or which pairs well with other financial services you already use.
Benefits are also extremely important for travel rewards credit cards, especially airline and hotel co-branded options. Holding the right airline credit card or hotel credit card can save you hundreds of dollars in checked bag fees or earn you free breakfast anywhere in the world.
Meanwhile, cash-back credit cards can be leaner on benefits, since their primary purpose is to earn you money back. Many of the best cash-back credit cards do come with helpful benefits such as extended warranty, and hybrid cashback/travel rewards credit cards often offer the best of both worlds.
How much are benefits worth in a credit card's overall score?
Cash back credit cards: 20%
Travel rewards credit cards: 40%
Niche credit cards: 50%
Ongoing value
This portion of our ratings rubric considers how much value a credit card will continue to offer after the first-year benefits and concessions expire. After all the flashy bonus points have been spent, how much true benefit does your card continue to offer? A more intangible consideration we evaluate is whether keeping this card takes away a slot in your wallet that would be better filled by another credit card.
No-annual-fee credit cards often rank well in this category, while some premium cards also offer generous anniversary bonuses — such as a $300 annual travel credit — that significantly offset their annual fees.
As with first-year value, we weighted this criterion at 20% across the board for all cards.
How much is ongoing value worth in a credit card's overall score?
Cash-back credit cards: 20%
Travel rewards credit cards: 20%
Niche credit cards: 20%
First-year value
Finally, this metric considers how much value a new cardholder can get from signing up for this particular credit card. First-year value considers the welcome bonus available to new applicants — both how much it's worth, and how easy it is to earn. We also factor in initial benefits such as waived annual fee for the first year, a free night award, automatic elite status for the first year, any 0% intro APR offers, or similar discounts or concessions.
If the credit card has an annual fee, we consider whether a new cardholder would get enough value out of their welcome offer, zero-interest period, and other first-year benefits to offset the cost.
We weighted this portion of the score equally across cashback, travel rewards, and other niche credit cards at 10%.
How much is first-year value worth in a credit card's overall score?
Cash-back credit cards: 10%
Travel rewards credit cards: 10%
Niche credit cards: 10%
How we rate cash-back credit cards
After explaining our methodology and the individual factors we consider, here's a holistic overview of how we rate cash-back credit cards.
Cash-back credit cards are best for their flexibility and ease of use. With most cash-back credit cards, what you see is what you get: If you earn 1% back, that equates to 1 cent of value. They're typically designed to help you earn something back on every dollar you spend, especially on common household expenses like gas, groceries, and streaming services.
Rewards: 50%
With your return on investment in mind, we chose to rate Rewards at 50% of the total weight of each card's score. If a card earns more than 1% back per dollar spent, that makes it better than average and earns the product a higher Rewards score than an "average" credit card that only earns 1%, or a debit card that earns 0% back.
Here are some common examples:
- The Discover it® Cash Back earns 5% cash back per dollar spent on rotating categories (from January 1 to March 31, 2025, earn 5% cash back at restaurants, home improvement stores, and select streaming services on up to $1,500 in purchases after enrollment, then 1%)
- The Capital One Savor Cash Rewards Credit Card earns 8% cash back on entertainment purchased via Capital One Entertainment
- The Wells Fargo Active Cash® Card earns 2% cash back on everything
Benefits: 20%
Cash-back cards are generally your everyday go-to for bills, so you shouldn't necessarily expect top-tier travel benefits or concierge services from these products. But many of the best credit cards for earning cash back offer generous perks such as complimentary cellphone insurance and baggage delay protection. These benefits can add significant value for cardholders, so we give these cards better ratings.
Examples of good cash-back credit card benefits include:
- Wells Fargo credit cards come with great cellphone protection benefits, typically paying out $600 to $1,000 per eligible claim with a super-low deductible of $25
- The Chase Freedom Flex® comes with trip interruption and cancellation benefits, which pay up to $1,500 per person if your trip is cut short or canceled due to illness or severe weather
Ongoing value: 20%
This metric evaluates the long-term value of keeping this cash-back credit card in your wallet. If it costs you an annual fee each year, will you get enough from statement credits, complimentary benefits, or other perks to make it worth your while? And even if the card doesn't have an annual fee, would you be better off switching to a different cash-back credit card in its stead? We rate high-value cards more highly than cards that just take up space in your wallet.
Here are some cash-back credit cards with strong ongoing value:
- The no-annual-fee Wells Fargo Attune℠ Card earns 4% cash back on self-care expenses such as gyms and spas, as well as pet care
- Although the Blue Cash Preferred® Card from American Express has a $0 intro for the first year, then $95 annual fee, it earns 6% cash back on U.S. streaming services like Netflix, as well as the first $6,000 you spend at U.S. supermarkets each year. If you max out that grocery limit each year, that's $360 in annual rewards — $265 in "free money" after subtracting the annual fee.
