How Madeen values credit card benefits

Madeen places an estimated annual dollar value on each benefit in our catalog so you can compare cards on total perks value — not just earn rates and fees. These are editorially reviewed Madeen estimates, not issuer promises or personalized forecasts.

Editorial review (no auto-parsing)

Every unique benefit title in our catalog has a hand-reviewed entry in our editorial registry. We do not automatically extract dollar amounts from benefit titles or descriptions at runtime. Spend thresholds (e.g. "Spend $120,000 to unlock…") are never counted as benefit value — only the documented unlock rewards are valued.

See our editorial guide (docs/benefit-valuation-editorial-guide.md) and edge-case registry (docs/benefit-valuation-edge-cases.md) in the Madeen repository for full policy.

Valuation methods

• Statement credit (face value) — Hand-entered annual face value after reading issuer terms; monthly or quarterly credits are normalized to an annual total in the editorial basis note.
• Retail membership — Lounge memberships and fee credits tied to a known program price (e.g. Priority Pass, Global Entry), using published retail or application fees as of our last review date.
• Expected value — Insurance, protection, and probabilistic perks use a conservative expected annual value based on typical usage — not maximum coverage limits printed in fine print.
• Structured travel perks — Trusted traveler credits, lounge access, free hotel nights, and checked-bag waivers from issuer flags use editorial perk defaults and are included when not already counted as a benefit row.

What we include in totals

Total benefits sums every catalog benefit and structured travel perk with an editorial Madeen estimate. Documented non-monetary exclusions (financing features, standard fraud liability, partner portal names without dollar terms) are listed in our edge-case registry.

What we do not do

• We do not parse benefit titles to derive dollar amounts automatically.
• We do not guarantee you will receive the listed amount.
• We do not model your personal spend, travel frequency, or claim history.

On card pages and the directory table

Each benefit on a card page shows its Madeen estimate where available, with a how we value this note explaining the editorial basis. The card directory table shows the summed Total benefits column for every card with valued perks. Values above $25,000 are capped in the table display for layout; full totals appear on card detail pages.

Updates

Valuations are reviewed when our catalog refreshes from issuer source data. Each editorial entry carries a reviewedAt date. If you spot an error, contact us with the card and benefit name.