<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Howyadoin:
I was just about to sign up for an American Airline credit card deal that offered 5,000 bonus miles, but it had a $50 fee. Are there offers like that, but that don't require fees? </font>
The point of the bonus is that it should outweigh the annual fee. For example, last year the NWA Visa had a 10K bonus for signing up and then a 3K bonus for auto-billing. So that 13K miles worth about $325 (at 2.5 cents/mile) for an annual fee of $90.
Standard affinity cards carry a fee, which is why savvy card users will wait for a bonus to switch cards.