I’m a big fan of that one college basketball tournament going on right now whose name I can’t say for fear of violating their trademarks. Last year, we did a “Top Travel Tool March Mayhem” tournament where we ranked the top miles and points tool, with Award Wallet beating out AutoSlash in the finals.
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.
Here is our schedule – all 4 games / votes will close on Monday morning, so you still have time to vote if you haven’t already
- Thursday 3/23 – #1 Chase Sapphire Preferred vs. #9 Starwood Preferred Guest® Credit Card from American Express
- Friday 3/24 – #3 Chase Sapphire Reserve vs. #11 Citi Prestige® Card
- Saturday 3/25 – #7 Chase Freedom Unlimited vs. #15 Chase IHG Rewards card
- Sunday 3/26 – #5 Bank of America Alaska Airlines Visa Signature® Credit Card vs. #13 Chase Freedom
#3 Chase Sapphire Reserve vs. #11 Citi Prestige® Card
#3 Chase Sapphire Reserve – The Chase Sapphire Reserve has been the darling of the miles and points world over the past year or so. There have been signup bonuses of 100,000 Ultimate Rewards, but the signup bonus has dropped to 50,000 as of now. You certainly get a ton of benefits with the CSR, but it comes with a hefty $450 annual fee.
The CSR is also subject to Chase 5/24, which had some negative consequences for my mom the other day. Here are a few articles on the CSR
- Chase Sapphire Reserve vs Chase Sapphire Preferred card
- Why the Chase Sapphire Reserve card might make using Rapid Rewards obsolete
#11 Citi Prestige® Card – The Citi Prestige® card comes with a $450 annual fee and also comes with Priority Pass membership. There is a $250 annual airline credit (which I screwed up)
Citibank devalued the benefits a few months ago, removing the ability to get 1.6 cents per point on American Airlines flights and removing Admiral’s Club membership. You can still get the 4th night free on hotel stays, though the benefit is slightly worse, and you no longer get a golf benefit.
We’ve actually compared these 2 cards before so that might help
A note on shenanigans – this contest is meant to be in fun and there are no prizes for winning. While I don’t mind if you encourage friends, family members and others to vote for a particular tool, please don’t try to rig the system by voting multiple times. I do reserve the right to disqualify entries and/or just arbitrarily pick a winner if I feel like it.
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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 
Shenanigans? come on, we knew there were Chase fanboy shenanigans going on when FU handily beat Doublecash. The only place where FU wins that comparison is in the size of Chase’s ad budget to push it.
Seems there’s a mistake here. The CSR annual fee is $450, not $495.
Thanks – I’ve updated it
Epic Battle! Tough one – I will be paying the annual fee on both of these when they come up, but for me hard to beat at least $1,000 / year in fourth night reimbursements!
Although I’m sure the CSR will win, I voted for the Citi Prestige card for three important reasons:
1) The 5/24 rule.
2) The lowered sign-up bonus now gives an edge (IMHO) to CSP.
3) The benefits . . . I know this is up to interpretation, but I too have saved between $1,000+ annually with the 4th night free benefit. Also, the Priority Pass access is more generous (and also something I take advantage of frequently¹. That said, both cards offer primary car rental insurance, and both cards offer you a generous travel benefit that is *not* limited to fees but can be directly applied to airfare.
Now, I freely admit that I might feel differently had I not been bitten by the 5/24 rule — I had already hit that mark before the CSR was ever released, so I was screwed from the get-go . . .
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¹ I know some people have reported being turned away from (e.g.) Alaska lounges due to overcrowding. All I can say is that I have never personally experienced this.