One of the challenges with premium credit cards like the Chase Sapphire Reserve and the Amex Platinum is making sure you take advantage of their perks and benefits to justify their steep annual fees. The responsibility is entirely on us as cardholders to understand and use these perks—some of which are provided annually, while others are meted out monthly or semi-annually, each with their own fine print and restrictions.
In an ideal world it would be nice for the card companies to monitor our use and remind us to use the available perks, but until that happens we’re on our own. Or so I thought, until I discovered the app CardPointers, available at no cost for iPhones, Android phones and iPads.
CardPointers is an exceptionally clever software product that tracks your credit card benefits and reminds you to use them before they expire. It’s the creation of Emmanuel Crouvisier, a software engineer from Miami, FL. He’s been working on the app since 2019 and continues to add new features. He left his old job to create this app to help millions, and he told me it the best job he’s ever had.
Getting started is simple. Enter your credit card name, the issue date, and annual fee. From there, CardPointers taps into its extensive database of more than 5,000 card issuers in the U.S. and Canada to display all the benefits you’re entitled to.
But CardPointers goes far beyond simply listing your benefits. It keeps tabs on rotating quarterly and semi-annual perks, finds limited-time offers like Amex Offers and Chase Offers, and important statement credits and hotel credits before they expire. The app is privacy-conscious. It doesn’t connect to your bank account or require your credit card numbers. You just tell it which cards you have, and it does the rest by matching known card benefits, while you check off the benefits as you use them. The app also puts at your fingertips a detailed list of all of the card benefits, avoiding the need to go back and find your agreement or go to your bank’s website to understand what you’re entitled to.
While CardPointers is outstanding for tracking benefits on a single expensive card, it truly shines for those of us juggling multiple credit cards. It doesn’t just track perks; it actively advises you which card to use to earn the most rewards—whether that’s points, miles, or cash back—based on what you’re buying and where you’re shopping.
For example, it might tell you to use your Chase Sapphire Reserve at a restaurant, your Amex Gold at a grocery store, and your Citi Custom Cash at a gas station. In my own wallet, I carry a Sapphire Reserve card, a Costco card, a Chase Ink card, and an Amazon Prime card. At Whole Foods it recommended the Amazon card (5% rebate), at Costco the Sapphire card, and at Costco Gas, the Costco card.
The app removes the guesswork of figuring out which card to hand over at the register or which to save for specific spending categories. You don’t have to remember if your drugstore purchases are best with the Ink card or your hardware store with the Sapphire—CardPointers tells you on the spot based on the current benefits. It also continuously monitors and informs you of new offers from your card issuers, so you never miss an opportunity to add new rewards or claim extra discounts.
What distinguishes CardPointers is how intelligently and clearly it processes and presents the complex web of reward structures and fleeting promotions, all with the goal of maximizing your earnings. Its focus is to make sure you’re always making the best decision at the point of purchase, steering you toward the card that will deliver the greatest return, whether that’s in travel points, airline miles, or cash back. It even lets you add informational cards in your phone’s wallet for categories you select.
When you’re out shopping, CardPointers offers real-time recommendations. With its clever augmented reality feature, you can point your phone’s camera at a store or look on a map, and it will instantly tell you which of your cards to use there, based on your personal benefits.
CardPointers comes in both a free and paid version. The free version is sufficient if all you need is help figuring out which card to use where, keeping track of your rewards categories, and organizing your various perks.
But for around $60 a year, CardPointers+ provides personalized reminders, automatic tracking of your card-linked offers, and deeper multi-year analytics to ensure you never miss out on credits and can confidently decide whether to keep or cancel your premium cards. If you have multiple premium cards, use targeted offers frequently, or want push reminders before credits expire so you never waste perks, CardPointers+ more than pays for itself. And it’s a way to thank Mr. Crouvisier for his years of effort to help us get the most from our credit cards. This is a product that Chase or Amex should offer their cardholders if they want to provide another benefit to their members………..unless they don’t want us to know about it.
A free 7-day trial is offered for CardPointers+ at their website https://cardpointers.com
Wow, this could preserve my perk-chasing sanity.