Starting January 1, 2027, Southwest replaces A-List and A-List Preferred with Silver, Gold and Platinum, and moves the Companion Pass behind elite status. Signup bonuses, referrals, anniversary points and category multipliers stop counting. One window remains: get approved by December 2, 2026 and your welcome bonus still qualifies.
World of Hyatt is the last big US hotel program with a published award chart, which is the whole reason its points are worth 2 cents each when Marriott's and Hilton's are worth well under 1. Since May 20, 2026 that chart has five price levels inside each category instead of three, and the level now matters as much as the category: the same Category 5 hotel costs 15,000 points on a Lowest date and
The Category 1-7 Free Night Award is Hyatt's reward for 60 nights, 100 nights, or Lifetime Globalist status. It is not a credit card benefit. It expires in 180 days, covers a standard room at any hotel up to Category 7 at any price level, and is therefore worth up to 55,000 points. Use it at a Category 7 hotel on a date when the cash rate is $500 or more, or at a strong Category 6 hotel if nothing
The Chase World of Hyatt card gives you a free night at any Category 1-4 Hyatt every anniversary, and a second one if you spend $15,000 in a calendar year. Aim it at a Category 4 hotel on a date when the cash rate is $300 or more: busy city weekends, peak beach or lake season, or a strong-season resort abroad. Before you book, check that the hotel is still Category 4 after Hyatt's May 2026 reshuff
Quick answer: use the IHG certificate on a night that costs at least $250 in cash. The best targets are InterContinentals, Kimptons and Regents that price near your cap (50,000 points on the Premier and Business cards, 60,000 on the Premier Select). If the hotel you want costs a bit more, add a few thousand points instead of settling for something worse. Topping off with points is the IHG certific
Quick answer: The best way to use a Marriott free night certificate is to put it on a single expensive night at a hotel whose standard-room award price sits at or slightly above the certificate's face value, then cover the gap with points. Since March 2026 you can add up to 25,000 points, so a 35K certificate reaches 60,000-point nights, a 50K reaches 75,000 and an 85K reaches 110,000. Target reso
Short answer: MaxWorth is the best credit card tracker app for most cardholders in 2026. It is the only app here that tracks benefits and credits, activates card-linked offers, compares cashback rates across 10+ shopping portals and searches award flights in one place; it covers the US, Canada and Australia; it never asks for a bank login; and it has the lowest list price of the paid trackers, wit
Quick answer: MaxWorth runs a read-only MCP server at https://mcp-public.maxworth.app/mcp. Connect it and your assistant can look up any card in the US, Canada or Australia, list a card's statement credits with the date each one resets, compare two or three cards, pull today's cashback portal rates for a store, and quote the Credit Deadline Report, every answer carrying a maxworth.app link to cite
Quick answer: MaxWorth tracks credit card benefits for Australian cards from eight issuers, with each credit's amount and reset cycle entered by hand from the issuer's terms: American Express Australia, ANZ, Commonwealth Bank, NAB, Westpac, HSBC Australia, Bankwest and MyCard. It never asks for a bank login. The feature that matters most for Australian cards is the anniversary-year clock: Amex Aus
Quick answer: MaxWorth tracks credit card benefits for Canadian cards from 17 issuers, with every credit's amount and reset cycle entered by hand from the issuer's terms: Amex Canada, TD, RBC, CIBC, BMO, Scotiabank, National Bank, MBNA, PC Financial, Rogers Bank, Tangerine, Neo, Wealthsimple, Canadian Tire, Simplii, ATB and Walmart Rewards. It never asks for a bank login. What it does not do for C
Quick answer: The Amex Business Platinum carries 11 recurring credits worth $4,819 a year at face value against its $895 fee. They produce 28 separate deadlines a year, 1 of them monthly, and 6 of the 11 need enrollment before they pay anything. The calendar below is generated from the same database rows that power the MaxWorth app; every credit links to its own page with the full terms.
Quick answer: The Amex Delta Reserve carries 5 recurring credits worth $1,090 a year at face value against its $650 fee. They produce 26 separate deadlines a year, 2 of them monthly, and 2 of the 5 need enrollment before they pay anything. The calendar below is generated from the same database rows that power the MaxWorth app; every credit links to its own page with the full terms.
Quick answer: The Amex Gold carries 5 recurring credits worth $524 a year at face value against its $325 fee. They produce 39 separate deadlines a year, 3 of them monthly, and 4 of the 5 need enrollment before they pay anything. The calendar below is generated from the same database rows that power the MaxWorth app; every credit links to its own page with the full terms.
Quick answer: The Amex Hilton Aspire carries 6 recurring credits worth $1,234 a year at face value against its $550 fee. They produce 9 separate deadlines a year, 0 of them monthly, and 2 of the 6 need enrollment before they pay anything. The calendar below is generated from the same database rows that power the MaxWorth app; every credit links to its own page with the full terms.
Quick answer: The Amex Marriott Brilliant carries 3 recurring credits worth $430 a year at face value against its $650 fee. They produce 13 separate deadlines a year, 1 of them monthly, and 0 of the 3 need enrollment before they pay anything. The calendar below is generated from the same database rows that power the MaxWorth app; every credit links to its own page with the full terms.
