THE BEST

of

2025

Credit Card Awards

Methodology

When choosing our FinanceBuzz Credit Card Awards winners, we considered quantitative factors like our star ratings as well as qualitative inputs based on discussions within our editorial team. We've aimed to identify the best cards for specific purposes or types of people. While some winners may be partners, this did not influence who we chose to win awards.

How we chose the winners

We started with a list of over 270 top cards that we'd collected data on and scored. Then, for each category we identified minimum criteria to be included in our evaluation group. For example, when looking at the best flat-rate rewards card, we included all cards that offered at least 2x rewards on all purchases and achieved a FinanceBuzz star rating of at least 4.0.

Then within that narrowed group, we determined the most important ranking factors in order to compare the cards head to head. Those ranking factors tie directly to the award category and vary for each reward. Some of the factors we looked at were quantitative like the length of the APR period or a rewards rate, while others were qualitative like how easy a card's reward structure is to understand. In the end, each card got a category-specific score that was used to determine the award winner.