swy

Just curious if there are any correlations. It might make sense for banks to let more people in if they can pocket your annual fee before you even get to use any of the miles/points/benefits. Even if they think you are likely to be a churner, the annual fee plus initial spending requirement might make it profitable from their perspective.

startbyservingothers

No.

Cards with annual fees are much more than a change in the pricing structure. The Annual Fees are to offset the higher costs involved with those cards and (intended) to be sure that the customer gets the card to use it. Premium cards with annual fees are the most difficult to be approved for. (And it varies by bank)


I think you are confused by the cards targeted to persons with poor credit. Yes those cards have annual fees and are easy to be approved for. The difference is those cards tend not to have any benefit better than can be found on a free card. That annual fee is to make sure the bank gets some revenue to counter the risk of taking on a customer with no/poor credit history.

sdsearch

I think you are confused about what is being asked.

The OP is asking about whether they're easier to churn, ie, whether the banks are more likely to look the other way (everything else being equal) if you apply for a second card of the same type with an annual fee as opposed to a second card of the same type with no annual fee. And this not in comparison to not applying for the card, it's in comparison to applying for a different card.

For an example: Barclays may deny you a second fee-waived US card because you already have one, while approving you for some other Barclays card (Arrival, or one of their hotel cards, etc). This a denial solely for already having a US card. But there is another offer that doesn't waive the annual fee. So the question in that case (which I don't know the answer to) is whether Barclays is less likely to deny you just "because you already have one or had one recently" if you apply for the annual fee offer than the annual-fee-waived offer, because they would like to get the annual fee from you again.

Ie, the OP is not asking about denial for poor credit reasons, they are assuming good enough credit to get a different card from the same bank, but are wondering about the extra difficulty of getting a second of the same card from that same bank.

KennyBSAT

Chase business was no more willing to let me open a Southwest card ($69 fee first year) than they were a United business card (no fee first year). Denied for both 6 months apart due to too many apps and 'recently' opened Ink Bold. At the same time I was able to open Chase personal cards.

It would make sense for them to be more willing to open a card whose fee is not waived (possibly along with moving credit to not increase exposure) but IMO the application/reconsideration and marketing/pricing departments are completely disconnected and it doesn't make any difference.

swy

Thanks for all the responses and sorry I wasn't clear. I was indeed asking asking about churning (as sdsearch pointed out correctly), and not about poor credit.

The question wasn't necessarily about "a second card of the same type with an annual fee as opposed to a second card of the same type with no annual fee" though. For example, I already have cards of type A, B, C with Bank X, and I am thinking about applying for card D, which has a non-waived annual fee, and card E, which doesn't have an annual fee (while at the same time I have hard pulls from other banks...).

Of course, this question could apply to the cards of the same type (a second card) too.