Credit Card Comparison Spreadsheet
 

I wanted to share comparative analysis tool I put together when I started evaluating different card products. It looks like a couple folks have shared spreadsheets in the past, but I've been surprised that there are not more templates around. Thought this might be useful to someone, and I was interested in confirming some of my estimates, so I've created a publicly editable Google Spreadsheet with some dummy spend figures:

Link to product comparison spreadsheet

I've got my own original copy. I'd suggest that if you want to actually use this, you make a copy of it. Otherwise, feel free to comment on formulas, add products, etc

1. The first sheet takes inputs from sheet 3 (spend) and gives a granular breakdown of rewards by category, signup and annual bonuses, fees, other benefits with cash value, etc. and aggregates into both initial and subsequent year "value," an effective rate of return based on cost, and a multi-year projection based on spending.

2. Sheet 2 is an attempt to aggregate all non-rewards benefits into one place, which has been frustrating for me to keep track of. I was curious to compare things like insurance coverage terms and limits, as well as more extensive and fringe perks for travel, transportation, lodging, all that good stuff--I have not seen this info captured in one place anywhere.

3. Sheet 3 is the actual spending variable, and valuations for reward program points. The values entered right now were focused on awards for cross-country and international airfare. Obviously you would want to update your own version with how you plan to redeem points.

It's a great start. I don't know why it's so quiet here. I guess just want to look and that's it.

Heh, thanks Strawboy. I'm actually a little surprised too! Thought there would be more numbers geeks on here. I really think it would help cut through the subjective sense of valuation to punch in some concrete numbers and see how/where value really breaks down.

I'm noticing quite a bit of movement, mostly people playing with spend figures (cool) and for some reason creating lots and lots of new, blank sheets. Not sure what people are trying to do. Let me know if there would be any useful changes .(I had to lock the front page because a couple folks started directly entering rewards for some reason)

Hopefully someone is finding it useful to make their own copy and playing with that. I'd love to hear insights!

I for example am surprised frankly at how well stacked the Amex products seem to be (assuming you are targeting award travel) compared to Chase, even though the CSP seems to have stronger mainstream support.

The CSP can have a bit of an advantage at lower spend levels, but if you primarily use one card, it really loses ground quickly.

Why don't more people talk about the Mercedes Benz Amex revolver?

The Everyday cards are killer on paper. The Preferred version has such a lead I don't even bother comparing it.

It's also interesting to see how the cash cards cleanly take a back seat if you are planning award travel. Even the favored Barclay Arrival, which is cashback-like and sounds great for a simple flat 2%, doesn't actually stack up wonderfully compared to any of the travel cards--again, unless you specifically will not use award travel and just want generic statement credit.

super helpful, thanks for sharing!

does the "old" tab have any relevance?

Very solid and thorough analysis! however if you change the "typical benefits" to $400 (2 x $200 per calendar year for airline reimbursement) - the value of this card increases quite a bit. however the long term analysis (beyond 1 year) is a bit trickier to calculate bc it depends on how many annual fees you pay and how many $200 reimbursements you receive.

Newb question but what's the Mercedez Amex Revolver? Is that the normal card or the plat?

Revolver should = Credit Card (with a revolving credit line). This one:

https://www304.americanexpress.com/p...edit-apply-top

Ah, understood. Thanks mia.

Nope, forgot that was in there. It had been hidden, just a previous iteration of the sheet.

Ah, interesting! I made (and shared on FT) my own CC sheet as well a year or two ago. It, too, got very little traction, and I haven't bothered updating it recently :(.

To answer your question about the fawning over the CSP card vs. less excitement over the Everyday cards...

CSP card:
- $95 annual fee (much cheaper than most for-fee Amex cards)
- Get a human immediately when you call
- Transfers 1:1 to United, which, well, used to be really valuable <sigh>.
- Neat looking, solid card.
- When coupled with the Freedom or Ink cards, you can earn 5x points pretty easily with little work.
- Earns 2x on all restaurant and travel spend, and with no caps! For those who travel for work a lot (e.g., a lot of FT'ers :p), this = a lot of additional points.

