Premium Credit Cards: Are They Actually Worth the Fee? With Your Rich BFF Vivian Tu

Summary

HerMoney with Jean Chatzky
Episode: "Points, Perks & Fees: How to Know When a Credit Card Isn’t Pulling Its Weight" with Vivian Tu
Date: February 6, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode of HerMoney dives into the world of credit cards, with a particular focus on premium travel cards, maximizing points and perks, and making sure annual fees are truly worth it. Jean Chatzky welcomes back financial influencer and author Vivian Tu ("Well Endowed") for a friendly, detailed Q&A tackling listener questions about picking the right cards, using rewards efficiently, and upgrading—or downgrading—cards without credit impact. The discussion is candid, practical, and peppered with real-world examples and actionable tips, aiming to help women get the most from every card in their wallet.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Are Premium Travel Cards Worth the Cost?

(Timestamp: 01:18–05:35)

• Jean admits she's amassed a "crazy number" of credit cards and wonders if those high-fee premium travel cards are truly pulling their weight or if she should pare down.
• Vivian Tu's Advice: Look at your actual usage of benefits and do the math year by year.
  • Review your card's benefits (either with your intro documents or via the issuer's website).
  • Assign dollar values to key perks (e.g., “a meal at the airport lounge, call that $15”; “resort credit, say $100”) and multiply by your usage frequency.
  • Consider less-obvious benefits: rental car insurance, purchase protection, phone protection, Uber/Lyft credits, etc.
  • If your annual benefit usage reliably exceeds the card fee, “win-win.” If not, consider downgrading or cancelling.
• Notable Quote:

  "For one person, they may be paying $695 a year for a credit card and getting $2,000 worth of value. Win-win! For someone else...they might not travel enough or use enough of these apps…they should cancel the card. And more realistically, they should downgrade the card."
  — Vivian Tu [04:57]

Vivian’s Own Cards

[05:35]

• Vivian has two “super special cards”—Amex Platinum and Chase Sapphire Reserve—plus a few older cards for credit history.
• Jean also keeps one premium card (Chase Sapphire Reserve), having previously downgraded her Amex Platinum to Gold.

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2. Maximizing Points & Picking the Right Card

(Timestamp: 05:54–10:06)

Listener Question (Yajera): What's the best travel card and how do I maximize points for overseas and domestic trips?

• Vivian’s Expert Tips:
  • If you aren’t a deep-dive “points hacker,” use aggregator websites or services like Seats Aero or Point Me, where you input your rewards balances and get optimized redemption options.
  • “If you want, like, concierge, white glove service, you pay for those. But it'll help you essentially just figure out…what's worth your money.” [07:45]
  • Sometimes paying one-time or subscription fees (e.g., $200 for Point Me’s concierge service) can be “money back in your pocket” if it helps you save or maximize points over time.

Jean’s Experience:
[08:06]

• She found “Point Me” worth its annual fee because of ease of use.
• Sometimes sticking to one airline (due to being near a hub) makes sense:

  “When you fly out of Philadelphia…American Airlines owns you.” [08:24]

Vivian’s Perspective:

• If you live near an airline hub, their loyalty cards can make sense, but general travel cards are better for those who fly various airlines.
• Airline-specific status isn’t always necessary unless you frequently use one carrier.

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3. Negotiating Interest Rates & Card Terms

(Timestamp: 10:06–11:57)

Listener Question (Amy): How do I ask to lower my card’s high interest rate?

• Vivian’s Advice:
  • If you’re paying off your balance in full every month, the interest rate doesn’t matter because you aren’t charged.
  • If carrying a balance: “Never hurts to ask.” You can call and politely request a rate reduction, perhaps citing a willingness to pay off the balance if the rate is lowered.
  • “My thing about the interest rate, though, is more often than not, credit cards have APRs of 20 to 30%. Regardless of where your card is issued from, you're paying a lot of interest to roll that balance.” [10:54]
  • For significant balances, explore a balance transfer card or a personal loan for a lower rate.

