The Best Tools for Tracking Bank Bonuses & Credit Card SUBs in 2026

If you're earning bank account bonuses and credit card sign-up bonuses (SUBs), you already know the hardest part isn't finding deals — it's keeping track of everything.

Which bonus posted? When can you close this account without clawback? Did you hit the minimum spend? What's your 5/24 count? Which direct deposits have you already used at which bank?

Without a tracking system, things fall through the cracks. And in this hobby, a missed deadline or a forgotten requirement can cost you hundreds of dollars.

Here's a breakdown of the most popular tracking tools, what they're good at, where they fall short, and how to pick the right one for your workflow.

What You Actually Need to Track

Before diving into tools, let's define the problem. A solid tracking system needs to capture:

• Account details — bank/issuer name, account type, open date
• Bonus requirements — minimum spend, direct deposit amount, debit transactions, holding period
• Deadlines — when the bonus requirement window closes, when you can safely close the account
• Status — applied, opened, requirements met, bonus posted, closed
• Bonus value — the dollar amount or points earned
• Notes — which direct deposit method you used, referral links, any quirks

For credit cards specifically, you also need to track your x/24 timeline, annual fee dates, and product change / downgrade options.

That's a lot of variables. Let's look at how different tools handle them.

Google Sheets: The DIY Classic

Google Sheets is the most common starting point for bonus trackers, and for good reason — it's free, flexible, and you probably already use it.

What works well

• Total customization. You can build exactly the columns, formulas, and conditional formatting you want.
• Formulas for deadlines. A simple =A2+90 formula can auto-calculate your bonus deadline from the open date.
• Shareable. If you and a partner (referred to as "Player 2" in the community) are both churning, you can share one sheet.
• Templates exist. Communities like r/churning and Doctor of Credit have shared templates you can copy.

Where it falls short

• Manual everything. You're entering every data point by hand. No auto-fill, no logo lookups, no smart defaults.
• Gets unwieldy fast. Once you have 30+ accounts across banks and cards, a single spreadsheet becomes hard to navigate.
• No mobile-friendly experience. Editing a wide spreadsheet on your phone is painful.
• No built-in reminders. You'd need to set calendar alerts separately for every deadline.
• Version drift. Templates go stale. The spreadsheet you copied in 2024 doesn't know about 2026 bonus structures, new banks, or changed rules.

Best for: People who want maximum control and are comfortable building their own system from scratch.

Airtable: The Structured Upgrade

Airtable bridges the gap between spreadsheets and databases. It gives you relational data, views, and filtering without writing SQL.

What works well

• Multiple views. Switch between grid, kanban (by status), calendar (by deadline), and gallery views on the same data.
• Relational linking. You can link a "Banks" table to a "Bonuses" table, so updating a bank's info updates it everywhere.
• Automations. Airtable can send you an email or Slack message when a deadline is approaching.
• Better mobile app. Significantly more usable on a phone than Google Sheets.

Where it falls short

• Learning curve. Setting up relations, rollups, and automations takes time if you're not already familiar with Airtable.
• Free tier limits. The free plan caps you at 1,000 records and limited automation runs. Heavy churners can hit this.
• Still generic. Airtable doesn't know what a bank bonus is. You're still building the schema yourself — it just gives you better building blocks.
• No community knowledge built in. It won't tell you that a particular bank is ChexSystems-sensitive or that a specific SUB is historically high.

Best for: Organized power users who want more structure than a spreadsheet but enjoy building their own system.

Travel Freely: The Churning-Aware Option

Travel Freely is purpose-built for credit card rewards tracking. It's the most well-known dedicated tool in the points and miles community.

What works well

• Credit card focused. It understands cards, issuers, annual fees, and bonus categories natively.
• Application tracking. Log your applications and track approvals, denials, and recon attempts.
• Referral management. Track referral links and bonuses earned from them.
• Multi-player support. Built-in support for tracking cards across multiple household members.

Where it falls short

• Minimal bank bonus support. Travel Freely was designed around credit cards. Bank account bonuses — which are a huge part of the points/miles earning ecosystem — are an afterthought or unsupported.
• No spend tracking granularity. You can't easily track "I need $4,000 in spend in 3 months, and I've hit $2,800 so far."
• Limited customization. You're working within their predefined fields and workflow. If your tracking needs don't match their model, you're stuck.
• Free tier limitations. Some features are locked behind a paid plan.

Best for: People primarily focused on credit card rewards who want a dedicated tool without building anything themselves.

PointsDB: Everything in One Place

Full disclosure — this is our product, but we built it specifically because we hit the limitations above ourselves.

PointsDB is designed to track both bank bonuses and credit card SUBs in a single dashboard, with the context and intelligence that generic tools lack.

What makes it different

• Bank bonuses + credit cards together. Track checking/savings bonuses alongside your credit card SUBs in one unified view. No more maintaining two separate systems.
• Smart organization. Accounts are organized by institution with real logos, statuses, and timelines — not rows in a spreadsheet.
• Bonus requirement tracking. Log your direct deposits, minimum spend progress, and holding periods with clear status indicators.
• x/24 timeline built in. Your card application timeline is calculated automatically, so you always know your count before applying.
• Community-aware defaults. When you add a bank or issuer, PointsDB already knows it exists — no need to manually type "JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A." and hope it matches later.
• Works on any device. Designed mobile-first, so you can check your bonus status or add a new account from your phone just as easily as your laptop.

When to use it

• You're tracking both bank bonuses and credit cards (most serious churners are).
• You want something that works out of the box without spending hours building a spreadsheet.
• You care about having a clean, organized view of your active bonuses at a glance.

Picking the Right Tool

There's no single "best" tool — it depends on your style:

• If you love spreadsheets and want total control, Google Sheets is fine. Just accept that you'll spend time maintaining it.
• If you want structure without code, Airtable is a solid upgrade, especially with automations.
• If you only track credit cards, Travel Freely is a reasonable dedicated option.
• If you track both bank bonuses and credit cards and want something purpose-built that just works, give PointsDB a try.

The worst option? No tracking at all. Even a basic spreadsheet is infinitely better than trying to remember everything in your head. The bonuses are too valuable and the deadlines too unforgiving to wing it.

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Ready to consolidate your tracking? Head over to your PointsDB Dashboard and start adding your active bonuses today.