At Myfin.us we always try to provide our readers with the most relevant information and free useful tools. For maintaining project viability we may receive compensations from our partners, which influences the place where we put some products on our pages. Nevertheless, our thoughts in all reviews are independent and always based on our product experts’ in-depth knowledge. Our rating methodology is open and available on How do we rate credit cards.
What do we take into consideration?
At first glance, all credit cards seem to be very similar. Besides the design of credit cards, all other features usually vary by a couple of percents. But when you dive into all the details you find out how significant these “percents” may be. It may take much of your time exploring all terms and conditions which card issuers are not always willing to put in the most prominent place. Luckily for you, our experts chose the top credit card features you need to consider and have already rated all credit cards by these aspects.
Below are the top things we consider the most important in any credit card.
Common features
Today most of the credit cards are competing in the field of the most luxurious rewards. The card issuers are trying to find their niche offering specific cash back categories, bonus miles and various other perks. At the same time, there are basic credit card features which sometimes are not offered. They include:
- Ability to make balance transfers,
- Ability to make cash advances,
- Contactless payments.
The last but not the least feature mentioned in the list — contactless payment — is especially important in the period of the pandemic. It not only speeds up the shopping process, but also allows you to avoid passing your card to the cashiers, typing pin-codes, and doing other things which decrease the safety of using credit cards.
Rates and fees
There is no free money in the world and credit cards are not an exception. You have to pay for many things you may do with your card: from unpaid debt to foreign transactions. The list of these fees is quite long and we tried to collect and rate all necessary fees you may have to deal with.
When we rate credit cards we take into consideration the following rates and fees:
- The lowest and the highest purchase APR you may have to pay with the credit card,
- The annual fee both for the first year and for the rest years of usage,
- Amount of month with special purchase intro APR (if the card has intro APR offer),
- Amount of month with special balance transfer intro APR (if the card has intro APR offer),
- The lowest and the highest balance transfer APR,
- Foreign transaction fees,
- APR for cash advances.
Each of the indicators has its own weight in accordance with its impact on everyday credit cards use. For example, we give the highest priority to the purchase APR, because we assume that this type of transaction is the most common among credit card users.
Rewards
Modern credit cards are much more advanced than their ancestors 10 or even 5 years ago. The development of technologies allowed tracking and determining types of purchases (e.g. groceries, travel spendings, gas purchases, etc.). It has led to a wide range of reward categories. Moreover, the card issuers even use different forms of rewards, including cash back, points, miles and so on. All these factors make it difficult enough to compare credit cards’ rewards systems. Additionally, the difference in spending habits hinders the objectiveness of rating.
In order to cope with these issues we use the following method.
- To estimate the rewards size. We take the max rewards you may get with the particular card. For example, if your card allows you to get 5% cash back on gas stations, we assume that all your spendings are done there.
- To estimate how easy it is to get the rewards. This criterion is more objective and simple than the previous one. We consider the rewards easy to get when there are completely no limits for them. It means you may get the rewards by making any purchase anywhere. And vice versa, the rewards receivable only in particular stores are non-easy to get.
- To estimate how easy it is to spend the rewards. Unfortunately, it’s not always possible to spend all your points or miles in any way you want. Some credit cards allow you to redeem your rewards only on particular purchases or even in particular stores.
Finally, we multiply the size of the rewards and by the ease of getting and spending them.
Important notes
The rating does not correspond with the product order on our reviews. At Myfin.us we always try to provide our readers with the most relevant information and free useful tools. For maintaining project viability we may receive compensations from our partners, which influences the place where we put some products on our pages. Nevertheless, our thoughts in all reviews are independent and always based on our product experts’ in-depth knowledge.
Despite our aspiration to give you the most detailed and useful rating system, we cannot adapt it to everybody’s personal needs and spending habits. The best way to know if the credit card is the right one for you, is to read our full reviews we provide for each credit card on the Myfin website. If you already know which particular features are the most important for you in the credit card, we collected and reviewed the best credit cards for each category. Though, if you do not want to limit yourself by exploring our top picks only, feel free to use our free tool for comparing credit cards and make up your own top list.