Top 10 Most Popular U.S. Credit Cards

About This List

We’ve published all kinds of credit card rankings on our blog, covering welcome bonuses, long-term keeper cards, spending by category, business cards, and more. The Top 10 we’re looking at today is a bit different: it comes from real users’ actual card portfolios, so it gives us a look at which credit cards people are truly holding in practice. The data comes from the RewardsWise APP, where users can add their own credit cards, check various benefits and reimbursement usage, and even link their credit card accounts to view all card transaction data in one APP. Our blog also works closely with them and is integrated into their APP, so when there’s big news, everyone can be notified in real time through the messaging system. That way, you won’t miss any all-time-high welcome bonus offers!

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Recently, we organized RewardsWise user credit card data and compiled the current Top 10 US credit cards by share of users holding them. We wanted to share the results with everyone—and you can also see how many cards you personally have in the Top 10~

Top 10: Chase Marriott Bonvoy Boundless — 13.20%

It’s not surprising to see this card on the list. After all, for a card with a $95 annual fee, you get a Marriott free night certificate worth 35,000 points just for holding it, and getting around $200 in value from it is fairly easy. On top of that, this card often comes with an offer for 5 free night certificates worth 50,000 points each, which is perfect for vacation travel. Marriott points are also quite flexible: you can transfer them to miles programs such as UA, AS, BA, and JAL, and every 20,000 points transferred comes with an extra 5,000-point bonus. So it makes sense that this is one of the more popular hotel co-branded cards.

Still, this card only ranks tenth, with a 13.2% holding rate. I think the biggest reason is probably that Chase has the 5/24 rule, which blocks a lot of people here. In addition, some people have upgraded their Marriott card to the Ritz-Carlton card to get the more valuable 85,000-point free night certificate plus easy-to-use travel credits.

Top 9: AMEX Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant — 14.54%

Ninth place is another Marriott co-branded card. The biggest feature of this card is that simply by holding it, you get Marriott Platinum elite status. Platinum members can access Marriott lounges for free, enjoy complimentary breakfast for two, and if you’re lucky, get room or suite upgrades. It may not be top-tier Titanium, but Platinum is already enough to unlock very solid hotel benefits. In addition, just for holding the card, you receive an 85,000-point Marriott free night certificate, which can cover stays at most upper-midrange and upscale Marriott properties, including Ritz-Carlton and St. Regis. The card also provides $300 in annual dining credits, which are relatively easy to use. Between the free night certificate and the $300 credit, you can more or less offset the annual fee.

This card ranks ninth with a 14.54% holding rate, mainly because the annual fee is relatively high, and the credits plus free night certificate mostly just break even against that fee. If you don’t stay at Marriott properties often, then Platinum status doesn’t offer much value. As a premium card highly specialized for Marriott stays, it’s less broadly useful than premium cards from major banks. On top of that, its bonus earning rates aren’t especially strong, so for many people it just sits in a drawer while they collect the free night certificate.

Top 8: AMEX Hilton Honors — 14.88%

This is the one that surprised me the most. A no-annual-fee Hilton card with no meaningful ongoing benefits beyond the welcome bonus actually ranked eighth! Of course, its welcome bonus is still quite strong for a no-annual-fee card—especially the current offer of 70,000 points plus an unrestricted free night certificate, which is already on par with bonuses you’d expect from cards with around a $100 annual fee. I think another reason for this card’s high holding rate is that it’s a great entry-level AMEX card. Many people apply for it when they’ve only had six months of credit history and get approved successfully. In addition, some experienced players also apply through NLL links with the goal of upgrading it to the Hilton Aspire card the following year.

There’s not much to complain about here. For a no-annual-fee card, it’s already pretty good. The main downside is probably that it doesn’t offer many benefits that make it worth keeping long term.