Quick answer: The Capital One Venture X carries 4 recurring credits worth $600 a year at face value against its $395 fee. They produce 3 separate deadlines a year, 0 of them monthly, and 0 of the 4 need enrollment before they pay anything. The calendar below is generated from the same database rows that power the MaxWorth app; every credit links to its own page with the full terms.
Quick answer: The Chase United Club carries 6 recurring credits worth $920 a year at face value against its $695 fee. They produce 27 separate deadlines a year, 2 of them monthly, and 0 of the 6 need enrollment before they pay anything. The calendar below is generated from the same database rows that power the MaxWorth app; every credit links to its own page with the full terms.
Quick answer: The Citi Strata Elite carries 7 recurring credits worth $1,770 a year at face value against its $595 fee. They produce 7 separate deadlines a year, 0 of them monthly, and 1 of the 7 need enrollment before they pay anything. The calendar below is generated from the same database rows that power the MaxWorth app; every credit links to its own page with the full terms.
Quick answer: between them, the Amex Platinum and the Chase Sapphire Reserve carry credits that reset on five different schedules: monthly, quarterly, semi-annual, annual, and every four years. The ones people lose are the monthly and semi-annual ones, because they expire on a date, not when you forget. The reliable method is to track each credit on its own cycle with a reminder before it closes,
For Q4 2026 (October 1 – December 31), the Chase Freedom Flex earns 5% back on three rotating categories, on up to $1,500 in combined purchases after activation: Grocery stores — supermarkets and smaller grocers; Walmart and Target are excluded Dining — sit-down, fast food, and delivery or takeout that codes as a restaurant American Red Cross donations — made through the official Red Cross channel
CardPointers is the widest-reaching credit card management app a US cardholder can buy today: the most platforms, the most banks for offer activation, the most complete churning tools — and it never asks for your bank login. The costs are two: the highest list price in the category, and thin coverage of cards issued outside the US. If all your cards are US-issued, it is worth buying. If you hold C
On September 10, 2026, Amex switched all four Hilton Honors cards to limited-time welcome offers at the same time, and the window runs through January 13, 2027. Here are the four side by side: | | Hilton Honors (no fee) | Surpass | Business | Aspire | |---|---|---|---|---| | Welcome offer | 70,000 points + Free Night | 130,000 points + Free Night | 150,000 points + Free Night | 200,000 points | |
Short answer: three benefit trackers never ask for your bank login — CardPointers, MaxWorth and kardfolio. You pick your cards from a database and the app loads every credit, perk and earning rate itself; nothing touches your credentials. The price of that is one tap: you mark credits used yourself instead of the app reading your transactions. If you want credits ticked off automatically, MaxRewar
Capital One's ecosystem can be summed up in one line: the easiest points to earn, the hardest points to spend well. Earning takes almost no thought. Most of the cards pay a flat 2 miles per dollar — no rotating categories, no quarterly activation, no caps. But spending is where Capital One diverges sharply from Chase and Amex: its own travel portal gives you no redemption bonus at all.
MR and UR are built on opposite philosophies. Chase optimizes for cleanliness: 14 partners, nearly all 1:1, no hidden costs. Amex optimizes for reach — 21 partners including ANA, Avianca, Qatar and Emirates, none of which Chase can touch, plus transfer bonuses running most of the year. The price is complexity: uneven ratios, a tax on US airline transfers, and a balance that vanishes if you close y
If you remember one thing: Chase points no longer have a stable, knowable value. For years the logic was simple. Hold 100,000 points, book through Chase Travel with a Sapphire Reserve, get a flat 1.5 cents, walk away with $1,500. No research required. That floor is a big part of why people picked Chase over Amex — you couldn't really lose.
Trip delay insurance is the most-used, least-understood travel protection on a credit card. Flight delays are not rare events — several percent of US flights misconnect badly enough to strand someone overnight every single day — and unlike lounge access or elite status, this benefit pays out in cash. A single claimed hotel-plus-dinner night is worth $200–400, which is more than most annual fees.
Every variable that matters in US credit — the age of your oldest account, your payment history, your relationship with the issuers who matter later — starts counting from your first card. Get it at 22 instead of 25 and, at 30, your credit file is literally three years stronger for the rest of your life. The first card is also the one you'll likely keep open forever (it anchors your average accoun
Between March 2025 and this year, Chase and United tore up the whole consumer card lineup and rebuilt it around a simple trade: you pay a meaningfully higher annual fee, and they hand you a stack of statement credits plus real elite-status fuel. The refresh landed in stages — new applicants got everything from March 24, 2025; existing cardholders started paying the new fees at renewal from August
Quick answer: a card-linked offer (Amex Offers, Chase Offers) and a cashback shopping portal can both pay on the same purchase, and the card's own earn rate pays on top. The offer tracks your card's spend at that merchant; the portal tracks the order you started from its link; the two systems never see each other. The only work is knowing, for this store today, which of your cards carries the offe
Chase is pushing a wave of elevated Sapphire welcome offers to select customers — big enough to deserve its own writeup: | Card | Targeted offer | Current public offer | Spend requirement | |------|---------------|---------------------|-------------------| | Sapphire Reserve | 175,000 points | 100,000 points | $6,000 / 3 months | | Sapphire Preferred | 125,000 points | 75,000 points | $5,000 / 3 m
Expiring credits, new bonus categories and card changes — one email, every Friday.