Amex cards:
- Typically high annual fees
- Everyday cards are a pain in the tuckus... 20-30 charges/month to get the bonus? Sure, it's possible (hello, $1 Amazon gift cards!) but for busy people, meh.
- Everyday Preferred has a $6K annual cap on bonus spend (at least in the grocery store category). That seems not awful to me, but most Manufactured Spending fiends have dismissed it as pathetically small when they can easily churn that much monthly.
- And -- while it's kinda silly to note -- apparently the Everyday cards are uuuuuuugly.

Oh, I didn't see this before. I might try to incorporate some of this into my own when I get a chance!

Did not know about the Chase service rep, that does count for a lot! I've only ever called into the card services number on my Plat with Amex so maybe my experience has been different.

I agree on paper the CSP looks strong, especially in combination with the Freedom and Ink... 7% dividend, 5x on select categories.... what's interesting is that in addition to Freedom's $1500 quarterly cap, and the rotating categories end up dictating your behavior rather than fitting your actual spending patterns (unless you devote the time to gaming the system).

Adding an Ink Plus/Bold puts annual fees into or beyond Amex territory, and unless you can really max out that office category (which I assume entails some MS or again, gaming the system) it seems pretty hard to offset the additional $95.

Personally I try to assume a ~3 year+ relationship in which the issuers address easily exploited loopholes, and I don't blow time trying to micro-manage rules (which at almost anyone's "market rate" is probably a losing effort!)

Totally agree on the travel categories if you fly around for work a lot, although these days the flights are so expensive, getting 3x or 4x on those can be a lot more significant than dining and hotels. Might be very different for extended stays, I tend to make fairly short trips.

I have to create some pretty contrived scenarios where the Chase combos come out ahead, so maybe I'm just calculating things wrong?

I'm not sure I follow you here. CSP and Ink have fixed categories so the only time you have to spend "gaming the system" is pulling the right CC out when you purchase something. Freedom's 5x categories only change once a quarter, so not much time or effort required there either.

Chase is pretty consistent about giving retention bonuses on their Ink cards so I consider them no AF CCs for all intents and purposes. Even if I had to pay the $95 AF without an offsetting retention bonus, my cell phone and cable bills alone more than pay for the AF, and both of those are on auto-pay so no time or effort required.

Is there a CC that earns 4x in flexible CC points on flights? I thought the best MR card for that was PRG at 3x, comparable to the CSP's 3.21x when you book through the UR website.

Can you describe some scenarios where a different combination (MR or otherwise) comes out ahead of the Chase Freedom/CSP/Ink combo?

nice template, i will use it to assess how to approach my next AOR, thanks!

Point being that rotating bonuses, even quarterly, probably incentivize account holders on a large scale to spend more in categories (or with specific merchant options) they may not otherwise have done so. Presumably if you would be spending on those specific merchants and categories over the year you might be able to time some things to maximize the benefit, which is more "gamey" (at the very least, takes more effort). Otherwise you rely on the categories aligning with your passive, unbiased spending patterns, which I have some trouble with is all.

I'd guess, based on how people tend to idealize in hypothetical behavior, that some consumers are overly favorable and calculate a best-case scenario where 5x applies to everything possible. It's hard to factor this even in a pretty robust model.

Great! That's excellent. I would not personally characterize a card as effectively being zero fee based on some variable, which fuels the psychology that can make these instruments become insidiously expensive (e.g. driving higher spending, which is well documented). For some people, it may also lead to making false comparisons to products in different categories, which further reinforces the value image ("It's essentially zero fee for me yet has all these other great perks! It's as if it's for free!")

There is a fee, or there is not a fee. Just as valid a way of looking at it is that "x" reward is wiped out by overhead of an annual fee! I think it's best to acknowledge there is a fee, but there might be a greater aggregate return given specific conditions.

Booking on the Amex travel website yields an additional point per dollar on full MR cards. So the PRG actually does provide 4x MR for airfare booked on their travel site, if I am not mistaken. This applies to Platinum as well, so you do technically get 2x MR on airfare through their site. It may not be the best value vs booking through other channels.

