Almost every card with an annual fee has enough credits and perks to offset the annual fee without spending any money.

The second and third tier Delta cards come with a $250 and $650 Annual fee.

The second tier card (Delta Platinum) has an annual fee of $350. But it comes with a $150 Delta Stays credit for hotels and one round trip an economy companion pass - basically buy one get one free - for any place in the US, Mexico, Central America or the Caribbean.

The higher end Delta Reserve comes with similar benefits. But a first class companion pass. If you never use either card except for the credit, the benefits more than offset the annual fee. The Reserve also comes with airport lounge access

I have three Delta cards just for those benefits.

I could explain the Amex Platinum, Gold, Green, every cobranded hotel card, the high end Capital One cards the same way.

The credit card companies as the article says are betting that the typical customer will use credit cards in a suboptimal manner. They are banking on most credit card users not to be like the typical r/creditcards users who carry 6-8 credit cards including “sock drawer” cards that are just held for the outsized benefits to annual fees and aren’t their primary cards.

My wife and I travel a lot and yes I have nine cards and $2700 worth of annual fees. Most of those cards are “sock drawer” cards that are just used because the “coupons” make travel cheaper.

You need the right spending pattern and you need to manage the card rewards. When my travel went way down, I dropped a couple cards though I keep a pretty low-cost United cobranded card to basically keep me with some semblance of status. But things like airline club membership just weren't worth it any longer.

I agree completely and I didn’t even discuss the entire “churning” strategy where there is an entire cottage industry, a subreddit and a flowchart discussing how to get sign up bonuses and how to get the best return.

(I am not affiliated with this site in any way)

https://www.offeroptimist.com/

At some point the maintenance becomes too complex and people just either use the card or eat the fee.

They know exactly how many do this. The people who churn are just free advertising for them.

Is it worth it for someone who likes to travel, and wants to save for retirement and never wants to “work for a FAANG” (again) like in my case? I would say so.

Just from the cash savings of my card setup, I would say it’s worth $3500 that offsets the $2700 in annual fees.

Then take into account the points I earn from everyday spend is worth another $3000-$5000 depending on how I choose to redeem them (see r/awardtravel).

Then take into account sign up bonuses and churning, I’m planning on doing over the next year worth around $5000.

It’s the only way that I can balance our travel hobbies with my goals of maxing out my 401k including catch up contributions (I turn 50 this year), max out my HSA and not use it and “retire my wife” so she can enjoy her hobbies.

This hobby isn’t just for people with above average incomes. If you are steeped in the culture, you can lean more toward churning and legal manufactured spending

https://frequentmiler.com/manufactured-spending-complete-gui...

Ah, for the era of buying dollar coins and flooding your bank with them. Brings back memories.

Is churning still possible in the US? I thought Amex sign-up bonuses were only awarded once.

In the UK you can still cancel and re-apply after 24 months. It used to be 6 months but those good days are long gone...

Amex has a once in a lifetime rule for each card and now they are getting even stricter. But there are still a lot of cards you can go through if you do them in the right order between the business and personal cards.

But there is still Chase, CapitalOne and Citi. The Chase Ink Business cards you can churn as much as you want and most of the other cards have either a 24 or 48 month rule

Getting rewards that vastly exceed the costs is still very possible in the US. The days of “I travel first class internationally for free every few months and change cards as often” are long gone though. That pattern is trivially recognizable and most of the better rewards card providers will reject folks with that history even if they have perfect credit otherwise.

Not with Chase Ink cards. There are people who do one a quarter

The other benefit the Delta AmEx (and I presume other AmEx cards) gives are the various merchant discounts. In the past year I've gotten statement credits totaling about $600 by using the card to pay for various streaming services, shoes and clothes, certain restaurants and even my utility bill. The offers rotate every few months but I make sure to scan them when I login to view my statements and activate any of them I think I might use.

All of these things were items I was already using or would have purchased anyway and the discounts stack on top of any available merchant coupons too since they are credits coming straight from AmEx.