First-year value: 10%
Finally, this metric only earns 10% weight across all of our category ratings because it evaluates the benefit of this particular card for new cardholders only. This metric considers welcome offers, 0% intro APRs, waived annual fees or complimentary memberships only available to first-year cardholders, and other similar initial benefits.
- The Blue Cash Preferred® Card from American Express mentioned above offers the trifecta for first-year value. The card waives the $0 intro for the first year, then $95 annual fee for new cardholders. It also offers a welcome bonus: $250 statement credit after you spend $3,000 in eligible purchases on your new card within the first six months from account opening. Finally, it even includes a zero-interest period to sweeten the deal: 0% intro APR for 12 months on purchases and balance transfers from the date of account opening.
How we rate travel rewards credit cards
Any credit card that earns something back when you spend is a rewards credit card.
For the travel rewards credit cards category, however, we're specifically highlighting products that earn travel-related rewards, whether that's an airline or hotel card or a generic travel rewards card like the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card or The Platinum Card® from American Express. When you spend on these cards, you earn points and miles that get you maximum value on flights and hotels.
Benefits: 40%
We believe that travel rewards credit cards are most valuable for their benefits, even more so than they are for the rewards they earn on daily spend. This may come as a surprise, since certain travel cards like the Hilton Honors American Express Aspire Card can help you net as many as 34 Hilton points per dollar.
But the best travel rewards credit cards offer perks that you generally can't buy, such as elite privileges and concierge service. Benefits differ from rewards in that they come with the card — you don't have to spend an additional dime in order to access these perks.
Travel rewards credit cards like the Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card come with a plethora of premium benefits such as complimentary airport lounge access — a paid membership that's worth at least as much as the annual fee of the credit cards. Even basic travel rewards cards with no annual fees come with travel-specific protections: Many of the best credit cards with travel insurance, for example, offer trip delay benefits that cover the cost of small incidentals such as clean socks and toothpaste if your flight is delayed beyond a certain number of hours.
Other examples of valuable travel rewards credit card benefits include:
- Free checked bags, bonus points, or travel discounts on various airlines for cardholders including the Delta SkyMiles® Gold American Express Card, Southwest Rapid Rewards® Priority Credit Card, United Club℠ Infinite Card, and the AAdvantage® Aviator® Red World Elite Mastercard®
- Complimentary room upgrades, bonus credit, and more on select hotel stays booked through Chase Travel with the Chase Sapphire Reserve®
- Annual $100 hotel credit for stays of $500+ booked with the Citi Strata Premier℠ Card
Rewards: 30%
We weighted the Rewards metric for travel rewards credit cards at 30% of the card's total score. Benefits are important, but good travel credit cards don't skimp on rewards for spending, especially on the issuer's preferred retail partners or everyday expenses such as gas, groceries, and entertainment.
A good travel rewards credit card should earn significantly more than 1 cent per point on travel-related expenses.
Points and miles have different values, like currency, that make it challenging to compare them like apples to apples. If you aren't sure what your rewards are worth, check Business Insider's guide to what points and miles are worth in value to better understand the value of your earnings.
Top travel reward examples include:
- The aforementioned premium Hilton Honors American Express Aspire Card travel rewards credit card earns 14 points per dollar spent at Hilton hotels. This card also comes with top-tier Diamond elite status, which earns an additional 10x per dollar as a bonus. Finally, Hilton Honors cardmembers earn 10x per dollar spent at these hotels. So all in, cardholders can expect 34 Hilton points per dollar for holding the Hilton Aspire.
- The Chase Sapphire Reserve® and the Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card each come with an annual travel credit of $300. It's worth noting that not all benefits are created the same: The Chase Sapphire Reserve's travel credit is much easier to use than that of the Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card.
Ongoing value: 20%
As with cash-back credit cards, we used the Ongoing Value metric to consider whether a given travel rewards credit card is worth keeping in your wallet for the long haul. Many travel rewards offer flashy first-year benefits, so we evaluate those separately from long-term value. If a travel rewards card offers significant ongoing value in the form of savings via free checked bags, complimentary elite status, airport lounge access, or other valuable perks, it's safe to say it will receive a strong rating for this metric.
Some good examples of ongoing value include:
- A free night award each year on your card anniversary from many of the best hotel credit cards including The World Of Hyatt Credit Card and the Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant® American Express® Card.
- 365 annual WiFi credits on the Southwest® Rapid Rewards® Performance Business Credit Card
First-year value: 10%
Travel rewards credit cards often offer some of the best welcome bonuses on the market, including points windfalls in the six-figure range with cash values in the thousands of dollars. But you can also score elite status on an airline or with a hotel brand, access to luxurious airport lounges, generous cash credits, and more.