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4. Too Many Cards? How to Switch or Downgrade Without Hurting Your Credit

(Timestamp: 14:30–16:55)

Listener Question (Jen): Four cards, some aren't a good fit (fees, unused airline). How do I ‘switch’ cards without hurting credit or losing account history?

• Vivian’s Playbook:
  • Three to five cards is the “sweet spot” for most people.
  • Call your issuer and ask to downgrade fee cards to no-fee versions (e.g., Amex Platinum → Amex Gold or everyday cards). This keeps your credit line and history intact, with no hard inquiry:

    “More often than not, what you can do is actually downgrade your fee cards to no fee cards.” [15:27]

  • For airline cards you don’t use, check if existing miles can transfer to a partner airline for future value.
  • Don’t close your oldest card; that account history is valuable for your score.

Jean’s Note:

• If not planning a major loan soon, it’s okay to close a card now and then—your credit may dip but will recover:

  “I'm not going to close the card that I've had the longest period of time.…But if you know that you're not applying for a mortgage…your credit score is going to possibly take a little bit of a hit, but it'll come right back up.” [16:55]

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On exploiting credit card value:
  “Ask yourself: do I get XYZ dollar amount, $795, $395, $695 for some of those cards...of value every year?”
  — Vivian Tu [02:25]

• On delegation:
  “$200 feels like a small fee to pay for someone to have really done that…and that's money back in my pocket again.”
  — Vivian Tu [07:03]

• On loyalty hubs:
  “If you live in Chicago, United owns you…If you are constantly flying out of one of the New York airports, Delta probably owns you…”
  — Vivian Tu [08:59]

• On asking for lower interest:
  “Just ask nicely…depending on who you get, depending on if they're running a promotion, depending on if you make some promises…your credit card company might be willing to work with you.”
  — Vivian Tu [10:41]

• Jean to Vivian (on reputation):
  “I point people to you all the time…because you clearly do your homework and your advice and your information is always top notch.”
  — Jean Chatzky [17:37]

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Key Takeaways

• Be thorough and honest with yourself about how much value you get from each card’s benefits; assign dollar values and do the math each year.
• Use travel rewards aggregator sites or paid advisors for optimal redemptions, unless you truly enjoy sifting through complex points systems.
• If a card’s fee doesn’t justify its value to you, downgrade or close it—but try to keep older, established accounts open for your credit’s sake.
• Don’t fear asking for rate reductions or different card products—call your bank, be polite, and sometimes the answer is yes.
• Tailor card choices to your travel habits: airline-specific cards for hub dwellers, general rewards cards for frequent flyers on diverse routes.
• Never carry a balance if possible—interest rates are rarely in your favor.

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Timestamps for Important Segments

| Time | Topic | |-----------|----------------------------------------------------| | 01:18 | Parsing card fees & benefits (Jean’s question) | | 02:16 | Calculating value from premium perks (Vivian) | | 05:35 | Types of cards Vivian and Jean keep | | 05:54 | How to use points efficiently; best travel cards | | 08:06 | Jean’s experience with airline loyalty & Point Me | | 09:00 | How airline hubs impact loyalty cards (Vivian) | | 10:06 | Negotiating a lower credit card interest rate | | 14:30 | Listener: Swapping cards without dinging credit | | 15:21 | Vivian: How to downgrade cards, keep good history | | 16:55 | Jean: When it’s okay to close a card |

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Tone and Style:
Frank, practical, women-first, and frequently peppered with humor and friendly banter.

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In short:
If you’re not fully “exploiting” your card benefits, you’re subsidizing others who do. Vivian and Jean show exactly how to tip the game in your favor—and why a wallet checkup can save you hundreds (maybe thousands) this year.

Transcript

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[Vivian Tu]

Foreign it's all about if you are absolutely exploiting the benefits, I would actually go through the intro document or even just the website. If you don't have the paperwork that you got when you got those cards anymore, go through the website and see what all the benefits are and ask yourself do I get XYZ dollar amount? I think it's like $795, 695, $395 for some of those cards that you listed of value every year.