Top 7: AMEX Gold Card — 18.34%

It’s not surprising to see this card rank seventh. It’s basically AMEX’s mid-tier card. One very appealing part is the 60,000–100,000-point welcome bonus. Sure, if your relationship with AMEX isn’t great, you might only get the 60,000-point offer—but even 60,000 Membership Rewards points can be very valuable. For example, using them for ANA miles to book business class between the US and China can be an excellent deal. This card also puts a lot of emphasis on dining: not only does it earn 4x points on dining worldwide, it also offers $84 in Dunkin' Donuts credits, $120 in dining credits, and $100 in Resy credits. You could say it covers everything from everyday meals to more upscale dining. Beyond dining, it also earns 4x points at supermarkets, making it a great card for grocery shopping. Sometimes supermarkets also sell third-party gift cards, so you can buy those gift cards with this card to earn 4x points, then use the gift cards at the corresponding merchants—effectively turning that into 4x rewards on those merchants too.

That said, it’s understandable that this card didn’t make the Top 5. After all, the annual fee has gone up to $325. For people who don’t like high annual fees, even if the credits can help offset the fee, having to remember to use them every month is still a hassle. So quite a few people have downgraded or closed this card, while another group has upgraded to the AMEX Platinum for more benefits and much richer credits.

Top 6: Bank of America Customized Cash Rewards — 20.20%

Finally, we get a no-annual-fee card in the Top 10, and this one really is worth keeping long term for most people. You can choose one category—such as online shopping, travel, or home improvement—to earn 3% cash back, so it can fill whichever gap you need. Another hidden strength is that if you have a BofA checking account and enough deposits to qualify for BofA Preferred Rewards, you can get up to a 75% rewards boost. That means 3% cash back becomes 5.25%, 2% becomes 3.5%, and all other purchases earn a baseline 1.75% cash back. For people who don’t want to mess around with points, this is definitely a very low-maintenance card.

Of course, the downside is also that it’s very simple: there’s no special way to increase the redemption value of the rewards, since you can only cash them out directly. And the bonus cash back categories have monthly caps, so for more advanced card users, it may not be that exciting. This 20.2% holding rate was probably driven by a lot of beginners.

Top 5: Chase Freedom Flex — 23.05%

Fifth place is still a no-annual-fee card: the Chase Freedom Flex. This card has always been one of the most important pieces of Chase’s no-annual-fee lineup. Its predecessor was the Chase Freedom card with rotating 5x quarterly categories. The current version keeps the 5x categories, adds 3x on dining and drugstores, and gets the new “Flex” name. Both the 5x categories and the 3x categories work well for everyday spending, and the Ultimate Rewards points it earns can be transferred into airline miles or hotel points through an annual-fee card like the Chase Sapphire Preferred or Chase Sapphire Reserve, increasing their value even further. This card is also a great downgrade option for other Chase cards—after all, who wouldn’t want an extra Flex card to get more quarterly 5x categories?

However, this card’s holding rate is only 23.05%, just a little higher than Bank of America Customized Cash Rewards. One possible reason is the impact of Chase 5/24, and some people may also be too lazy to product change from the original Freedom to Freedom Flex, which likely offsets some potential cardholders as well. In any case, if you like earning Chase Ultimate Rewards points, this is one of the best cards to keep for the long term and to efficiently rack up Ultimate Rewards points.

Top 4: AMEX Platinum Card — 23.57%

Coming in fourth by holding rate is the AMEX Platinum card, which is the entry-level premium card for many people. First of all, the welcome bonus is extremely strong, reaching as high as 175,000 points, which can be worth $2,000+. Although the annual fee is as high as $895, the statement credits are also very generous, and many of the benefits are genuinely useful. For example, there are airline incidental credits, up to $600 in FHR hotel credits, Resy dining credits, and more. If used well, these can easily outweigh the annual fee. That’s why many people keep this card long term. On top of that, this card often has NLL links, making it especially attractive to apply multiple times for the welcome bonus, so a 23.57% holding rate is pretty much in line with expectations.

That said, the annual fee really is very high, which scares off some people who do not need premium benefits. Quite a few people keep the card for one year, collect the bonus and benefits, and then either downgrade to the AMEX Gold or close the card in year two. Overall, as the most expensive annual-fee card in the Top 5, AMEX’s premium card lineup is still highly trusted for a reason.

