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I’m a big fan of that one college basketball tournament going on right now whose name I can’t say for fear of violating their trademarks.  Last year, we did a “Top Travel Tool March Mayhem” tournament where we ranked the top miles and points tool, with Award Wallet beating out AutoSlash in the finals.

CardMadness

This year I thought I’d try a similar tournament to pick the “best” miles and points credit card.  While the definition of a “best” credit card is fairly impossible to judge, since there are so many factors that go into that decision, most importantly figuring out where you want to go before you just sign up for cards, but hey, let’s give it a try!

CardMadness bracket

Here is our CardMadness bracket for 2017.

card-madness-2017-bracket-2

You could certainly argue with some of the seeds I’m sure, but I think it’s a fairly reasonable list.

Card Madness Opening Round

The opening round games have now finished, and the results are in!

3 big upsets as the Chase Ink and both versions of the Platinum Card® from American Express go down.  The Chase IHG card winning as a #15 seed was a big shocker for me – to the point of wondering if there were any voting shenanigans.  Or perhaps people just didn’t like the healthy $450 annual fee, preferring other premium cards.

Card Madness Second Round

Now our second round matchups are set up

card-madness-2017-bracket-3

Here will be our schedule

  • Thursday 3/23 – #1 Chase Sapphire Preferred vs. #9 Starwood Preferred Guest® Credit Card from American Express
  • Friday 3/24 – #5 Bank of America Alaska Airlines Visa Signature® Credit Card vs. #13 Chase Freedom
  • Saturday 3/25 – #7 Chase Freedom Unlimited vs. #15 Chase IHG Rewards card
  • Sunday 3/26 – #3 Chase Sapphire Reserve vs. #11 Citi Prestige® Card

So our final 8 cards includes 5 Chase cards, 1 from American Express, 1 from Citibank and 1 from Bank of America


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