Table of Contents
Lowering Credit Card Annual Fees
Annual fees are the biggest and most eye-popping number when signing up for a new credit card. Who wants to pay
almost $900 a year on a single credit card, much less than 4 of them...
Over my years of studying this game, perusing Flyer Talk, Reddit threads, blogs and Discord servers, I have come across a few techniques,
that can be used to help reduce the annual fee on a card. In this space, nerfs could happen almost at any time so it is important
to refresh this post before you go ahead and carry out some of these techniques. Credit cards often change their code overnight with no notice. Please email worldlyexpressmail@gmail.com for any data points or updates
regarding techniques mentioned in this article.
Effective Annual Fee
Effective annual fee is a concept for how much you would really pay for the card. Certain perks like statement credits, complimentary memberships,
and even lounge access can often times be assigned a monetary value. To lower the annual fee, the question would be "How much you would pay for them without holding the card?".
Say you normally spend $20 per month on Ubering to get drinks, then the $20 Uber cash from the Amex Platinum card is pretty much worth face value. What if you normally paid for Uber One?
Amex advertises that benefit as $120 a year, but the annual subscription only costs $96. In this case, only $96 should be subtracted from the annual fee because that is the amount you would've
normally paid anyway.
What's left after subtracting all the benefits and perks is the "effective annual fee".
I want to caveat the point of effective annual fee because often times monthly or even annual credits could make us over spend. Would you have gone out of your way every month to eat at Five Guys or
would you have cooked at home? Could you have bought an Uber gift card from Costco for 10% off instead of paying directly with Uber cash from the Amex cards? There are a ton of factors that
goes into play when calculating effective annual fees and each case is circumstantial.
Unconventional Statement Hacks
This next section goes over tricks that do not involve a full refund but may be cases where you might not be thinking of using the credit. There are credit hacks that you might see on other blogs but are not listed here. These techniques are always subject to change without official notice and are not explicitly listed in the terms and conditions sometimes. The tricks below will help you use the credits more effectively or delay and stack up monthly credits for a bigger purchase. For the credits not listed in this section, there may be a better method listed in the next section, which is why it is not listed in this section.
Dining
Many credit cards offer dining credits at restaurants in general or specific restaurants.
Method: Buy a restaurant gift card online when the merchant processor is "Toast" or buy a gift card in person.
Confirmed
- Amex Gold: $10 monthly (Five Guys, Cheesecake Factory)
- Amex Gold: $50 semiannually (Resy)
- Amex Platinum: $100 quarterly (Resy)
- Amex Delta Platinum: $10 monthly (Resy)
- Amex Delta Reserve: $20 monthly (Resy)
- Amex Delta Platinum Business: $10 monthly (Resy)
- Amex Delta Reserve Business: $20 monthly (Resy)
- Amex Marriott Brilliant: $25 monthly (any)
- Chase Sapphire Reserve: $150 semiannually (Sapphire Exclusive Tables)
- Chase Sapphire Reserve Business: $100 annually
Other Merchants
There are other merchants that will allow you to trigger the statement credit through gift card purchases. For
Staples and Office depot, the credit triggers on purchasing gift cards for any merchant.
Method: Buy gift cards in person.
Confirmed
- Amex Business Gold: $20 monthly (Staples, Office Depot)
- Amex Platinum: $75 quarterly (Lululemon)
Refundable Statement Credit
This last section basically outlines the free money that credit cards will give you because of a lapse in their code. The section builds upon the last section but goes a step further by effectively not paying anything for the statement credit at the end of the month. The concept behind this section is that certain credit card statement credits are not clawed back when the qualifying purchase made to trigger the credit is refunded. For example, you buy a fully refundable airline ticket with 3 checked bags, wait for the Airline Incidental Fee credit to post, then cancel the airline ticket. The ticket is refunded to your credit card but airline fee credit does not get clawed back. In this case, you would end up with a negative balance of however much the airline incidental fee credit. I have been the most successful testing with refundable airline and hotel bookings as they are the easiest to post refundable charges on credit cards to trigger credits. Specifically for hotel statement credits, there are cards that market a "hotel statement credit". In reality, they are often "discounts" when for the booking. As such, refunding a booking will not leave a statement credit behind. These credit cards will be omitted from this list. The following sections contain cards that I personally tested (confirmed), cards I haven't explicitly tested but should work unless proven otherwise (Untested), and methods that have been proven to not work after getting nerfed (Expired).
