Credit Card In-Depth Comparison (Aug 2024)

If it's helpful for anyone else, I've been working on updating my credit card comparison spreadsheet. Here's a link.

I've allowed commenting in case anyone has any suggestions / corrections.

A few notes:

  • Yes I know there are websites that compare cards and show you a ranking depending on what you're after, but I couldn't see anything else out there that just listed all the useful bit of information to easily compare all things in one hit.

  • This is correct at 8/8/24, but happy to update it if people want to comment in the sheet.

  • The tickbox up the top activates the savings that can be had on the first/second year fees for things like existing customer, monthly spend met etc.

  • I calculated the $ value (give or take a few dollars) in bonus sign up points, and placed that in a column. I then listed the first year fee (after any cashback offers) and the 2nd year fee. Cost after 2 years = first year + 2nd year + cashback - bonus points value. There is conditional formatting in a red to green gradient (white in the middle) to indicate ranking of some column. Eg In some cases it costs money (red shaded), in other cases it gains money (green shaded).

  • Bonus point value is based off e-shopping gift cards, such as Woolworths. Yes I know bonus points will mostly likely be worth more in flight redemption, particularly in the case of direct frequent flyer points, but for me baselining it to this was the easiest way to compare. Plus, if you just want to see which one returns more points.

  • AMEX excluded from my table on purpose (not widely enough accepted for me)

  • Cards with no decent bonus points offer excluded

Lastly, I tried to put a filter on to make these columns sortable but it broke my formulas. If anyone can fix it, let me know.

Comments

  • Thanks OP

  • Love this, thanks OP!!

  • +1

    Nice work! It'll be a pain in the ass to keep updated over time but good as a reference generally.

  • great one, i have 11 more months till I can apply for nab again
    also should be able to sort by what the airline reward is

  • Very nice work, thanks for sharing!

  • this is sick, thanks for your time and effort !

    google sheet wizards pls help out OP to fix column filtering

    • You can enable it yourself. Data -> "Create Filter View". Then click on the icon in the table header to filter for yourself

      • It breaks all the references for me when filtering say the profit column

        • If your formulas use cells from the same row as your formula, you won't have any issues. But some of your formulas use cells from a different row. This is what is causing the errors once you put in a filter. To fix this, when using a cell from another row, you need to tell the formula to only use that specific cell, you have to "fix" the cell reference using dollar signs '$' in the cell reference.

          Can you try to "fix" the cell reference in all of column R.

          For example, in cell R3, your formula is

          =N3*F49

          Change it to

          =N3*$F$49

          Then in columns D and E, you also need to "fix" any references to F2 —> $F$2

          Once you've done this try the filter and it should work. If you still see more #REF errors elsewhere just find the culprit formula and do the same as above.

  • +3

    AMEX excluded from my table on purpose (not widely enough accepted for me)

    Horses for courses.

    Amexes fee free have been outstanding for me over decades despite not being widely enough accepted.

    But, yes, need to supplement with other cards, including HSBC debit card.

  • A spreadsheet colour coded…beautiful!

  • Thanks!!

  • Thanks OP @prubie, this is great. Wondering if you've got a Sep updated version by any chance?

    • Following :)

  • Great job OP. May be you can add expiry date for some of the promos?

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