[Jean Chatzky]

Hey everyone, welcome to Hermoney. I'm Jean Chatzky. We are so excited to have Vivian Tu back to take us through all.

Of your questions on credit cards and points hacking.

All right, this was a little me search.

I gotta say Vivian, because I hit.

That point and I'm really good with my points.

Like I do not pay to fly. When I'm not flying for business, I always use points pretty much. But I hit the point where I was like how did I get so many credit cards in my wallet? It is time to pare down. We've also got listener questions on everything from maximizing travel rewards to upgrading your cards without hurting your credit score. And I do want to mention I never pay interest by the way. It's just, you know, too many fees. Anyway. So let's start with this question and this one again is from me. I have been wondering about the high tier travel cards. The Amex Platinum Chase, Sapphire Reserve City, Prestige, Capital One, Venture X. Are they worth the cost and are multiples worth the cost? Should you have more than one of these? How do you figure out if you're getting the value to actually justify it?

[Vivian Tu]

I think it's all about if you are absolutely exploiting the benefits, I would actually go through the, you know, the intro document or even just the website. If you don't have the the paperwork that you got when you got those cards Anymore. Go through the website and see what all the benefits are and ask yourself, do I get XYZ dollar amount? I think it's like $795, $695, $395 for some of those cards that you listed of value every year. And I assign a certain value to certain things. So being able to go and get a meal at the airport lounge before I have to get on my flight, let's call that $15. I think about how many times I'm doing that per year, and then I know. For example, the Amex Platinum has a travel portal where if you book through their fine hotels and resorts, you get a complimentary upgrade. If you know the hotel can swing it, you get $100 resort credit so that you can spend on food and Bev or a spa or whatever. You get, you know, some sort of welcome amenity, what have you. We'll call that $150 if that's worth it to you. Ask yourself, how many times a year am I using these things and does it make up for the fee? There's a lot of other stuff that doesn't necessarily have a tangible fee, but is something that you should think about. For example, I believe the Chase Sapphire Reserve has like, auto protection. When you get a loaner car, when you go to Hertz or an Avis or something, they'll ask you at the desk, they're like, would you like to buy, you know, the car insurance for the next three days? And it costs a certain amount of money. I don't want to even ballpark what it is. I haven't rented a car in a minute now. But think about what that is. And if you don't have to buy that, that is money back in your pocket. So think about that. Think about, oh, I know Amex has a item warranty. This is like, so weird to explain. So, like, basically, if you buy something, it's like, purchase protection. If you buy something on that Amex and it gets like, completely Destroyed within like 90 days. I. A perfect example of this is Brian Kelly, the points guy. He's a friend of mine, his son, who is a toddler, sharpied all over the back of a dining chair, like a dining room table chair. And he was like, oh, so this isn't going to come out. And then he contacts Amex and he explains the situation. Amex has purchased protection. He got reimbursed for the cost of that one chair, was able to get a new one and, and all good, no problem. Like the Sharpie Was not the end of the story. Many of these cards actually have phone protection. So if you buy your phone and pay for your phone bill on them, they'll actually replace the phone if you like smash it and it falls outta your pocket and like shatters into a thousand pieces. So think about all of those benefits. Think of the ones that you're actually taking advantage of. Some of these may not apply to you, but if you are getting those benefits, whether it be Uber and Lyft credits, doordash credits, like all of these things, add them up and see if it's worth it to you. If you are not taking full advantage, it is not for one person, they may be paying $695 a year for a credit card and getting $2,000 worth of value. Win win for someone else. They might not travel enough or use enough of these apps that they're not getting the value and they should cancel the card. And more realistically, they should downgrade the card.

[Jean Chatzky]

Amazing. How many of these cards do you have?

[Vivian Tu]

Like the Uber cards, the super special cards? I have two. So I have the Amex Platinum and I have the Chase Sapphire Reserve. But I also have some, you know, I would say less exciting credit cards in my wallet that I got earlier and that I'm never going to close because I enjoy having a very long credit history.

