A welcome bonus is the loudest number on any credit card advertisement, and it is the one most often quoted without the two conditions that decide whether you will ever see it: how much you have to spend, and how quickly.
The Bonus Is a Purchase, Not a Gift
Every welcome offer is a trade. You spend a stated amount inside a stated window, and the issuer gives you points or cash worth something. If the spend requirement is higher than what you would have spent anyway, the difference is money you brought forward or money you would not have spent at all, and the bonus is not worth what it says on the tin.
The American Express Platinum is the clearest example in our database. The welcome offer is worth about $1,400 at our valuations, which is the largest we track. It requires $10,000 of spending in three months, and the card costs $799 a year. If you were going to spend $10,000 in a quarter regardless, that is an excellent trade in year one. If you were not, you are being paid roughly $600 net to change how you spend, and year two arrives with the same $799 and no bonus.
First Year Value Is Not Annual Value
Most published rankings sort by first year value, which is the welcome bonus plus a year of earning minus the fee. It is a real number and it is also the most flattering one available, because the bonus only ever happens once.
A card that pays a $700 bonus and then earns you $200 a year against a $139 fee looks like $761 in year one and $61 a year after that. The card next to it that pays no bonus and earns $250 a year with no fee looks worse on day one and better by year three. Which one wins depends entirely on how long you keep it, and nobody selling you the first card will mention that.
This is why the comparison here opens on our rating rather than on first year value, and why the first year value toggle is a toggle rather than the default.
What the Biggest Offers Ask For
- American Express Platinum, about $1,400, for $10,000 in three months, $799 a year.
- CIBC Aeroplan Visa Infinite, about $1,000, $139 a year.
- TD Aeroplan Visa Infinite, about $800, $139 a year.
- TD First Class Travel Visa Infinite, about $730, $139 a year.
- WestJet RBC World Elite Mastercard, about $700, $139 a year.
Those values are ours, not the issuers. Where a bonus is paid in points we convert it at our published point valuations rather than at the number in the marketing, and four programmes are left unvalued entirely because nobody publishes a redemption rate for them.
The Three Things Worth Checking Before You Apply
- Does the spend requirement fit your real spending? Work out what you actually put on a card in three months, not what you could.
- Is the fee waived, or only the first year? A waived first year turns a $139 card into a free trial, and the renewal is the real decision.
- Are you eligible? Most issuers exclude anyone who has held the same card before, and some exclude anyone who has held any card in the family within a set period. That rule is in the terms, not the advertisement.
Every card page here carries the welcome offer we have on file, the spend it requires and the date the offer expires, alongside the fee and the rate. Start with the comparison and sort by biggest welcome bonus if that is what you are shopping for.
The Benchmark Weekly
One email a week. Elevated welcome offers while they are still open, new cards and accounts as they arrive, and any fee, rate or earn rate that moved, with the old figure and the new one. A quiet week gets no email.