Airline Incidental
This section covers credits that can only be used to cover specific airline incidentals, like checked bags, seat selections, etc...
Method: Buy a refundable ticket, purchase enough checked bags to trigger the entire credit, wait for credit to post,
finally refund the ticket.
Confirmed
- Amex Platinum: $200 annually
- Amex Business Platinum: $200 annually
- Bank of America Premium Rewards: $100 annually
- Bank of America Premium Rewards Elite: $300 annually
- Chase Ritz-Carlton: $300 annually
- Crystal Visa Infinite: $350 annually
- PenFed Pathfinder Rewards Visa Signature: $100 annually
Airline
This section covers generic statement credits for all or specific airlines.
Method: Buy a refundable ticket, wait for credit to post, refund the ticket.
Confirmed
- Amex Hilton Aspire: $50 quarterly (any airline)
- United Explorer: $100 annually (JSX)
- United Business: $100 annually (JSX)
- United Quest: $150 annually (JSX)
- United Club: $200 annually (JSX)
- United Club Business: $200 annually (JSX)
- Chase British Airways: $600 annually (British Airways Surcharges)
- Wells Fargo Autograph Journey: $50 annually (any airline)
Hotels
This section covers generic statement credits for all or specific hotels.
Method: Buy a refundable ticket that are pre paid, wait for credit to post, refund the ticket. I find Las Vegas resorts to be the easiest
for this technique.
Confirmed
- Amex Business Platinum: $50 quarterly (Hilton)
- Amex Hilton Aspire: $200 semi-annually (Hilton Resorts)
- Amex Hilton Surpass: $50 quarterly (Hilton)
- Amex Hilton Business: $60 quarterly (Hilton)
- United Explorer: $100 (United Hotels)
- United Business: $100 (United Hotels)
- United Quest: $150 (United Hotels)
- United Club: $200 (United Hotels)
- United Club Business: $200 (United Hotels)
- Chase World of Hyatt Business: $100 annually (Hyatt)
- Citi AAdvantage Globe: $100 annually (AAdvantage Hotels)
- Barclays Wyndham Earner Premier: $100 annually (Wyndham)
- Barclays JetBlue Plus $100 annually (JetBlue Vacations)
- Barclays JetBlue Premier $300 annually (JetBlue Vacations)
- Amex Delta Gold: $100 annually (Delta Stays)
- Amex Delta Business Gold: $150 annually (Delta Stays)
- Amex Delta Platinum: $150 annually (Delta Stays)
- Amex Delta Business Platinum: $200 annually (Delta Stays)
- Amex Delta Reserve: $200 annually (Delta Stays)
- Amex Delta Business Reserve: $250 annually (Delta Stays)
- Amex Plat: $300 semi-annually (Amex FHR/THC)*
- Amex Business Plat: $300 semi-annually (Amex FHR/THC)*
- Chase Sapphire Preferred: $50 semi-annually (Chase Hotels)
- Chase Sapphire Reserve: $250 semi-annually (Chase the Edit)
- Chase Sapphire Reserve: $250 annually (Chase Hotels)
- Chase Sapphire Reserve Business: $250 semi-annually (Chase the Edit)
- Chase Sapphire Reserve Business: $250 annually (Chase Hotels)
- Citi Strata Premier: $100 annually (Citi Hotels)
- Citi Strata Elite: $300 annually (Citi Hotels)
- Capital One VentureX: $300 annually (Capital One Hotels)
- Capital One VentureX Business: $300 annually (Capital One Hotels)
- Bilt Obsidian: $50 semiannually (Bilt Hotels)
- Bilt Palladium: $200 semiannually (Bilt One Hotels)