Pick-A-Card

A phone-friendly web app that tells you which card to use for a purchase. The standout features are:

1. Rotating categories. Discover it and Chase Freedom quarterly categories are built in. The app tracks whether you activated each quarter and how much of the $1,500 cap you've used.
2. Points aren't all worth the same. Each rewards currency has a cents-per-point value you set. Restricted points (like GM Rewards) don't beat real cash back, and hotel and airline points use realistic values.

Other features:

• 📍 What card here? Uses your phone's GPS and OpenStreetMap data (via Photon, with Overpass and Nominatim as backups) to find the store you're in, then ranks your cards for it. It recognizes hotel sub-brands too: a Hampton Inn counts as Hilton, a Courtyard as Marriott.
• Store-specific deals. Partner bonuses like Sapphire Preferred 5x at Lyft, travel-portal multipliers and co-brand hotel/airline bonuses count when you're at that merchant. When you pick a general category, a "Better at specific places" hint shows them. For example, Rideshare shows "Lyft: Sapphire Preferred 5%".
• Benefits that tip the decision. Rental car insurance, cell phone protection, trip delay, lounge access and credits show up as 💡 tips and break ties.
• Traveling abroad. The app notices when you're outside the US and subtracts foreign transaction fees.
• 143 credit and debit cards from 25+ issuers. Pick by issuer, search, or filter to debit cards (PayPal, Cash App, Venmo, Discover). You can also add any card yourself.
• Spending caps per month/quarter/year, "pick your category" cards, and store payment rules (Costco only takes Visa in store).
• Automatic updates. Card terms and rotating categories update by themselves, with a "what changed" notice and Undo.
• Accounts (optional). Sign in to sync your cards across devices and get email updates.
• Works offline except the store lookup. Without an account, everything stays on your device; use Export/Import in Settings for backups.

Install on your phone

App link: https://pick-a-card.github.io/credit-card-picker/

iPhone / iPad

1. Open the link in Safari.
2. Tap the Share button (the square with an arrow, at the bottom or top of the screen).
3. Scroll down and tap Add to Home Screen. If you see Open as Web App, leave it on.
4. Tap Add, then open Pick-A-Card from your home screen.
5. For What card here?, allow location when asked. If you said no before, go to Settings → Privacy & Security → Location Services → Safari Websites → While Using the App.

Android

1. Open the link in Chrome.
2. Tap ⋮ → Add to Home screen → Install.
3. (Optional one-tap button) Long-press the app icon and drag the "What card here?" shortcut onto your home screen.

The same steps are in the app under ☰ → Settings → Install on your phone.

Then add your cards with ☰ → ＋ Add cards, and set what your points are worth in ☰ → Point values. Tick Activated on rotating-category cards once you've activated the quarter with your bank.

About widgets: a web app can't add a real home-screen widget. On Android, the launcher shortcut is the closest thing. iPhone doesn't support app shortcuts for web apps.

How card data stays current

• Card terms live in data/cards.json. The app re-checks it every time it opens.

• A scheduled Claude routine follows UPDATING.md on the 16th of every month and on the 1st of each quarter. It checks:

  • rotating categories
  • earn rates and caps
  • benefits and partner deals
  • new and discontinued cards

  It also verifies cards still marked "terms not yet verified". It publishes only if the data checks (npm test) pass.

• Cards you've edited yourself are never overwritten; you get "Use the update / Keep mine" instead.

• If you have an account and turned on email updates, you get an email about these changes.

Support & contact

Pick-A-Card is free, with no ads. If it's useful, you can buy me a coffee ☕. Questions, or a card that's wrong or missing: [email protected]

Disclaimer

Pick-A-Card is an independent tool and isn't affiliated with, or endorsed by, any bank or card issuer. Recommendations are estimates based on published card terms, which change often and may be out of date or wrong. This isn't financial advice: confirm rates, caps and fees with your issuer before relying on them.

Privacy

Your cards, spending log and settings stay on your phone, or in your own Firebase account if you turn on sync. When you tap What card here?, only your location is sent, and only to these US/EU-based services:

Service	Run by	Used for
Photon	komoot (Germany)	Finding nearby stores (main)
Overpass, overpass-api.de	OpenStreetMap volunteers (Germany)	Backup store lookup
Nominatim	OpenStreetMap Foundation (UK)	Last-resort backup
gstatic.com	Google (US)	Internet check after a failed lookup (no location sent)

Development

No build step. Plain HTML/CSS/ES modules.

npm start    # serves on http://localhost:8080
npm test     # ranking, sync, email-diff and card-data validation tests (Node 20+)

File	What it does
data/cards.json	Cards, benefits, rotating quarters, partner deals, point currencies, changelog
js/engine.js	Ranking: earn rate × point value, caps, rotating quarters, store deals, foreign fees, benefit tie-breaks
js/data.js	Categories, merchant directory (each merchant also gets an m:<id> category), OpenStreetMap mapping
js/catalog.js, js/sync.js	Load card data and apply updates to your wallet (auto-update, undo, keep-mine)
js/cloud.js, js/sync-merge.js, js/firebase-config.js	Optional accounts and cross-device sync
js/location.js	GPS + Overpass lookup of nearby stores; abroad detection
scripts/card-diff.mjs, scripts/notify.mjs	Email updates when card data changes
js/store.js, js/app.js	Local storage and UI

Store data © OpenStreetMap contributors.