We only weight this metric as 10% of the card's total score because first-year benefits only last for that initial year and change. But the best first-year bonuses still offer significant value and are worth reflecting in a card's overall rating.
Some great examples of first-year value include:
- Many of the best credit card welcome bonuses are offered by travel rewards credit cards
- The Frontier Airlines World Mastercard® comes with complimentary Gold elite status for the first 12 months after the cardholder makes a single purchase.
How we rate niche credit cards
Niche credit cards are a little bit harder to define. We've decided to use the term to describe any card that has a primary purpose beyond earning cash back or travel rewards.
The vast majority of cards in this category are designed for people who want to build credit, whether they're doing so for the first time or rebuilding after financial hardship. Cards in this category include credit cards for students, starter credit cards, secured credit cards, and credit cards for rebuilding credit.
Benefits: 50%
A niche credit card will most likely achieve its primary purpose through its benefits, so we gave this metric a whopping 50% weight in our aggregate scoring rubric. As we previously mentioned, benefits aren't tied to how much you spend on the credit card. These include tools like credit reporting, automatic credit limit increases, and upgrades to a unsecured credit card after a period of responsible use.
Great examples of niche card benefits include:
- The Capital One Platinum Secured Credit Card offers cardholders a $200 credit line with as little as $49 down as a security deposit. This is noteworthy because most secured credit cards require a cash deposit of 100% to 110% of your credit line.
- The Bank of America® Unlimited Cash Rewards Credit Card for Students offers a 0% intro APR benefit for the first 18 months of card ownership, which can help students get out of debt without incurring high rates of interest.
Rewards: 20%
We don't expect niche credit cards to offer rewards. But a handful of the best ones do, and we favorably rate them accordingly.
Cards with rewards that are "never expected, always appreciated" include:
- The U.S. Bank Altitude® Go Visa® Secured Card earns 4x on dining, 2x on groceries, gas, and streaming services, and 1x on all other expenses.
- The Capital One Savor Student Cash Rewards Credit Card earns 8% cash back on concerts and shows purchased through Capital One Entertainment, plus 5% back on hotel and rental cars booked through Capital One Travel. You'll also earn 3% back on groceries, dining, entertainment, and streaming services, plus 1% cash back on everything else.
Ongoing value: 20%
In our previous evaluations, we assessed the ongoing value of a credit card by calculating the benefits you'd get from keeping the card long-term against the cost of doing so.
Niche credit cards are unique because you typically want to get rid of a niche card after time, typically by graduating to an unsecured credit card or another product with a higher credit and better rewards. Thus, we consider ongoing value to reflect how easily you can upgrade or product-change a credit card once it's accomplished its primary purpose, whether that's building up your credit score or seeing you through college.
Niche credit cards with strong long-term value include:
- The Discover it® Student Cash Back credit card earns 5% cash back on rotating categories on the first eligible $1,500 every quarter, as well as 1% back everywhere else with no limits (from January 1 to March 31, 2025, earn 5% cash back at restaurants, home improvement stores, and select streaming services on up to $1,500 in purchases after enrollment, then 1%).
- The U.S. Bank Cash+® Visa® Secured Card similarly earns 5% cash back with even more lenient terms. You could earn up to $400 back each year if you max out the bonus limits.
First-year value: 10%
Most niche credit cards aren't known for offering welcome bonuses — and that's OK. Niche credit cards provide a line of credit to people who wouldn't normally be able to get one, and that's often bonus enough.
Once in a while, however, you'll find an outlier of a credit card that offers generous first-year value in addition to ongoing benefits. When that happens, we give these cards a little extra appreciation in the rating.
And once in a blue moon, we stumble across a card that may actively prove a detriment for cardholders in their first year of membership. If that's the case, they'll get a low rating in this metric — and likely across all other categories as well.
Here's an example of a niche card with strong first-year value:
- The aptly-named Firstcard is ideal for international students who don't have Social Security Numbers (SSNs). In addition to offering credit-building opportunities for people with no credit history within the U.S., Firstcard earns 1.25% APY on money banked in the accompanying bank account, or 4.25% APY for Firstcard+ members. It also doesn't charge any fees beyond $2.99 for optional Firstcard+ membership: No account management fees, annual fees, no interest, no late fees, no overdraft fees, no setup fees, and no foreign transaction fees.
And here's an example of a niche card with poor first-year value:
- The Indigo Mastercard comes with a highly variable annual fee between $0 and $175 and extremely high variable APR, which you can't know until you've completed an application and received approval for one of the many versions of this card.
