Very good points. What would be the price break even point (e.g.) to pay $95 fee each year if you have some spending on those select spend categories?
For example, say I spend an average of $600+ per month on travel (commute via mass transit, personal travel air/hotel) and dining out, does it worth it to pay the annul fee b/c of additional earning? How about $800/month? I can see myself using another card (citi forward) for dining, but Sapphire Preferred is best for travel expenses (especially for those live/work in cities with considerable daily commuting costs).
Originally Posted by
sdsearch
Yes, but unless you need to transfer every year, you may be able to get as much bang for less buck by slowly growing your Ultimate Rewards balance using Freedom rotating categories, and then when you have a bunch saved up apply for the Sapphire Preferred. $95 one year (but not every year) is less than $95 every year, if you don't really need to those tansfers every single year.
I don't see how $95 is worth it if your spend means that it takes several years for you to get another 25k on your Freedom. Is it really worth $95 to transfer 10k a year instead of waiting until a year when you've got a useful amount accumulated?
(Obviously, this may depend on whether these cards are going to your primary cards which get most / all of your purchases, if they're only one subset of a big stable. It's harder to justifuy annual fees on a recurring basis on many different cards at once, but you may want to collect in several airlines and many hotel programs, and if so that can require some strategies to get the most bang for the least annual fees per year.)