The Best Credit Card Sign-Up Bonuses Right Now

Every welcome offer we track, valued

Bonus value prices the advertised points total at the rate this card can actually reach — the guaranteed floor to its best transfer partner, shown as a range, where the issuer publishes a fixed redemption channel; our published median valuation for the currency otherwise. First-year value adds the credits a realistic cardholder claims and subtracts the year-one fee — which is the figure to compare if you are deciding between cards rather than collecting all of them.

This page covers personal cards only. Business cards routinely carry welcome offers two to three times the size of the ones below, at spending requirements several times higher and with an approval process that asks for revenue rather than salary. Award Rate does not currently track business products, so none appears in the table below and none is ranked here — if the largest number in the market is what you are after, this is not the whole market. Every personal card we do track is in the full card index.

10 of these 10 welcome offers have been checked against the issuer; 0 of the 10 cards still carry modeled rates. Those are two different claims and the table below is only as good as the first one: the ranking multiplies the bonus, and the efficiency table divides by the spend requirement, so an offer we have not read off the issuer's own page is an unchecked input to every figure in its row. The rates — the APR range and the fee schedule — do not enter the arithmetic at all, and they are checked separately. Which is which, and what we do about it, is set out in full below the tenth entry; the per-card status is in every rates-and-terms panel and listed again in the disclosures at the foot of this page.

Which bonus pays most per dollar of required spend?

Every list ranks welcome offers by size. Almost none of them divide by the thing the issuer is actually asking you for, which is spending inside a fixed window. A large bonus attached to a requirement you cannot reach is worth nothing at all; a modest bonus attached to a small requirement is money you will definitely collect.

The second and third columns below are the same calculation under two different assumptions. The first prices the bonus at our published valuation, which assumes you transfer the points to an airline or hotel partner. The second prices it at the currency's guaranteed floor — the fixed rate at which the bank will always take the points back as cash or a statement credit — which is what you are left holding if you never transfer. For most readers the honest answer sits between the two. For a Freedom Unlimited held without a Sapphire or Ink account in the same household it is the second column exactly, because those points cannot be transferred at all.

10 of these 10 offers have been read off the issuer, and the ranking above is computed in three lines from the card data — both are set out in full below the list, after the tenth entry.

Which of these figures have we checked with the issuer?

Two answers, because there are two checks. The welcome offer — the points total, the required spend and the window — has been read off the issuer's own page or an independent offer tracker for 10 of the 10 cards: Amex Platinum, Amex Gold, Sapphire Reserve, Strata Premier, Venture X, Venture, Sapphire Preferred, United Explorer, Hilton Surpass and Freedom Unlimited. The rates — the full APR range and the fee schedule — have been read off an issuer's pricing-and-terms disclosure for 10: Amex Platinum, Amex Gold, Sapphire Reserve, Strata Premier, Venture X, Venture, Sapphire Preferred, United Explorer, Hilton Surpass and Freedom Unlimited. Only a card that has passed both carries the verified stamp; everything else is marked modeled, meaning the figures describe the product at its published terms and nobody here has yet signed for them.

The split matters because the two feed different things. This page ranks on the bonus and divides by the required spend, so those two fields are the inputs to every number on it, and an unchecked spend requirement is a wrong denominator in the column the page exists for — that has happened here: the Sapphire Reserve carried a requirement a thousand dollars below the issuer's on August 5, 2026, which overstated its return per dollar by a fifth. The APR range and the annual fee do not enter the arithmetic; they are regulated disclosures, and they are checked on their own schedule.

We publish the modeled state rather than hiding it because the alternative is worse in a specific way: a page that prints a verification date next to a figure nobody verified has told you something false about the one thing you cannot check yourself. So no verification date appears beside a modeled figure anywhere on this site — not in the hero, not in the compare table, not in a card's own rates-and-terms panel. A modeled panel carries a last edited date instead, and says in as many words that nobody has signed for the figures and links you to the issuer's page.

What this means in practice: the ranking and the per-dollar arithmetic are sound for the cards whose offers we have checked and provisional for the rest, and each row says which it is. The eligibility rules, the sequencing advice and the spend tactics on this page do not depend on any figure at all. Do not quote an APR or an annual fee from a modeled card without opening the issuer link beside it — every card here carries that link, and a modeled card carries it twice.

A modeled card becomes verified when an editor completes the check, not when the page is republished; the date that then appears is the date of the check. The process, and what changes when a card moves between the two states, is set out in our methodology. The current status of every card on this page is listed in the disclosures below.

How we ranked these bonuses

The order on this page is computed at build time from the card data, in three lines: bonus value at rates each card can reach, descending, ties broken by net annual cost ascending, then by name. No editor sets a position. The rules below say how each of those is calculated and what we refuse to do — and the resulting order is reproducible from the compare table above by anyone with a calculator.

