How the audit is scored.
In one line: every credit is matched against 12 months of your real transactions, valued at conservative point values, netted against what redeeming it costs you elsewhere, and compared with every cheaper card in the family before a verdict is issued.
Worth My Fee is paid by its users and by no one else: no affiliate links, no issuer relationships, ever. Every number below comes from the same code that produces your report. The catalog it scores against is 91 cards and 229 credits, each with a citation to the issuer’s own page and an as-of date; 82 values the issuer states ambiguously are marked unverified and scored conservatively.
1. Only charges you actually made count
Each credit is matched against 12 months of your real transactions (through Plaid) by statement string and by Plaid’s category for the charge. A hotel brand counts only on a travel-coded charge; a phrase like “resort” never counts on a ski shop; portal-only credits (The Edit, Amex Travel, Capital One Travel, Citi Travel, Delta Stays) count as used only when the charge posts under the portal’s own statement string. A direct stay at the same chain makes the credit reachable, never used. Money movement (transfers, interest, fees) is never evidence and never earns points. Refunds are netted against the charge they reverse; an issuer’s statement credit posted under a merchant’s name is left alone.
Two things beat the text matcher: Plaid’s merchant entity (a charge Plaid resolves to the same merchant as one that matched counts too, under the same category rules), and the issuer’s own statement credits. A “RESY DINING CREDIT” posted to your card means the credit was used, whatever the charges looked like, and is counted at the posted dollars.
2. How short histories are scaled
- Under 30 days of history nothing is scaled and no keep-or-cancel call is made.
- Evidence is scaled to a year only when it recurs (matches in at least 2 calendar months) and never by more than 4×; a card is judged at its own pace only after 90 days on that card.
- Every card is provisional on its own span until a full year is in, and provisional verdicts are excluded from the guarantee arithmetic.
3. Conservative point values
Points are valued at what a normal cardholder reliably gets, below enthusiast “maximizer” figures. The opportunity-cost floor is a no-fee 2% cash-back card, so earning below it is worth nothing incremental. Per-card exceptions (the Sapphire Reserve’s 1:1 Hyatt transfer) are stated in the catalog.
| Program | Value | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Chase Ultimate Rewards | 1.5¢ | Reflects the Oct 2026 UR→Hyatt 4:3 devaluation; portal floor is 1.0–1.5. |
| Amex Membership Rewards | 1.5¢ | Transfer-partner value for a non-optimizer; cash-out floor is 0.6. |
| Citi ThankYou | 1.5¢ | Transfer partners; cash floor 1.0. |
| Capital One Miles | 1.5¢ | Travel-eraser floor is 1.0; transfers above that. |
| Delta SkyMiles | 1.2¢ | |
| United MileagePlus | 1.2¢ | |
| American AAdvantage | 1.4¢ | |
| Southwest Rapid Rewards | 1.3¢ | Wanna Get Away pricing is nearly fixed-value. |
| Marriott Bonvoy | 0.7¢ | |
| Hilton Honors | 0.5¢ | |
| IHG One Rewards | 0.6¢ | |
| BofA Premium Rewards points | 1.0¢ | Cash-equivalent. |
| U.S. Bank points | 1.0¢ | Post-Dec-2025 nerf; was 1.5 via mobile wallet. |
| Wells Fargo Rewards | 1.0¢ | Cash-equivalent; transfers add upside. |
| World of Hyatt | 1.7¢ | Award-chart program; 1.7 is a mid-category cash-rate equivalent. |
| Bilt Points | 1.5¢ | Transfer partners (Hyatt, Alaska, others); Bilt Travel floor is 1.25. |
| JetBlue TrueBlue | 1.3¢ | Revenue-based; near fixed value. |
| Wyndham Rewards | 1.0¢ | Flat 7,500/15,000/30,000-point free nights; ~1¢ at the economy tier. |
| Blue Cash Reward Dollars | 1.0¢ | Cash-equivalent. |
| Capital One cash back | 1.0¢ | Cash-equivalent. |
| Robinhood cash back | 1.0¢ | 1¢ per point only as a deposit to a Robinhood investing account (required to redeem); a statement credit pays less. |
| Atmos Rewards (Alaska + Hawaiian) | 1.4¢ | Distance-based partner awards carry the upside; 1.4 is a domestic-award average. |
4. Status, lounges, and the portal trap
Card-granted elite status is valued by ladder rung against what you already hold on your own (including tiers a membership implies, such as IHG Diamond from InterContinental Royal Ambassador); status never stacks across cards. Lounge access is valued once per observed flight day across the portfolio, credited to the cheapest card whose network covers it, with pricier networks keeping only their premium over it. The conflict rules:
- Portal hotel bookings void elite-status recognition. This credit only works on prepaid bookings made through the card’s travel portal, which makes the portal — not the hotel — the merchant of record. Major hotel programs treat these as third-party bookings: elite benefits are not honored at check-in (upgrades, breakfast, late checkout), and the stay earns no points. If you hold hotel status, redeeming this credit typically costs more per stay than the credit returns. Sources: Marriott Bonvoy Terms § 2.1.e — stays booked through third-party online travel channels are not eligible for points or elite benefits; Hilton Honors Terms — third-party/prepaid bookings are ineligible rates for points and elite benefits; IHG One Rewards Membership Terms — non-qualifying rates include stays booked through third parties; World of Hyatt Terms — eligible rates exclude third-party bookings
- Portal hotel bookings don’t count toward status requalification. Because the portal is the merchant of record, these stays post no elite qualifying nights. If you are actively requalifying for status, every stay routed through the portal to capture this credit is a night that doesn’t count — and a shortfall at year-end can cost an entire tier, worth far more than the credit. Fires independently of current status, so it also catches users mid-pursuit of their first tier. Sources: Marriott Bonvoy Terms § 2.1.e — ineligible stays earn no elite night credit; Hilton Honors Terms — ineligible rates earn no tier credit toward status; IHG One Rewards Membership Terms — non-qualifying stays do not count toward tier status
Every card carrying a portal hotel credit is listed on the portal hotel credits page.
5. The guarantee
A paid audit must find at least three times its price in fees you can stop paying (firm cancel or downgrade verdicts) plus credits your spending already qualifies for that were landing on other cards. Portal-only credits are shown separately and never count. The same function computes the number on your report and the refund decision; inside 30 days of the first charge, an audit below the threshold is refunded on request without argument, once per person. Full terms.
6. The catalog
Every fee-bearing card and every credit it advertises is itemized on the cards pages, with the fine print, the traps and the downgrade path, and cited to the issuer page with the date it was last checked. A weekly job diffs those pages against the catalog so it notices when terms change. Things the audit is known not to see yet are on the known limitations page; a scored sample portfolio is at the sample audit.