Frequently Asked Questions
Is my information kept private?
Yes! In fact, we don’t collect any personally identifiable information, except if you sign up for our newsletter or leave feedback on our blog (see our privacy section for more information).
How can I benefit by using PlasticIQ?
Most ordinary citizens are forced to guess at which credit card will be best for them, without any solid framework for thinking about this challenge analytically. PIQ is the one tool you need to optimize your selection of a credit card—which in turn means you earn more rewards, pay less interest, and end up with more money in your pocket.
How does PlasticIQ know how to rank the credit card offers for me from best to worst?
PIQ goes a step further than just ranking the cards, and actually estimates what each card would be worth to you, in dollars and cents, over a 3-year period of use. Since the value of a credit card is based primarily on the value of any rewards minus any interest and fees you pay, you just need to provide us with enough information to be able to figure those different pieces of the puzzle. When you provide us with an estimate of how much you spend monthly by major spend category, we then take that information and determine how many rewards (or points, or cash back) each credit card would generate. The tricky part is then for things like airline miles, converting those miles to a dollar value. We do our own proprietary research (for example, benchmarking the average price of airline tickets by carrier and how many miles it would take to buy that ticket) to come up with estimates for this.
To determine how much interest you would pay on each credit card, we just ask you to provide us with an estimate of how much of each month’s credit card balance you usually pay (anywhere from the minimum balance to the full balance). Of course its always best to pay your balance in full, and credit cards are usually long-term money-losers if you don’t! (see our PlasticIQ School for more on this). Since this tells us your outstanding balance at any point in time, and since we know the interest rate that each credit card charges on your outstanding balance, its straightforward to calculate.
Fees are the easiest to calculate, since they are specified in the terms and conditions of each credit card. Some cards have annual fees, and a few cards even charge to be part of their rewards program! Yikes!
How does PlasticIQ make money?
We make money when you apply for and get approved for a credit card that we recommend. We NEVER bias results (ie recommend cards where we get higher payments and not recommend cards with lower payments). I’m much more interested in building long-term value for this website, and to do that I need to provide folks with the best recommendations possible.