mike_s
Contributor
delta has a really good card offered with amex right now!!
I got tired of their $50 or $85 annual fee.
For half the amount of miles, they'll give you the card for free. just FYI to anyone that doesn't want to pay the fee when they charge you. (note: they typically all give you the first year free..
Personally I think the "fee" airline cards are a rip off. Why? because most folks don't charge enough yearly to justify the fee.
If you're only spending $8k a year for example, then it'll take you a bit over 3 years to get to 25,000 points at 1 point per $1 dollar. In that time, you've paid $150 to $255 in fee's.
Now lets say your 25,000 mile ticket isn't available and you have to reserve a 50,000 mile ticket. Then you're looking at 6 years worth of spending to get there and $300 to $510 in fees. For that $300 to $500, you could have just bought a ticket to most places (domestic). Or two tickets on a discount airlines.
So to me, the fee cards just aren't worth it for most people.
Another reason I like the Amex Blue is that "no fees" and they give you cash. Airline miles I've got. Several hundred thousand miles. They are such a pain in the ass to redeem anywhere you really want to go, that for the most part they just sit in my accounts collecting dust. so I really don't want to pay a fee to get a few more of them.