Card Value

Card Value

Goal

Return a compact first-year value estimate for one exact card variant.

Input Format

The user provides a card name followed by an optional spending breakdown:

• /card-value Chase Sapphire Preferred — uses a reasonable default annual spend estimate
• /card-value Chase Sapphire Preferred $500/mo dining, $200/mo travel, $3000/mo other — uses the provided breakdown

If no breakdown is given, use a default moderate-spender profile ($500/mo dining, $200/mo travel, $100/mo streaming, $200/mo groceries, $2000/mo other).

Search Strategy: search-required

Fetch the issuer page + up to 5 secondary sources for current SUB details. Prefer NerdWallet, The Points Guy, Bankrate, One Mile at a Time, and Doctor of Credit. Run searches in parallel.

Workflow

1. Resolve the card using ../card-identity/SKILL.md. If ambiguous, return a numbered choice list and stop.
2. Run one Brave Search API call (see search_method in ../card-shared/source-policy.yaml):

   curl -sS "https://api.search.brave.com/res/v1/web/search?q=CARD+NAME+welcome+offer+annual+fee+value&count=10" -H "X-Subscription-Token: $BRAVE_API_KEY"
   

   If $BRAVE_API_KEY is not set, fall back to WebSearch.
3. Fetch pages — pick the top issuer URL and up to 2 secondary URLs (prefer nerdwallet.com and thepointsguy.com) from the search results. Fetch in parallel:

   curl -sS -L "URL" | sed 's/<[^>]*>//g' | tr -s '\n' | head -200
   

   Search snippets are too shallow for value calculations — the actual pages have complete credit values, earning rates, and offer details.
4. Research: annual fee, welcome offer (bonus + spend requirement), earning rates by category, and statement credits.
5. Compute: first_year_value = welcome_bonus_value + annual_earn_value + total_credits - annual_fee.
6. Use 1 cpp as the baseline point value unless the card has a known portal or transfer premium (note the assumed valuation in confidence notes).
7. Apply confidence handling from ../card-shared/confidence-rules.md.
8. Return compact markdown using the card-value contract in ../card-shared/command-contracts.yaml.
9. YAML is internal only — do not include it in user-facing output.
10. Do not show a "Why It Matters" section.

Required Sections

• ## 💳 Spend Profile
• ## 🎁 Welcome Bonus
• ## 📈 Annual Earn
• ## 🏷️ Credits — statement credits and complimentary subscriptions only; not enhanced earn rates or point multipliers
• ## 💰 Net First-Year Value
• ## 📋 Confidence Notes
• ## 🔗 Sources — numbered list of URLs fetched, as markdown hyperlinks with short "Site - Topic" labels, e.g. [Chase - Sapphire Preferred](https://...)

Omit ## Card Identity when the match is confident. The Net First-Year Value section should show the math clearly in one compact block.