Sharp rewards advice, ranked by which card issuer pays the bigger bounty.
What it's really for A travel-rewards publisher paid a bounty when you're approved for the cards it ranks.
What our grade covers The grade on this page is about its credit-card reviews, ratings, and points valuations, not everything the site does.
High Scoring Confidence Checked against primary sources. We are confident in the facts and the grade here.
Card issuers (notably Chase, Citi, Bank of America, and American Express, several under exclusive marketing deals) pay TPG up to ~$120+ per approved applicant, and TPG's own advertising policy states this compensation "may impact... the order in which they appear on our roundups," so paying partners are placed more prominently.
Source →- Operating since
- 2010 (16 years) · source
- What it costs you
- Free to read The reviews are free to read.
- How they make money
- It earns affiliate commissions when readers click through and get approved for credit cards, travel, and product referrals, plus revenue from clearly labeled paid sponsorships.
- What they do
- It produces credit card reviews, 1-5 star ratings, "best card" roundups, and points/miles valuations and travel-rewards guides.
- What to watch for
- A reader should know that the order cards appear in on its roundups is influenced by how much TPG gets paid per signup, so the top-listed card is not necessarily the single best one for you, and it does not cover every card on the market.
- Composite score
- 1.70 / 5.00 → grade D+ (pay-to-rank cap applied)
- Last verified
- June 2, 2026 — when we last checked this entry's facts, links, and grade against the live site.
- Site confirmed live
- July 11, 2026 — our monthly automated check reached The Points Guy and got a normal response.
How the grade was reached
Does the site take money from the very entities it ranks? Pay-for-placement, vendor-funded data, and affiliate commissions all pull this down. The less the ranking can be bought, the higher the score.
What is the ranking actually built on? Hands-on testing scores highest, then verified first-hand reviews, then opinion or popularity surveys and self-reported figures, then pay-to-rank, which scores lowest.
Is the methodology published, specific, and reproducible? Can a reader see how a given rank was reached, or is it a black box?
Are commercial relationships, sponsorships, and affiliate arrangements disclosed clearly and near the rankings themselves, rather than buried?
How hard is it to game? Controls against fake reviews, solicited reviews, and vendor gaming raise this; an open box anyone can stuff lowers it.
Evidence
- The Points Guy was founded in 2010 by Brian Kelly as a blog; it was acquired by Bankrate in 2012, and became part of Red Ventures when Red Ventures acquired Bankrate in 2017. Source: Wikipedia - The Points Guy →
- TPG's advertising policy states it may receive compensation when readers click links to apply for a new card, and that 'This compensation may impact the location and visibility of these products (including, for example, the order in which they appear on our roundups or the frequency we write about them).' It claims the editorial team retains control over star ratings, while disclosing affiliate ties at the top of editorial pages. Source: The Points Guy - Advertising Policy →
- TPG publishes a 1-5 star review methodology based on six factors (earning potential, rewards redemptions, perks, authorized user cards, user experience, annual fee), stating 'card ratings are decided by our independent editorial team and not influenced by any of our partners' — but it does not publish numerical weights. Source: The Points Guy - Review Methodology →
- Reporting on TPG's affiliate business: credit card companies pay publishers like TPG 'as much as $120 per customer' approved, up to four times that for high-volume publishers, and TPG locked exclusive card-marketing deals with Citi, Bank of America and Chase. Source: Digiday - How The Points Guy built a business based on affiliate fees →