Hey, play with the spreadsheet!! :)

I haven't yet bothered plugging in a model with the Freedom because I'm not certain on a fair way to factor in the bonus timing. That said, if you are a single person with a total ~$18K spend:

• Cell phone and high speed internet (~$170/mo?)
• Grocery spend around $75/week (half of this poll)
• $200/mo or $6/day on restaurants
• $500-700 or so in other tuff

Places the Chase Ink/CSP and combined (1.9-2.6%) well ahead of PRG (1.7%) but neck-in-neck with Everyday (2.4%) and far below the Everyday Preferred (4%). At this budget point the cell phone and internet become some of the biggest expenditures (which kind of blows hard) and the Chase Ink alone isn't a bad deal.

However this all assumes point values as if redeemed with a transfer partner (around 2¢). At lower spend levels are you getting enough to usefully apply toward award travel? It seems to me that across the board, with lower budgets it might actually be more useful to look at cash rewards, and redeeming UR for statement credit or cash (1¢) you are much better off with the Blue Cash Preferred or Cap One Quicksilver.

Nice work on the spreadsheet.

Just one question - what's your $50 subjective benefit for the PRG?

When you compare the airfare benefit between the AMEX and CSP cards and the AA executive it is important to note that AMEX and CSP give you the multiple on any airline, the AA executive only on AA.

I put out an analysis of my 2014 redemptions here - this can help you determine the "value" you might realize for each point.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles...4-numbers.html

Premium Roadside Assistance - https://web.aexp-static.com/us/conte...ce-Premium.pdf

Probably just personal bias, but it seems likely enough to use once in a year to factor it in as a bottom line benefit(I've used the service twice in a year). It should be taken with a grain of salt, I place it somewhere between the other insurances and a credit that is fully under your control (like the Platinum and Prestige airline reimbursements)

There was an error in your formula for AmEx Everyday on groceries.

=if(Spend!$C3>=6000,12000+(Spend!$C3-6000),Spend!$C3)

It should be:

=if(Spend!$C3>=6000,12000+(Spend!$C3-6000),Spend!$C3*2)

Also, if you give PRG 4x on airfare, you should give CSP 3x on airfare to be consistent.

Fair enough. From a practicality perspective, it would be difficult to elegantly incorporate 5x rotating category cards into your spreadsheet anyway.

I see what you're saying, but if you only use a card when there is no fee (like a lot of people on this forum), then there really is no fee. Perhaps it's best for people like that to just compare the benefits earned number, and not "value," which adjusts AFs.

Gotcha, I remember reading that the AmEx rewards portal (similar to the UR Mall) was recently shut down. I must have mixed that up with the AmEx travel portal.

I think 5x toward $1,500 on restaurants, 5x toward $3,000 on gas, and 5x toward $1,500 on department stores would be a decent (not perfect) assumption for the spreadsheet. That's what the bonus categories looked like for 2013 and 2014.

I may be an exception because much of my spend is concentrated in travel and dining, which makes CSP+Ink come out ahead by quite a bit. Plus, I place a premium on UR points since United has a hub nearby and I'm a fan of Hyatt. For people that spend a larger percentage on groceries I can see how the AmEx Everyday cards can be a clear winner.

I agree with your point about people with lower spend levels using cash back. They'd probably be better off just knocking out sign-up bonus after sign-up bonus anyway though.

Whoops, thank you on the formula! I also wasn't aware of the bonus airfare point through UR--is this just a system to find a book flights on the normal market like https://travel.americanexpress.com/ or is it a bonus attributed on award travel? This is new info!


Well, it's worth a shot. I'll probably play around with it. Also, the other columns are open to edit if you want to extend this :)

[QUOTE=bribro;22765931]I see what you're saying, but if you only use a card when there is no fee (like a lot of people on this forum), then there really is no fee. Perhaps it's best for people like that to just compare the benefits earned number, and not "value," which adjusts AFs.[QUOTE]

Sure, fair enough. I assume this covers both completely non-AF cards, and using cards with it waived during the first year (or waived as a retention bonus). Still, one point of this exercise was to understand a little about the business model, and under what circumstances a fee-based product can still generate a greater benefit under standard usage: for different products, where is the sweet spot for maximum mutual benefit between issuer and consumer over several years?

