Sara Rathner

And so when Liz asks a question about what card to get next, I'm coming from a place of personal experience.

That's right.

Yeah, a lot of these cards charge annual fees.

And we're starting to see triple digit annual fees out of some of these airline cards, $150 and up.

Some cards are even several hundred dollars.

And so obviously, the higher the fee, the more benefits you get.

So it could be worth it to you to pay the fee if you take advantage of a lot of those valuable benefits.

But if you don't, then you're paying money for nothing.

You might want to consider a lower fee version of the card or another card entirely.

And it really just depends on how you handle a particular card.

And that's an individual decision.

Yeah, and that's a thing to think about when you are considering any sort of rewards card, especially the travel cards.

Because something that I've seen that's a bit of a trend is that these rewards programs are getting really complicated.

Not just with general travel rewards credit cards, but also some airline cards, too.

They're doing the coupon book thing, that's what we've been calling it, where...

A lot of the value that you get out of the card comes from these little statement credits that you can get throughout, you know, once a month, twice a year, once a year for very specific purchases, either with a specific retailer or it'll be like a hotel credit.

or a travel credit if you book through the credit card's travel portal, things like that.

And so if you love a deal and you love shopping with a coupon and you're happy to keep track of what's available and it gives you that dopamine hit every time you get that $10 statement credit,

and you're able to chip away meaningfully at your annual fee, great.

That's a sign that that's a good card for you.