Cards With Annual Fees
What do you guys do about cards with fees? Do you avoid them altogether? Do you only use ones where you can waive the first year fee? Do you keep asking them to waive additional fees? How do you get them to keep doing it? Do you figure out the break-even for the fee? How do you do the math? Favorite cards?
I got the first year of the Barclays Arrival Plus Mastercard waived and that was a year ago and now they want money. I'm searching thepointsguy for a travel card to switch to but don't want to do that every year. Need a sustainable, low-maintenance game plan.
If you’re not a big spender or very frequent traveler, in most cases it only makes sense to carry one card with a major annual fee. That said, some of the cards, again it will depend on your spend activity (volume and mix), will have a reasonable break even. The Sapphire Reserve is always worth a hard look in my opinion.
Travel and Dining are 3% back. If you’re willing to redeem them for travel then you’re looking at an additional 1.5x return, so you’re up to 4.5% back on these categories. If you hit the $300 travel reimbursement, and pretty much everything qualifies for it, then you’re looking at an effective annual fee of $150
At $3,333 of travel and dining, which is basically a week vacation with the Mrs, then you are at your B/E for the year. Everything else is gravy. This is in addition to the float of the 50,000 points you get upfront with the min spend sign-up bonus. Again, if you redeem it for flights or hotels, it’s worth 75,000.
If you can get over seeing the $450 annual fee on your statement then it’s a great card.
You can call and ask them to waive the fee. It worked for me a few times before.
https://thepointsguy.com/2017/04/waive-card-annual-fee/
I've been playing the points game for years now. Some cards are totally worth the fees others no so much. I usually have 2-3 cards with fees rotating in and out in terms rewards availability and sign up bonuses.
Top cards- Chase Sapphire Reserve- had crazy 100k bonus sign up when i got it. The $450 annual fee may seem like a lot, but you do get $300 travel credit so the fee becomes $150. Also get global entry fee refunded ($100). So first year is really net $50. 3x on travel and dining racks up a huge amount of points for me. Not to mention 50% bonus on booking travel through chase portal. I've basically flown for free 5 times this year because of it.
Hyatt Chase card- $95 fee. One night free annually at 1-5 category property. The fee pays for itself if you use the one night reward prudently. I used it for a $300 room this year.
Chase Freedom- No fee and 5% rotating category bonus. The key with this card is that you can transfer points to your chase saphire card which is huge. Not sure how much longer Chase will allow this as it is burning them big time. Overall I think they are losing money on the Reserve card also.
So I called to ask them to waive the fee. I've got a Barclays Arrival +. I did the math and tell me if I'm wrong, but I was trying to do apples-to-apples with cash-back cards. And last year, I redeemed 60,000 miles for a $600 credit and points accumulate at 2pnts/$1. Doesn't that bring us to 2% cash back? That's not that good. I don't think that's worth paying an $85 fee for.
Well anyway, I called and they said that waiving the first year fee shouldn't be a problem and to just call after the 31st when it is assessed so they can waive it. After doing the math on the cash back and snooping around the PointsGuy site, I'd like to get another card actually. But I have like 17 recent inquiries on my credit report so I'm not going to for a while... I wrote up a little script and here it is. It's what I used on the phone.
"Good morning,
I’m calling because I just got a letter from you guys saying that I would be charged an annual fee on October 31 and to call to discuss options. Honestly, I forgot this was a fee card since the first year was waived. I like the card and you guys have great customer service, but I’m not sure I can justify paying a fee for another year after looking at what other travel reward cards are out there."
Let me know if they waive it. They wouldn't waive it for me a few years ago.
I use three fee cards: CSR: $450 - ALL Travel and Dining Amex PRG: $195 Groceries and Gas (except Costco) Delta Amex Gold: $95 Live in Atlanta and fly Delta (free checked bag)
It is weird for m because in Italy I have to pay for an account and a card but I don't in the UK, not even for a credit card, of course as a basic account
Can someone explain to me please why the Europeans don't use credit cards? Even if you don't use any fee cards, rotating categories, miles, etc. don't you want to pay 1.5-2% less for everything?
And do you guys have credit scores? How does getting a mortgage work? Do you use mortgages? How do you buy property if not? Private loans?
hahaha...Europeans are mostly broke now!
We have credit score of course and it helps. I believe it just that we are not really used to use "credit" and work more with what we have
From what I was told, credit scores don't have to be built up as they do in the States, i.e. more or less everyone starts out with great credit which can be ruined via not paying, but I'm not too sure about the upside of actually building/improving it.
