Bottom line: a prompt from r/ChatGPTPromptGenius compares every annual-fee card in your wallet against a plain 2% cash back card. It tells you to keep, downgrade or cancel each one, using only the credits and perks you really used.
The spark
Someone online claimed the Chase Sapphire Reserve is worth it at $75k of yearly spend. Their math was $1,506 in credits against about $1,000 in fees.
u/realFinerd checked it. A free 2% card pays $1,500 on that same $75k. The Reserve earns 1x on most of that spend. After the baseline is subtracted, the numbers land around -$159 a year. The exception is when a big share of the spend goes to flights and hotels booked direct.
The lesson is that a card can look profitable until you ask what the free alternative would have paid. Credits work the same way. A $300 travel credit feels like free money, but if you never would have booked that travel, it’s a coupon for something you didn’t need.
What the prompt does
For each fee card, it calculates:
net = rewards earned + credits used + perks used – annual fee – what a no-fee 2% card would have paid on the same spend
A negative number means you’re paying for the card. A few rules keep the result honest:
- Rewards are valued at what you actually get: your cash-out rate, or 1 cent per point if you haven’t redeemed. A transfer value counts only if you named a transfer you really made. No blog valuations.
- A credit counts at full value only if you would have spent that money anyway. Otherwise it counts at half. So a $200 dining credit on meals you were buying regardless counts as $200, while one you only used because it was there counts as $100.
- A perk counts only if you name a use and a price for it.
- Insurance and protections count as zero unless you filed a claim.
It also looks up current fees, earn rates and credits on the issuer’s site, so turn web search on. You get one table with a row per card, one line on why for each, and one line on how the whole wallet compares with a single 2% card.
What makes it good
Three things stand out.
- It’s skeptical by default. Most card math is generous to the card. This one is stingy on purpose.
- The downgrade rule is careful. It only suggests a downgrade if the issuer has a no-fee or lower-fee card that keeps your points alive, and it names that card.
- It protects your points. If cancelling would wipe your balance, it tells you how many points are at risk and to use or move them first. If a retention offer could flip the verdict, it names the amount that would make keeping the card worth it.
The output rules are strict too: no new card recommendations, and no lecture on how points work.
How to run it
- Turn web search on.
- Pull last year’s statements. Downloading them as CSV files makes the next step much faster.
- Fill in one block per fee card: name, fee, open date, spend by category, credits used, perks used, how you redeem, and your points balance. A quick pivot table gives you the category totals in a few minutes.
- List your no-fee cards and anything unusual coming in the next 12 months.
That last item matters. A big trip or purchase can change a verdict, and the prompt factors it in. Be honest in the credits and perks fields, too. If you’re unsure whether you used something, leave it out and let the prompt count it as zero.
Use cases
- 💳 The yearly renewal check, a few weeks before the fee posts
- 🧾 Settling an argument about whether a premium travel card is worth it
- 📉 Finding the card you keep out of habit that has been quietly costing you
What the community said
One commenter ran it on an Amex Gold and got a negative result. They called it a sting, but said the math doesn’t lie. They also pointed out that the 2% floor is what sinks most of these setups unless your spend leans hard into the bonus categories. That matches the original post: lopsided spend is the one case where a fee card can win.
Someone else asked whether people feed it statement data or use a plugin. The post’s author mentions finerd, which connects to ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini so the prompt reads your real transactions. Pasting your own category totals works fine too.
Your move
Run it on your most expensive card first. Then share what yours came out to, and if you changed the prompt to get a better result, post the tweak. I’d like to know how many people end up with a positive net.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Is a flat 2% cash card really the bar a fee card has to beat?
Yes, that’s the baseline this prompt uses. A 2% card pays about $1,500 on $75k of spend, so a fee card has to earn more than that before the annual fee comes out. One reader ran it on an Amex Gold and got a negative result, and said the 2% floor sinks most setups unless your spending leans hard into the bonus categories.
Q: Why did my credits count for less when I ran the numbers?
The prompt only counts a credit at full value if you would have spent that money anyway. If you answer ‘no’ for a credit, it gets discounted, and one reader saw theirs cut in half, which pushed their card underwater. Answer that question honestly, because it’s the biggest swing in the result.
Q: Do I need a plugin, or can I paste in my statements?
The post doesn’t mention a plugin, so this runs as plain text. Paste it into a chat with web search turned on, then fill the brackets with your category totals from last year’s statements. Web search is what pulls the current fees and credits from the issuer’s site.
Paying an annual fee? A prompt that checks if each card actually pays you back
by u/realFinerd in ChatGPTPromptGenius