HOW OFTEN SHOULD YOU REEVALUATE YOUR CREDIT CARDS?
The right card today may not be the right card two years from now.
We review our credit cards once a year at minimum, and any time a fee notice arrives or a benefit changes. We just finished that process on one of our premium cards after the annual fee went up by $245.
That kind of increase forces a real comparison. Not against what the card used to cost, but against what it costs now and what it actually does compared to everything else we carry. The answer isn't always obvious, which is why the process matters.
Card benefits change more often than most people realize. A $300 travel credit gets narrowed to specific booking categories. A Priority Pass membership that included restaurant access stops including it. An earning rate on a category drops from three points per dollar to two. These changes go out in cardmember agreement updates. The annual fee stays the same or goes up. If you're not checking the current benefits guide once a year, you may be paying for a version of the card that no longer exists.
How we travel has changed since we opened some of these cards. We're in Europe for months at a time, paying in euros, staying in apartments, taking trains between cities. A card that made sense when we signed up may not match how we're actually traveling now.
When we sit down to evaluate a card, we ask four questions. Would we apply for this card today given how we're traveling now? Does a card we already carry cover the same ground? Are we actually using what we're paying for — the lounge access, the hotel status, the travel credit — or are we paying for the idea of using it? Has anything in the terms changed since we got it?
The fee increase on one of our premium cards is what triggered this review. One hour of comparison work. The answer was clear once we laid it out against what we already carry. We're making the switch before the next billing cycle.
We do the same thing with places we stay. A low price is only part of the calculation. Our three months in Béziers reminded us of that.
Scott & Liza
