For the credit cards reviewed for this list, we valued the costs and benefits of each credit card. The costs of each credit card included the annual fee, foreign transaction fees (or lack thereof), and the required spend to qualify for the welcome offer. The benefits evaluated included the welcome offer, the retained earnings rate for net purchases, issuer benefits, preferred member benefits (i.e. if you were an account holder of another account with the same issuer/bank), and licensee benefits. For travel rewards cards, we reviewed the value of miles/points per brand based on how many points are earned as a rewards member (i.e. Marriott Bonvoy) per stay and needed to redeem.
In terms of reviewing welcome offers and benefits, we used the public details available at the time of writing (June 6, 2019) on the respective card websites and not any individual offers via email or postal mail. Even if a specific credit card offers a better incentive depending on the location from which you applied (i.e. applying for an airline rewards card while at the airport), we only considered the public offer from the issuer directly online.