For the past few weeks in conjunction with that one basketball tournament whose name I can’t mention without getting sued, we have been running a Card Madness tournament here at Points With a Crew
CardMadness
This year I thought I’d try a similar tournament to pick the “best” miles and points credit card. While the definition of a “best” credit card is fairly impossible to judge, since there are so many factors that go into that decision, most importantly figuring out where you want to go before you just sign up for cards, but hey, let’s give it a try!
CardMadness bracket
Here is our CardMadness bracket for 2017.
You could certainly argue with some of the seeds I’m sure, but I think it’s a fairly reasonable list.
Card Madness Opening Round
The opening round games have now finished, and the results are in!
- #13 Chase Freedom defeats #4 Chase Ink in a close upset – 54.4% to 46.6%
- #5 Bank of America Alaska Airlines Visa Signature® Credit Card defeats #12 Barclaycard Arrival Plus™ World Elite MasterCard®, 65.7% to 34.3%
- #11 Citi Prestige® Card upsets #6 The Platinum Card® from American Express, 51.8% to 48.2%
- #3 Chase Sapphire Reserve slaughters #14 The Amex EveryDay® Credit Card from American Express, 80.9% to 19.1%
- #1 Chase Sapphire Preferred defeats #16 Chase Southwest Airlines Card, 85.2% to 14.8%.
- #8 AT&T Access More card is defeated by #9 Starwood Preferred Guest® Credit Card from American Express, 84.3% to 15.7%
- #2 The Business Platinum® Card from American Express OPEN is shocked by #15 Chase IHG Rewards card, 51.4% to 48.6%
- #7 Chase Freedom Unlimited defeats #10 Citi® Double Cash Card, 65.8% to 34.2%
3 big upsets as the Chase Ink and both versions of the Platinum Card® from American Express go down. The Chase IHG card winning as a #15 seed was a big shocker for me – to the point of wondering if there were any voting shenanigans. Or perhaps people just didn’t like the healthy $450 annual fee, preferring other premium cards.
Card Madness Quarterfinals
The second round is now complete as well
- #1 Chase Sapphire Preferred falls in OVERTIME to #9 Starwood Preferred Guest® Credit Card from American Express after a 50%-50% tie in regulation
- #5 Bank of America Alaska Airlines Visa Signature® Credit Card is upset by #13 Chase Freedom, 57.4% to 42.6%
- #15 Chase IHG Rewards card continues its Cinderella run with an upset of #7 Chase Freedom Unlimited, 58.9% to 41.1%
- #3 Chase Sapphire Reserve hammers #11 Citi Prestige® Card, 78.1% to 21.9%
Card Madness Semifinals
The second round is now complete as well
- #9 Starwood Preferred Guest® Credit Card from American Express continues its run, defeating #13 Chase Freedom 63.2% to 36.8%
- #3 Chase Sapphire Reserve ends the Cinderella dreams of #15 Chase IHG Rewards card, 70.6% to 29.4%
Card Madness finals
The Card Madness finals ran over the past few days between #3 Chase Sapphire Reserve and #9 Starwood Preferred Guest® Credit Card from American Express
In what was probably not a surprise to most people, the Chase Sapphire Reserve was the overall winner, by a count of 70.6% to 29.4%
Thanks to everyone who participated and we’ll see you next year!
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Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
I find it interesting that the Chase cards were in the top of the heap, yet are the hardest to get for many of us. We do have the Reserve card and plan to keep even though the annual cost is alot. I cancelled all my SPG cards but my one business SPG. Therefore I have most all of the top 4 or 5 cards on the list as keepers.
This was enjoyable to see and vote on.
Received the SPG Amex last week, and already have/love the CSR. It’s nice that Card Madness (others) validated these choices.
Poor Amex Platinum got left at the starting gate, and happens to be a card that is about to become a footnote of history for me as well.