Top 3 Chase Freedom Unlimited — 28.57%

We’ve finally reached the Top 3, and surprisingly it is another no-annual-fee Chase card: Freedom Unlimited. Its earning structure is very simple: 3x at restaurants and drugstores, and a flat 1.5x on all other spending. We already covered the Flex card earlier, and this one works similarly in that you can build up a large amount of Ultimate Rewards points through everyday spending, then transfer them via a premium card into airline miles or hotel points. However, this card is even more convenient for cash back. Aside from bonus categories where you should use the corresponding card, you can put almost everything else on this card and mindlessly earn 1.5x. For example, insurance payments, auto insurance, and tax payments can all go on this card. In addition, it recently had a 30,000-point all-time-high welcome bonus, which is another reason its holding rate is relatively high.

Personally, I’m not a big fan of this card. In everyday spending, outside of bonus categories, you can usually just use that spending to meet a new card’s minimum spend requirement, and after that there often is not much leftover spending anyway. I don’t think it is necessary to carry a separate card just for 1.5x. Let’s see how the rankings change next year and whether this is only a temporary boost caused by that recent all-time-high offer.

Top 2: AMEX Hilton Aspire — 32.31%

Top 2 is a card that points-and-miles enthusiasts love to see. Even though it has a $550 annual fee, the free night certificate plus easy-to-use airline and hotel credits make it a card you can hold at a negative net cost. On top of that, simply holding the card gives you Hilton’s top-tier Diamond status, which includes free breakfast for two, lounge access, and a fairly good chance of room upgrades. Even better, the one free night certificate you get every year has no category restriction. That means as long as a Hilton property anywhere in the world has a standard room available, you can use the certificate. Great redemption options include Waldorf Astoria Beijing, Conrad Tokyo, Waldorf Astoria Beverly Hills, Waldorf Astoria Washington DC, Waldorf Astoria Chicago, Grand Wailea in Hawaii, and Conrad Bora Bora Nui. During peak periods, the value can easily reach $1,000+. That’s why many people wish they could hold multiple Aspire cards and get multiple free night certificates per year to cover their luxury travel needs.

There is not much to complain about with this card. The only real downside is that it may run into AMEX’s 4-card-slot limitation (AMEX generally allows you to hold only 4 or 5 credit cards, after which new applications may be denied). Also, AMEX has a once-per-lifetime welcome bonus rule, so after you’ve received the bonus once, you usually cannot get it again.

Top 1: Chase Sapphire Preferred — 41.49%

And here comes Top 1: Chase Sapphire Preferred, with an impressive 41.49% holding rate, far ahead of the other cards in the Top 10. First, its $95 annual fee is a breath of fresh air among mid-tier credit cards. By comparison, the annual fee on the similarly positioned AMEX Gold has already risen to $325. This card’s welcome bonus has generally floated in the 60,000 to 75,000-point range, with a 100,000-point offer showing up every few years. So I would guess that quite a few users got in when the 100,000-point offer was available. This card also has several very practical benefits. One is the $50 hotel credit, which can be used on pretty much any hotel booking and is great for booking an inexpensive hotel stop on a road trip, immediately offsetting about half the annual fee. By holding this annual-fee card, you can also turn the Ultimate Rewards points earned quickly on your other no-annual-fee Chase cards into airline miles and hotel points, further increasing their value. Its bonus categories are also travel-friendly: 3x on dining and 2x on other travel, making it broadly useful. There is also a 10% annual bonus each year.

All in all, this is a credit card that has not been overwhelmed by an endless pile of complicated credits. It is easy and low-cost to keep, while also unlocking the full value of your points ecosystem. That is probably why so many people hold this card for the long term.

Summary

Did this ranking of what users actually hold surprise you at all? We also have a few other rankings compiled on our blog that you may want to check out:

• Best US Credit Card Welcome Bonus Offers (Personal Cards) [Updated Monthly]
• Best US Small Business Credit Cards [Updated Monthly]
• Which Credit Card Earns the Best Rewards in Each Spending Category?
• Best Credit Cards to Keep for the Long Term

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