[Jean Chatzky]

Yes, a good idea. I have Chase Sapphire Reserve, but I downgraded the Amex Platinum to Amex Gold many years ago. Cause I wasn't using it. So there we go. Okay, here's a question from Yajera. She writes, I am looking for the best travel card out there. We charge everything. We pay it off every two weeks. So I wanna make the most of the benefits. We travel once a year overseas to visit family and then we do a few shorter trips in the US throughout the year. And once I've earned all those points, what's the smartest way to use them? How do you really get the most bang for the buck?

[Vivian Tu]

Ooh. Okay, so unless you are a points aficionado and have the time to have like 80 tabs open and are comparing things, which by the way, many people do, I would just recommend you either use a site or a service. So there is a website called Seats Aero. And on this website you basically put in how many points you have on a certain credit card or a certain loyalty program and it can show you a bunch of award redemptions and then you can compare which are the more worth it for you. Another service that does this is like appoint me if you want, you can use their service and, like, they'll show you the best redemptions based on what you have. Or if you pay $200, somebody will just do it for you. And again, we talked earlier about buying your time back. I don't have the time necessarily to, like, sit for six hours, compare, and make sure that I'm getting the best deal. $200 feels like a small fee to pay for someone to have really done that. And Instead of spending 150,000 points, maybe I get to spend 50,000 points and I get to save the other extra a hundred thousand, and that's money back in my pocket again. So I would say, based on what you need and how much time you have and frankly, what kind of travel you're hoping to do, I would recommend using one of these aggregator websites. Typically, like, using them, Baseline is free. And then if you want, like, you know, concierge, white glove service, you pay for those. But it'll help you essentially just figure out, you know, what's worth your money.

[Jean Chatzky]

Yeah, I subscribed to Point Me after paying them the $200 to do some tickets last year. I figured, all right, let me see if I can figure it out myself. I think I paid 80 bucks for the year. I've definitely more than gotten my money out of it. And I find it really, really easy to maneuver, not difficult. And I'm not, like, the best at this. I also think for somebody like her, depending on where you live, I mean, I have just gone all in on American Airlines, right? I have the credit card. I have the. I mean, I just. I have the business credit card. And in part, that's because when you fly out of Philadelphia, which is where I live, if you're not on American Airlines, it's like a weird day in February, right, Because it goes everywhere you have to go. And so for me, that has just made the most sense.

[Vivian Tu]

Yeah, I think it really depends. Like, exactly to your point, if you know you're flying out of a specific hub constantly, say you live in Chicago, United owns you. Yeah, right. If you are constantly flying out of one of the New York airports, Delta probably owns you. Newark, New Jersey, United, South Florida, American. Like, there are definitely hubs for these certain airlines. But I would say that based on your flight patterns, you can make a smart decision of, do I get an airline credit card versus a more, I would say, overarching program. The reason why I don't have a specific airline loyalty card is because I have status quote unquote, on every single airline. It doesn't really do anything for me. And I am flying every which way, going to multiple locations, especially for work. So I actually fly across all of the airlines pretty evenly. But if, you know, I had a more traditional job where I had one place that I lived, at a job site that I was constantly going to, I would definitely recommend trying to figure out what airline would become your default.

[Jean Chatzky]

We've got a question from Amy. She says I've had the same credit card since I was 18, and while my credit has improved over time, the interest rate on that card is still pretty, pretty high. I've never tried asking to lower it because I really don't know what to say. Do I just call and ask nicely? What does the conversation actually sound like? What do you think?

[Vivian Tu]

So my first question is, why does the interest rate on the card matter? Because if you are paying it off in full on time every month, you're not being charged interest, no matter whether the interest is 1% or 100%. So I would ask, please, if you can avoid it, pay your credit card in full on time every single month. Now, if you have a balance that you're rolling, you can certainly call and ask. Just ask nicely. Depending on who you get, depending on if they're running a promotion, depending on if you make some promises of like, hey, if I can get the interest down to 15% for the next 12 months, I can get this full balance paid off. Like your credit card company might be willing to work with, you might, big might, I don't know. Because different card offers, different financial services companies, different banks, they all have different rules. However, it never hurts to ask. My thing about the interest rate, though, is more often than not, credit cards have APRs of 20 to 30%. Regardless of where your card is issued from, you're paying a lot of interest to roll that balance. So first and foremost, you gotta try to avoid that. And if you are really, really committed to paying off that debt, it may even be wise to look into a balance transfer card or a personal loan just to get a lower interest rate so that you can get that debt paid off faster.