Mortgages and credit in general depends on different countries also. Germany, for example, only has a home ownership rate of around 51%, compared to around 64% here. German banks are apparently more risk-averse too and it's harder to get a mortgage there then here in the States. They also largely use cash and debit cards, as well as prepaid cards for smaller transactions like public transport. In the Netherlands, however, I was surprised at the amount of retailers that didn't accept cash, but instead took only debit/credit. Their banks also have more integrated direct payments systems (like Venmo) that are more commonly used, something like Zelle but much more widely used.
A lot of them are worth it mathematically, of course it depends on your annual spend. When I thought about moving from a no fee card to a fee card with juiced up points, here is something I considered...
I was mostly looking at hotel cards (Hilton, Starwood, Marriott, etc.) because I don't fly that often. I started to realize, if I got the Hilton card, paid an annual fee, built up a pile of points...I would have a hard time NOT staying in a Hilton.
No biggy if you are going on a quick trip for a weekend and staying in a Hampton Inn, Residence Inn, etc.
But take a trip to say, Marco Island (just somewhere I've been recently where this is applicable)...there is a substantial difference in the Hilton Resort and the J.W. Marriott.
In the end, I just thought that I'm the type of person that would stay at the Hilton if I had the points, even though the Marriott was clearly nicer. And I just don't want to plan my vacations based on how many points I have saved up for one brand versus another.
Just food for thought.
Here's my stack:
Chase Sapphire Reserve as my daily driver, I eat out a fair amount and also travel a fair amount for pleasure/work. so all food and travel spend goes on here for the 3x points. The Chase ultimate rewards points are also really flexible for redeeming for vacations.
After that I'd add on the Amazon card for 5% back on all amazon purchases, including groceries through Amazon fresh.
I have a United Credit Card and an American Airlines one, mainly for lounge access, free checked bags, priority boarding etc
No hotel cards because I don't stay in hotels too often, but I did sign up for hte Hyatt card to get the two free nights.
I have a few other Misc cards that are free/cheap.
As someone said above, the quick math on most of these cards works in your favor as long as you're spending enough money. Think about the expenses you put on a credit card on a monthly basis, checkout thepointsguy and reddit.com/r/churning and get a few cards to start accruing points. It's a great way to get a few free vacations and potentially even more if you're diligent.
I've got the pre-enrollment for the TenX crypto currency credit card, which offers 0 fees. The crypto automatically gets converted into USD when you swipe, and, if you don't use Bitcoin and use alt-coins like Litecoin or DASH, this ensures that your fees are limited to a few cents.
For the megas, i.e. the $450 / YR cards (CSR, AMEX Plat, etc.) I would do if you're either over 25 if not 30 years old and spend $5-10k / year on vacation OR you're a frequent traveler for work and it's all reimbursed. In my opinion these high fee cards shine in heavy travel / dining scenarios. They're a waste if you're a 23 year old working 80+ hours a week and buying a few beers on the weekend. If that's you, look at the Double Cash or similar cards.
I'm traveling abroad for work every other week, paid on personal card (CSR) and reimbursed. The CSR (and comparables) basically allows for you to simply not need an airline card or hotel card, etc. I'm getting literally hundreds of thousands of Chase UR points for "free" in addition to the airline miles.
/r/churning
All of my vacation flights, lodging and rental cars for the entire year of 2017 have been paid by major credit card companies. If you've got a good credit score with a nice W2, you're missing out on $1,000's of free shit.
don't all the inquiries fuck your score up moderately over time? how many inquiries a year are you getting?
it generally only effects them for a short period of time, and if you stack inquiries on the same day, apparently they only show as one pull.
The Uber card through Barclays isn't too bad actually, 4% on dining, 3% on travel, 2% on online purchases, and 1% on everything else isn't bad considering it's no fee. I'd pickup a card like the Double Cash which has a base of 2%. This might be the way to go if you don't travel much yet and just go out with your friends on the weekends and out to eat every so often.
I'm all-in with chase. Have the reserve for bonus spending, freedom for rotating categories, and freedom unlimited for all other purchases. Since chase lets me transfer points between the three cards, I basically get 4.5% back on travel/dining, 2.25% back for non-bonus spend, and 6.25% (!) for freedom categories. It works really well for me and I don't even need any other card, because Ultimate Reward points can basically be used as cash when buying travel (i.e. no worries about not having award seat availability, etc.)
i respect the commitment
I still don't have a credit card as a first year analyst.
Applied to the new Uber card and Chase freedom unlimited card w/ 100k + annual salary and no prior cedit and got denied. Sad sad day.
I would recommend for applying for a initial card with whomever you bank with, they might be more lenient.
I have the Amex platinum--the $550/yr is a little much, but if you fly/use uber a lot you get $400 of that back. Between that and the points scheme I think it's the best now that Chase Sapphire no longer has that insane startup points promo.
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