Credit cards · 2026
What would this card actually pay you?
A rewards rate on its own tells you almost nothing. Six per cent on groceries sounds better than two per cent on everything, right up until you find the cap — and then it depends entirely on what you buy. So type in what you spend, and read the answer in dollars.
34 cards from 10U.S. banks, every rate read off the issuer's own page.
Bank Compass is not a bank, is not FDIC-insured, does not provide financial advice, and is not affiliated with the entities compared unless otherwise noted. Rates and terms change — always verify on the bank's official website.
What you spend in a month
$1,540 a month · $18,480 a year
Car rental, trains, cruises
Whatever does not fit above
Cash back, in dollars
Ranked by what lands in your pocket over a year, with the annual fee already taken off. A card with a fee has to beat a free one by more than the fee to show up higher.
$374a year, net
Earns more than this in practice: a higher rate when you book through the issuer's own travel portal.
$374a year, net
$370a year, net
Earns more than this in practice: a higher rate when you book through the issuer's own travel portal.
$370a year, net
$370a year, net
$370a year, net
$335a year, net
$331a year, net
Points and miles
Ranked by how many you earn in a year — not by what they are worth. We do not price a point, because what it is worth depends on where you redeem it, and any single number we picked would be our opinion dressed as a figure. The annual fee is printed next to each card so you can weigh it yourself.
43,680points a year
Earns more than this in practice: a higher rate when you book through the issuer's own travel portal.
43,440points a year
Earns more than this in practice: a higher rate when you book through the issuer's own travel portal.
40,560points a year
Earns more than this in practice: a higher rate when you book through the issuer's own travel portal.
38,040points a year
Earns more than this in practice: a higher rate when you book through the issuer's own travel portal.
36,960miles a year
Earns more than this in practice: a higher rate when you book through the issuer's own travel portal.
36,960miles a year
Earns more than this in practice: a higher rate when you book through the issuer's own travel portal.
35,760points a year
33,840points a year
What this calculator refuses to do
By Victor Gil Vazquez · Reviewed 2026-08-23
Most rewards calculators on the web are built by people who get paid when you apply. That shapes the arithmetic in ways that are easy to miss: the sign-up bonus gets folded into the first year's return, the portal rate gets applied to all your travel, points get converted to dollars at a rate that flatters whichever card the site earns most on. Every one of those choices is defensible on its own, and together they turn a calculator into a sales tool.
This one leaves all three out. It is the ongoing return, on your spending, at the rate the issuer publishes, with the cap applied and the annual fee subtracted. Where leaving something out makes a card look worse than it is — a rotating 5% category, a travel portal rate — the card says so in its own row rather than quietly absorbing it into the total.
The result is an estimate that runs low. That is the direction an estimate should run when someone is about to make a decision about their own money on the strength of it.
The one number you should check by hand
If a card near the top carries an annual fee, work out the break even before you apply. A $95 fee on a card paying two points per dollar needs a lot of spending to beat a free card paying two per cent in cash — and it only beats it at all if you actually redeem the points at a good rate, which means transferring them, which means having somewhere to transfer them to. The fee is charged whether or not you get round to that.
The other figure worth a second look is the cap. A card that wins this table at $400 a month in groceries can lose it at $900, because the bonus rate stops and the base rate takes over. Try both numbers before you decide.
Questions
- Does this estimate what I would actually earn?
- It estimates the ongoing rewards, and it errs low on purpose. It leaves out sign-up bonuses, which are one-off and change constantly; it leaves out the higher rate you get by booking through an issuer's own travel portal, because we do not know whether you would; and it leaves out rotating quarterly categories, because nobody knows what they will be. Cards affected by the last two are flagged in the table. Where a card has a spending cap, the cap is applied.
- Why are points and cash back in two separate tables?
- Because putting them in one would mean deciding what a point is worth, and that depends entirely on where you redeem it — the same Chase point can be worth one cent as a statement credit or several as a transferred airline ticket. Any single number we picked would be our opinion wearing the costume of a figure. So we show cash back in dollars, points as points, and let you weigh the annual fee yourself.
- How does it handle spending caps?
- It applies them, which is the whole reason this is worth doing. Several of the best-looking rates are capped: the U.S. Bank Cash+ pays 5% on the first $2,000 each quarter, Bank of America's Customized Cash Rewards caps its choice category and groceries at a combined $2,500 a quarter, and PNC Cash Rewards caps its three bonus categories at a combined $8,000 a year. Spending past a cap drops to the card's base rate, exactly as the issuer describes. We assume your spending is spread evenly across the year — if you front-load it, you will hit a cap sooner and earn less than shown.
- What if a card lets me choose my bonus categories?
- We assume you choose well: the highest rate goes to the category you spend most in, out of the ones that card allows. The categories picked for you are printed under the card name. Nobody deliberately picks the category they do not spend in, so this is the right assumption — but it only works because it is stated.
- Where do the rates come from?
- Every rate, cap and condition was read off the issuer's own page, with the date we checked it recorded alongside. Not one comes from a comparison site. Across the whole catalogue that is 511 figures with a source and a date behind them.
- Do you get paid when I pick a card?
- No. There is no affiliate link anywhere on this site and no issuer pays for placement. The order in this table is whatever the arithmetic says with the numbers you typed. We make money from ads on the page, and that is all.
Related reading
A rewards rate only matters if you clear the balance every month. These explain the part that undoes it.
- How Credit Card APR Actually Works (And How to Make It Irrelevant)Your card's APR is an annual rate, but it is charged daily on whatever balance you carry past the due date. Pay the statement balance in full and you never touch it. Carry a balance and it becomes the most expensive number in your finances.Guide · 5 min read
- What Happens If You Only Pay the Minimum on a Credit CardThe minimum payment is not a suggested payment. It is the smallest amount that keeps your account in good standing — calculated so that the balance goes down as slowly as the issuer is allowed to make it.Guide · 4 min read
- 7 Credit Card Perks You Are Probably Not UsingRewards get the advertising. The protections buried in the benefits guide are often worth more — and unlike points, they cost you nothing to have. Here are the seven worth checking on your own card, and how to find out if you have them.Guide · 5 min read