How we value points and miles (and why our numbers are lower than everyone else's)

Look up the same card on two different sites and you'll see the same points described as worth 4% back on one and 8% back on the other. Both cite the same earn rate. The difference is entirely in what one point is assumed to be worth — and that assumption is where most card advice quietly falls apart.

SwipeCaddy ranks every card with one formula:

reward rate × conservative cash value per point − any surcharge

The rate comes from the issuer's own pages (every card carries a verification date and a source link). This article is about the second term: the cash value, and why ours is deliberately lower than what you'll read elsewhere.

The values we rank with

Currency	Ranked value	Optimistic value we show but don't rank
Cash back	1¢ (face value)	—
Chase Ultimate Rewards	1¢	~2¢ via transfer partners
Amex Membership Rewards	1¢	~2¢ via transfer partners
Bilt Points	1¢	~2¢ via transfer partners
Citi ThankYou Points	1¢	~1.8¢ via transfer partners
Capital One miles	1¢	~1.85¢ via transfer partners
Airline miles (Delta, United, Emirates, Lufthansa)	1.1¢	—
Airline miles (American, Avios, Flying Blue)	1.2¢	—
Airline miles (Southwest, JetBlue, Alaska, Aeroplan)	1.3¢	—
World of Hyatt	1.4¢	—
Marriott Bonvoy, Wyndham Rewards	0.7¢	—
Choice Privileges	0.6¢	—
IHG One Rewards	0.5¢	—
Hilton Honors	0.4¢	—
Store currencies (Sam's Cash, My Best Buy, Walgreens Cash…)	0.8–0.9¢	—

Two things jump out of that table.

First, Hilton's 12x isn't what it sounds like. The Hilton Honors Surpass card earns 12 points per dollar at Hilton hotels — but at 0.4¢ a point, that's a 4.8% return. Excellent, and it still tops our Hilton ranking. But it's not "12%", and a card site that implies otherwise is doing Hilton's marketing for them. The same correction runs the other way: Hyatt points are genuinely scarce and valuable, so World of Hyatt's numbers rank at 1.4¢.

Second, transferable points only rank at 1¢ even though we record their 2¢ upside. That's the most opinionated line in our data, so it deserves the full argument.

Why we rank Chase and Amex points at 1 cent

The 2¢-per-point figure you see everywhere is real — for a specific kind of person. It requires transferring points to an airline or hotel partner, finding award availability that beats the cash price, and doing it before the program devalues. Points enthusiasts genuinely do this. Most cardholders never do.

What everyone else gets, reliably, without homework: 1 cent per point as cash back or a statement credit, sometimes a little more through the issuer's travel portal. That reliable floor is what we rank on, because a recommendation engine should describe the value you'll actually capture, not the value a hobbyist could theoretically extract.

The practical effect shows up all over our rankings. At the grocery store, the Blue Cash Preferred's 6% cash back outranks the Amex Gold's 4x points — because 6¢ beats 4¢ for a normal redeemer, even though a transfer maximalist could argue the Gold "earns 8%". If you are that maximalist, the table above gives you the transfer values we track — mentally double the transferable-points math and our rankings still tell you the right relative story within each currency.

The fine print is part of the math

A rate that stops mattering after a spending cap, or that requires quarterly activation, or that only applies through a booking portal, isn't the same as an unconditional rate. Our engine carries every one of those conditions as structured caveats and shows them next to the rate — "up to $6,000/yr", "must activate each quarter" — instead of hiding them in footnotes.

Surcharges count too. Paying rent by card usually costs a ~3% processing fee, so we subtract it: a 2% card loses money on rent, and our rent ranking says so plainly. A rewards rate that ignores the fee it triggers isn't a rewards rate.

Why the conservatism is structural, not a style choice

Most credit-card content is funded by application commissions. When a site earns $100–$250 for a premium-card signup, points valuations drift upward — inflated point values justify annual fees, which justify recommendations, which pay the site. Nobody has to lie; the incentive does the work.

SwipeCaddy has no affiliate relationships. We earn nothing when you apply for anything, so nothing pushes our valuations up. The numbers in the table above are the ones we'd want if we were the ones standing at the register — which we are.

Every rate on this site carries a verification date and a link to the issuer's own page, and the data is re-checked weekly. When something changes, the date changes with it.