Statement credits: face value vs what you actually use
A card with a $395 fee advertises a $300 travel credit, and the arithmetic looks easy: the fee is really $95. It is only true if you would have spent that $300, in that way, anyway.
Three questions for every credit
- Where does it work? Many credits apply only through the issuer’s travel portal, at one merchant, or on one category. A $300 portal credit is worth $300 only if the portal’s price matches the price you would have paid elsewhere; when the portal is $60 dearer, the credit is worth $240.
- How is it paid out? Monthly credits ($10 of Uber Cash a month, $7 at Dunkin’) are twelve small deadlines. A month you skip is money the issuer keeps. Half-yearly and quarterly credits reset too.
- Would you have bought it? A credit that pushes you to spend on something you would not have bought is a discount on a purchase, not money back.
An example: Amex Gold
Amex Gold lists four credits: $120 of Uber Cash, a $120 dining credit, Resy credits and a Dunkin’ credit. Added at the largest figure the channel’s test uses for each, that is about $480 a year. The channel’s everyday household counts $336, because it assumes the Resy and Dunkin’ credits are only partly used. Someone who never opens Uber and lives nowhere near a Dunkin’ gets $120 from the dining credit and nothing else. Against a $325 fee, the same card is ahead for one household and behind for another, before any points are earned.
How the tools count credits
The fee tool asks, for each credit, whether you will use it fully, about half, or not at all, and counts the face value times that share. The card finder applies one share to every card and starts at “about half”, which is the honest default for most people. Unused credit is always worth $0.
Credit amounts come from the issuers’ pages with the date they were checked, shown on each card’s page.