[QUOTE=bribro;22765931]Gotcha, I remember reading that the AmEx rewards portal (similar to the UR Mall) was recently shut down. I must have mixed that up with the AmEx travel portal.[QUOTE]

Yeah I missed the boat on the rewards portal. The travel site is a general public-facing service (I think it's just a white-labelled Orbitz for flight at least).

I'm curious what a good example scenario is? And in the end, bonus rates are probably going to be blown away by how each individual values points. I by contrast am at a Delta/KLM/Air France hub and will be traveling to Euro & SE Asia.

Great conversation, btw. Thank you.

The UR travel portal is basically a travel search aggregator (like Kayak, Ortbiz, Travelocity etc.) and if you book through it instead of the airline directly you get an extra UR point (so 3.21x effectively on CSP). There have been data points about UR travel portal bookings not counting toward United PQD requirements though (because the purchases code as an OTA), but I haven't had this problem myself. You can't book Southwest flights through the UR mall portal either, which I'm assuming is the same case with AmEx's travel portal.

I've already added a Freedom column on my custom saved copy. :) Didn't want to mess with the original. Thanks for putting this together btw!

Makes sense. And spreadsheet users can obviously delete the AF value if they want to see how the math shakes out assuming a waived AF.

Sounds just like the UR travel portal.

I plugged in my actual spending numbers from Mint.com for the trailing 12 months. I'm not comfortable sharing them on a public forum, but I spend tens of thousands in the categories of dining, hotels, and airfare every year. On the other hand, I spent less than $2k on groceries over the last 12 months (I don't cook much...), which is why the AmEx Everyday cards are of little value to me personally. Even when valuing UR and MR identically (0.02 cpp, a common valuation cited) the CSP+Ink combo prevails in my case.

Yes, great conversation. You're like an MR-inclined version of me haha.

For what it's worth, the 1st year and multiple year "returns" do factor in waived first year fees, but not necessarily those that get waived as retention bonuses or whatever.

Hah, yeah that's fair, I didn't include my own numbers in this for the same reason. You should copy in your Freedom column. It would be cool to get new info in there.

Also curious if the non-reward benefits are accurate in there. I don't have the actual terms paperwork.

ah okay, thanks.

I know it wouldn't really be possible to project in a spreadsheet like yours with any accuracy but I rarely see the Amex offers included when measuring a card's worth. I'm new to the bonus/reward game but in the last year I've probably had $120 of gas, Amazon, Lowe's, etc. on the PRG.

Which I guess is why I asked because I thought maybe you were just estimating you could potentially get that kind of benefit if the right offers were available. Are these "offers" specific to Amex or do other cards have them as well?

That's true, I've had $40 credited from their regular running offers and small business saturday in the last 6 months.

Updated credit card analysis spreadsheet version? Kroger fuel points 4X gift cards
 

I started doing one of these myself, but thought that surely somebody has done this already, and Google found these postings! Is there an up to date version, or just one with all the corrections listed? Huge thanks; my version has far fewer refinements, e.g. $6k limit for AMEX Blue groceries. That will be one my favorite rewards, as my Kroger's occasionally has 4x gas points for gift card purchases. 1000 gas points equals $1 off per gallon for up to 35 gallons. So if I buy $250 of gift cards, I get 1000 points (4x250), which gets me $1 off per gallon, or $35 if I fill up both vehicles. $35/$250 = 14% back, add that to the 6% back from AMEX Blue Cash Preferred, and I'll be getting 20% back from the gift card purchases! Kroger's also has wonderful baking bags for fish; just go to the fish counter and order salmon put into a baking bag; I ask for butter, lemon, dill, rosemary, and California garlic seasoning powder also to be put into the bag. Go home, preheat oven to 380, pop holes in the top of the bag, and 25 minutes later you'll be eating the best salmon I've ever had. When you're done, the bags work well to hold the leftovers in the fridge, or just toss the bag in the wastebasket (no mess to clean!):)

Just wondering if anyone knows of an updated version of this.

Thank you so much, it is very detailed. You must have put in alot of work in this. I appreciate it