Best Credit Card Signup Bonuses

When applying for a new credit card it is a good idea to look around and do you research. The most obvious thing is that you should apply for the best signup bonus available. But you should also pay attention what kind of bonus you earn and eligibility and application rules that each issuer has. In the list below I have assigned fixed value to miles and points, so I can come up with a number for total value that the card will provide during the first year. That is a good indicator in my opinion, to let you know how valuable the card is. But the value if Membership Rewards, Ultimate Rewards, or miles and hotel points, varies widely, depending on how you use them.

I will try to keep this list updated to the best of my knowledge. For each credit card I will list the best publicly available signup bonus. If you come across something better, please let me know and I will update any outdated offers.

Methodology

In the list you will see the following columns:

• Issuer: Chase, Amex, Citi etc.
• Card: The specific product from the issuer such as Gold Card from Amex.
• AF: Annual Fee
• Waived: Sometimes the annual fee is waived the first year. N means that it is not waived, and Y means it is waived.
• Max Bonus: This is the maximum welcome bonus that you can earn. But some bonuses can be tiered so you can get half the bonus for example with a much lower spending requirement in some cases.
• Spend Req.: Spending requirement to earn the full welcome bonus and the amount of time you have to complete it.
• Value Y1: This is the value of the welcome bonus, plus any credits offered during the first year, minus the annual fee and 0.5 cents per dollar on the spending requirement to account for some of the opportunity cost. Here’s how it is calculated:
  • Bonus Value + 80% of Credits for First Year – Annual Fee if not waived – 0.005 x Spending Requirement
  • See bottom of the table for (my subjective) value assigned to each currency