Bear in mind that the right way to calculate the true cost of an annual fee is not to look at simply at how many points or cash back you get, since you can also get points and cash back with no annual fee cards.
I'll use the Amex Blue Cash Preferred as an example, though the same kind of analysis can be applied the two Chase Sapphire cards and many others.
The Amex BCP gives you 6% on groceries, 3% on gas, and 1% on everything else.
* Ignore the everything else category, since you can get 2% in this category with many no annual fee cards.
* Likewise ignore the 3% gas category, since several cards give you 3% on gas (my freedom currently gives me 5%).
* For the grocery category, the no annual fee version of the Blue Cash gives you 3%. Therefore you should ignore the first 3% on groceries -- only the remaining 3% should count.
Thus the math should be something like this: do I spend an average of $1000 per quarter on groceries? If so, the BCP is giving me $120 extra per year. The annual fee is $95. So I am netting $25 by having the Blue Cash Preferred over the ordinary Blue Cash.
Even still, if I have a Freedom or a Discover or both, I may have no annual fee solutions for getting 5% on groceries. Now I have to be spending very close to the $1500 max per quarter in order for the BCP to be worth it.
The same kind of analysis may show a person that one or more of his fee cards (Chase, Citi Prestige, whatever) either costs him more than a NAF alternative, or that the benefit is extremely small. That's a maybe. If a person has a large family and knows she'll be spending at least $1500 every quarter on groceries, then it is certainly the right choice to have an Amex BCP.
One hidden risk in AF cards is that they can lock you into a costly spending pattern. You pay for the Chase Sapphrise Reserved because you travel a lot -- which justifies in your mind the high AF. But if you were to go on fewer vacations, you'd save a ton more money than you get with the points that the CSP generates.
