Credit cards with an annual fee

[Anonymous]

What's the purpose of these cards? They must be succesful as so many are around.

[Anonymous]

Typically a card has an annual fee for one of two reasons.
1. It's a rebuilder card and the lender knows they can make money off you being the only lender to offer a card to you to rebuild with.
2. The card has a generous rewards system that will typically cover the annual fee via rewards/perks with heavy spending.

[Anonymous]

I just upgraded to the Hilton Honors Ascend AmEx with a $95 AF from my HH AmEx (no fee) because of the goodies offered.  The amount of points and free weekend stay and "gold" HH status to me seemed well worth it.  I think everybody needs to look at their spends to see if it makes financial sense to have a AF, it's not for everyone and in my case AmEx allows to go back to no fee card if I don't like it and don't use the points/weekend