• Airline loyalists: If you’re already a fan of a particular airline, it makes sense to get a co-branded card that earns rewards you can redeem for flights with that airline. Not only can you boost the number of miles you earn for your spending, but most airlines offer valuable perks and benefits with their cards that make flying easier.
• Frequent flyers: Air travel is expensive, but that cost creates opportunity. By rewarding every dollar spent on tickets and other eligible purchases, an airline credit card can help your travel dollar go further. Airline cards also provide perks to make your travel smoother, comfier or even less expensive — such as priority boarding, in-flight discounts, reduced baggage costs or credits for expedited screening.
• Business travelers: Some of the top airline and travel cards are designed with business travel in mind. They have features and perks similar to those of consumer cards, but the rewards categories are more tailored to business-related expenses.
• Luxury travelers: Top-tier airline credit cards help travelers upgrade their travel experience by offering airport lounge access, elite hotel status and other perks. While these cards typically carry higher annual fees, travelers with a taste for luxury might find the expense worthwhile.
• Travel beginners: If you're new to the travel rewards game, a travel card for beginners could be a valuable teaching tool. You can use it to learn the ins and outs of rewards programs, airline perks, redemption values and more.

• Credit-builders: If you’re building credit, rewards and point values should be the last things you’re concerned about when it comes to your credit card. Focus your efforts on establishing a good credit score before thinking about the rewards you can gain from using credit.
• People new to credit: Like credit-builders, people new to credit should focus on building strong credit habits to increase their score. Points, miles and reward valuations may distract you from the important routines you should be establishing, like paying on time and in full.
• People who rarely travel: If you don’t travel frequently, you can’t make the most of an airline credit card. These cards reward generously for purchases with the airlines they’re branded with. Unless you’re spending thousands of dollars each year on a specific airline, you may be better off with a cash back credit card or another rewards card.

The primary criteria for a rewards-earning card’s rating is its rewards value. This includes the card’s average rewards rate, estimated annual rewards earnings, sign-up bonus value and reward redemption value.

To estimate a card’s average annual rewards earnings, we first calculate its average rewards rate based on how much it earns in different bonus categories and how closely its categories align with the average person’s spending habits. In other words, we assess whether the card earns rewards at a high rate in the most popular spending categories. 

We use consumer spending data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) to get a reliable third-party measure of people’s spending habits. The most recent BLS data estimates average total spending in 2021 was $66,928 per consumer. From here, we determine a “chargeable” spend (which purchases are likely to be put on a credit card and earn rewards). After subtracting expenditures like housing, vehicle purchases, education and healthcare, we get a total “chargeable” annual spend of around $22,500.  

This includes the following spending by category:

• Groceries: $5,200
• Dining out: $3,000
• Entertainment: $2,500
• Gas: $2,100
• Apparel and services: $1,700

Using this data, we are able to assign a weighting to each of a card’s bonus categories. For example, a card’s grocery rewards rate receives a 23 percent weighting based on how much of the average person’s budget is spent on groceries. 

We also estimate the redemption value of points or miles from various rewards programs.

This weighting and rewards valuation allows us to estimate a card’s average annual rewards earnings — how many points or miles you’d earn with a given card if your spending was about average and you used the card for all of your purchases — as well as what those points are worth. We also use point valuations to determine a card’s sign-up bonus value

With these calculations complete, we assign each card a score based on how its average rewards earnings, sign-up bonus value, rewards rate and redemption value stack up against other rewards cards.

The better these values, the higher its score will be, making it more worthy of inclusion in our list and increasing its potential ranking.

Here’s a deeper look at the factors considered as part of a rewards card’s “Value” rating:

We also score cards based on how much it costs to keep them in your wallet or carry a balance. 

To start, each card is scored based on whether it offers an intro APR and how its ongoing APR compares to the rates available on other rewards cards. However, the latter rating only has a slight influence on the card’s score and whether the card is included in our list, since rewards card users generally try to avoid carrying a balance.

More important to both a card’s score and its inclusion in our list is how its annual fee influences its overall value. We consider a card’s annual fee in two ways — how it ranks relative to the fees you’ll find on other cards in the category and how it impacts a card’s overall rewards value. 

Cards with an annual fee will always be at a slight disadvantage in our scoring system since annual fees inherently cut into your rewards value. However, if a card offers terrific value via its ongoing rewards and perks, it can earn a high score and a spot in our list even if it carries a high annual fee. After all, the highest rewards rates and most valuable perks are often found on cards with annual fees. 

With this in mind, we rate a card based primarily on how its ongoing rewards value and ongoing perk value (such as annual credits or bonuses) stack up against those of other cards in the category when you subtract annual fees.

That said, we strive to include as many no-annual-fee options in our list as possible since many people would rather not worry about offsetting fees, even if a card carries impressive rewards and perks.

Rewards cards may make it easy to earn a lot of points, miles or cash back, but how easy is it to use those rewards? After all, if it takes a ton of effort to redeem rewards or you can only redeem rewards in a couple of ways, a card may be more trouble than it’s worth. 

As such, we rate each card’s flexibility based on the restrictions it imposes on earning and redeeming rewards. We factor this rating into a card’s overall score and consider it when deciding on a card’s inclusion in our list. 

Flexibility factors include whether a card only allows you to earn a high rewards rate on only a small amount of spending or requires you to meet a certain earning threshold before you can redeem rewards. We also examine whether your points are worth less when you opt for some redemption options over others and whether a card gives you the flexibility to transfer rewards to travel partners. 

We also score each card’s set of features – its perks and benefits — against five tiers of features to provide a rating. 

We break down these tiers as follows:

• Tier 1 includes fewer features than even standard credit cards (for example, an ultra-streamlined card that offers basic utility and next to nothing in the way of ancillary benefits). 
• Tier 2 includes the benefits you’d expect on standard Visa or Mastercard credit cards, such as free access to your credit score, car rental insurance and $0 liability for fraudulent charges. 
• Tier 3 includes “prime card” or better-than-average card features like cellphone insurance, lost luggage insurance, concierge services and purchase protection. 
• Tier 4 includes luxury features such as airport lounge access, elite status with an airline or hotel and credits for expedited security screening membership programs. 
• Tier 5 includes the sort of exemplary benefits you’ll find on top-tier luxury cards, such as high-value travel credits, cardholder memberships and other unique and valuable perks.

In evaluating the best cards, we tend to favor cards that offer at least Tier 3 benefits, unless they include other unique features that could make up for less-impressive perks.

Airline cards that don’t charge an annual fee have limited features. But if you are more interested in earning miles and welcome offers and don’t care about perks like free checked bags, priority boarding or free lounge visits, a no-annual-fee airline card may be the answer. Top picks for no-annual-fee airline cards include:

• American Airlines AAdvantage MileUp℠ Card
• United Gateway Card (not currently available through Bankrate)
• Delta SkyMiles® Blue American Express Card
• JetBlue Card

J.D. Power’s most recent credit card customer satisfaction study also included a survey that names the best co-branded airline cards. Of the winners, the American Airlines MileUp card is the only no-annual-fee card that won a spot on the list, ranking above the average in third place.

As you can see, there aren’t many co-branded airline cards with no annual fee. A general-purpose travel card — like the Capital One VentureOne (See Rates & Fees) — could also be plenty rewarding for air travel if you’re avoiding annual fees..