1. We price points, not headlines. A card that discloses a fixed redemption channel and a transfer set is ranked on the midpoint between that guaranteed floor and its own best transfer partner — the range in the compare table's "Bonus value" column. Every other bonus is converted to dollars using the median redemption value for its currency from our quarterly model — around 180,000 sampled award-and-cash fare pairs a month. A hotel bonus with a very large points total can and does rank below a smaller airline or bank bonus, because the currency, or the card's own reachable rate within it, is worth less. That dollar figure, descending, is the order of this page.
2. Ties break on what you are left holding. A bonus arrives once; an annual fee arrives every year. Where two offers price out at exactly the same value, the card whose net annual cost is lower after realistically usable credits ranks higher. 2 cards on this page tie on bonus value, and that tie-break is the only thing separating them.
3. Reachability is priced, not ranked. A requirement far above a typical household's quarterly budget makes an offer worse, and we say so in the entry — but it does not move a row, because a ranking that quietly reorders itself on an editor's judgement about whose budget is typical is not reproducible. The efficiency table above is where reachability is expressed as a number instead.
4. An offer we cannot link to is not demoted, and not deleted. It is ranked on its value like every other offer and labeled as unavailable in the compare table, in the efficiency table and on its own entry. "Unavailable" here is a statement about our apply link and not always about the product — an offer can be live at the issuer while our affiliate channel has not relisted it, and one on this page is in exactly that position. That is why an offer you cannot apply for through us can sit above live ones: moving it would make the order unreproducible, and deleting it would take away the only record of what that card has actually paid.
5. We refuse to rank on commission. Every card on this page carries an affiliate relationship, across several networks paying at different rates, including the one whose apply link is switched off and which therefore pays us nothing at all. None of that moves a card up or down. The clearest evidence is the offer this page spends the most words recommending to cautious readers — the most efficient one by a wide margin — which the arithmetic puts last.

Worked through on the top pick: the Amex Platinum offer is currently 175,000 points after you spend $12,000 on purchases in the first 6 months from account opening, the ceiling of an offer American Express varies by applicant — the issuer states welcome offers vary and that you may not be eligible for one at all^†. Priced at our published median value for the currency rather than at a best-case redemption, that is $3,150^†. Add the credits a realistic cardholder claims, subtract the year-one annual fee, and the first year is worth $3,653^† — which is the figure the card has to beat again in year two, without a bonus to help it.

Which bonus should you go after?

Take the first line that describes your next three months, not your ideal ones.

If you have a large planned purchase already scheduled

Go for the Chase Sapphire Reserveoffer while it is live. A big requirement is only free to satisfy when the spending was happening anyway, and this is the one offer here with a published end date.

If you are not sure you can hit a minimum spend at all

Take the Chase Freedom Unlimited. Its requirement is the smallest here by a wide margin, there is no annual fee to recover, and the points become transferable later if you add a Sapphire card.

If you want a big bonus but not a big ongoing fee

Take the Capital One Venture — same bonus size as its premium sibling, mid-tier fee — or the Venture X if you will use lounges, since its credits put its net annual cost below zero.

If you have a specific long-haul business-class trip in mind

Take the Citi Strata Premier offer and transfer to a partner airline rather than booking through a portal. See our business-class sweet spots for where those points go furthest.

If this is your first rewards card

Take the Chase Sapphire Preferred. Not the largest offer, but the one most likely to convert into a booking you actually make — and Chase’s 5/24 rule means applying here first preserves options that applying elsewhere first destroys.

If you are chasing more than one bonus this year

Sequence them: Chase first because of 5/24, then Capital One and Citi, then American Express, whose velocity rules are the most forgiving. Never open two cards with overlapping spend windows unless the combined requirement fits inside your real budget.

How do you actually hit a minimum spend?

Legitimately, and without buying things you do not need — which rules out most of the advice you will find elsewhere.

• Move fixed bills first, on the day of approval. Insurance premiums, utilities, phone, streaming, childcare, gym. These recur inside the window with no behavior change and typically cover a meaningful share of a mid-tier requirement.
• Pre-pay what you were going to pay anyway. Annual insurance instead of monthly, a full term of tuition, a year of a subscription. This is timing, not extra spending.
• Use the card for group costs and get reimbursed. Dinner, a shared holiday rental, a team expense you will claim back. The spend counts when it posts, not when you are repaid.
• Check whether your tax or rent payment is worth the fee. Card payments to government tax portals carry a processing fee; it is only worth it if the points earned exceed the fee at our valuations, which is a calculation, not a rule of thumb.
• Do not buy gift cards to close a gap. Several issuers exclude them from qualifying spend outright, and the ones that do not have been known to change their minds retroactively.

Does the order you apply in matter?

More than the offers themselves, if you plan to open more than one card in a year. Chase’s 5/24 threshold counts personal cards opened at any issuer, so every non-Chase application spends part of a budget you cannot get back for two years. Apply for the Chase cards you want first, then the issuers that do not count other banks’ accounts against you.

American Express is the most permissive on velocity but the least forgiving on repeats: its once-per-lifetime rule means a bonus you took years ago is still disqualifying today. Capital One approves roughly one personal card every six months and pulls all three bureaus. Citi limits you to one new personal card in an eight-day window and two in sixty-five days. None of these rules is published as policy; all of them are enforced.

If you are deciding which card to keep rather than which bonus to chase, our ranked list of travel credit cards orders the same cards by long-term value instead, and the premium card list tests each big fee against the credits a real person claims.