[Jean Chatzky]

Absolutely. We are gonna take a quick break. When we come back, we've got one more question on what to do when you have too many credit cards and some are not their weight.

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We are back with Vivian Tu, author of the new book well Endowed. We've got a question from Jen. She says, I'm thinking of switching up some of my cards. I've got four a great credit utilization rate and a credit score above 800, so I'm not looking to close any accounts. But some of these cards are not pulling their weight. One's for an airline I don't fly anymore. One has a fee but no benefits. How do I go to switching to better cards without triggering a hard credit inquiry or losing my account history? I've heard something about calling the bank and asking to convert an existing card. Is that a real thing? And do you have any favorite options from Chase? Amex or Citi, the issuers I'm currently with. Gotta love a listener who clearly understands credit.

[Vivian Tu]

Yeah, I'm obsessed. This person sounds like they are already well on their credit journey. Like they are doing really well. They've got a great credit score and just seem to be very credit worthy. So in terms of her four cards, I think she's right in the sweet spot. I typically say three to five cards is what the average person should have. I have five. In terms of calling your credit card issuer or the bank. You got it exactly right. More often than not, what you can do is actually downgrade your fee cards to no fee cards. So in Jean's case, you took a Amex Platinum, took it down to an Amex Gold. That is a lower fee. You can also go all the way down to like an Amex Blue or an Amex like everyday cash card. These are just, you know, no fee cards with fewer benefits. In the case of the airline that you don't fly anymore, there may even be be ways that you can still utilize those benefits. So if you rack up a bunch of miles on that airline, do those airline miles actually convert maybe to an international carrier, Maybe for that once in a lifetime trip to Japan or to Singapore or Thailand or wherever you want to go, or maybe somewhere fun in Europe. But like many of these airlines actually have partners. And so even if you're not flying that airline anymore, maybe you move cities or maybe you just, you know, you're not flying there anymore, it might be able to convert to something else that you could get a lot of value out of. But in terms of, you know, downgrading those cards. Yes. Get cards that don't have fees, especially if you're not using the benefits.

[Jean Chatzky]

And I've always felt like it's okay to close cards occasionally. Like I'm not going to close the card that I've had the longest period of time. Right. I've been with Amex for 40 years. I'm not closing my Amex relationship. But if you know that you're not applying for a mortgage or a car loan in the next six months to a year. Yeah. Your credit score is going to possibly take a little bit of a hit, but it'll come right back up.

[Vivian Tu]

Right.

[Jean Chatzky]

And that is what we have for today. Vivian, I knew you were the right person to talk about this because I got the feeling that you were obsessed.

So thank you so much for doing this with us again.

Always a pleasure to see. I've got to say, I point people to you all the time when folks who are giving advice on social media are criticized and I just tell them to watch you because you clearly do your homework and your advice and your information is always top notch. So thank you for that.

[Vivian Tu]

Thank you so much for the kind words. I had so much fun and it was so good to see you.

[Jean Chatzky]

You as well.

Thanks for listening everyone. We'll see you next time. Time if you love today's episode, please take a moment to leave us a five star review on Apple Podcast. Your feedback means the world to me. Looking to grow your investing skills and make smarter decisions with Your Money in 2026? Join HerMoney's investing fix, the twice monthly women's only investment club where expert stock pickers pitch ideas and you help build the portfolio. Since launching four years ago, our member driven picks have outperformed the S and P. Thanks to smart collaborative choices, we've got a strong track record and a community that's learning and winning together. Tap the link in the show notes and check out Investing Fix today. Her Money is produced by Haley Pascalides and our music is provided by Video Helper. Thanks so much for listening and we'll talk soon.

[Vivian Tu]

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