How we know this
HopPerks compares 113 cards across 440 lounges at 131 airports. Accuracy is the whole point, so every fact is traceable: it carries a source link, a date we last checked it, and a confidence label. Here's exactly what those mean and where the numbers come from.
Last updated
Every fact links to its source
Wherever you see a fact on a card or lounge page — an annual fee, an earn rate, a lounge's terminal — there's a small badge next to it. The badge is the source: click it to open the page we took the fact from. The glyph tells you how solid it is:
- ✓Verified — confirmed against the official issuer or lounge-network page.
- ≈Inferred — from a reputable secondary source (a well-known points site) when the issuer page blocks automated checks.
- ?Estimated — our best current knowledge with no single source located — treat it as a starting point, not gospel.
Freshness — a date on everything
Card benefits change. Each fact records when we last checked it, and pages show a “Last updated” date that turns amber once a fact is more than ~4 months old, so you know when to double-check. We re-verify the stalest facts first — see the live data-freshness dashboard for the current verified share and what's due for a re-check.
We verify, we don't guess from memory
Card and lounge facts are checked against live authoritative sources — the issuer's rates & fees page, a lounge network's official locations list — not recalled from memory, which drifts and is confidently wrong. Verification sweeps have already caught stale fees and lounges that had closed or not yet opened. Nothing reaches the site unreviewed.
Spend estimates (the Quick finder)
When you use the Quick mode of Find a card and tell us about yourself instead of typing exact spend, we estimate your spending from real US averages — the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — Consumer Expenditure Survey (2024). Income sets the baseline; household size adjusts it. One honest caveat: the survey has no single “travel” line, so our travel estimate uses the lodging figure scaled by how often you travel — it's a rough floor. Know your numbers? Switch to Exact mode for precise math.
How the value math works
“Realized value” = what a card earns on your spend (earn rate × spend × the card's baseline point value) plus statement credits you'd realistically use, minus the annual fee. It assumes you use every eligible credit, so it's an upper bound, not a promise. Transferable points are often worth more than our conservative baseline. Rankings are by this value — never by what an issuer would pay us.
When we flag a card as bad value
Vendor-neutrality cuts both ways, so we also flag cards that are hard to justify (see cards to be careful with). Every flag is derived from the card's own published terms— a fee, an APR, a starting credit limit — and framed as our read of the math, never a characterization of the issuer. A “watch out” fires only on clear, defensible conditions: fixed fees that consume a large share of a low credit line (subprime “fee-harvester” cards), deferred-intereststore financing (interest charged retroactively if a promo balance isn't cleared in time), or a cash-back/no-rewards fee that a free flat-rate card beats. We don't put affiliate or apply links on cards we flag.
Vendor-neutral, always
We never take issuer money for placement, never hide an unfavorable comparison, and never bias the ranking toward a card that pays us more. If a card we surface earns us a referral fee, that link is marked — see our affiliate disclosure. The comparison itself stays honest regardless.
Found something wrong or out of date? That's the one thing that breaks this tool — tell us and we'll re-verify. Informational only, not financial advice.