Is it worth renewing the fee based card?

[johnb667]

Hi guys,
I’m coming up to my £160 renewal of the Virgin Atlantic credit card it’s a simple question really is it worth paying the renewal fee? If you think that you’re gonna hit the £20,000 a year spend or is it better to pay the fee? Get the voucher and spend the £10,000 and then maybe look at an alternative cardwhere you’d spend the other £10,000 or more to get better perks I confidently will get through the £20,000 a year spend but I’m just thinking is it really worth it when I could maybe split my spending between two cards and get a better deal but it’s just £160 fee seems a lot of money with no further benefit like sign up bonus. What’s your thoughts?

[DJ]

Based on £20,000 spend:

Free card = 15,000 points
Paid card = 30,000 points

Assume 1 point = £0.01

The extra 15,000 points earned is likely worth about £150 if redeemed for flights. Vs the card fee of £160.

So if you are going to spend 20K, then the free card is better.

[phantomchickenz]

Just cancelled my paid card. Beware that they tend to take the renewal fee at month 11 rather than 12, and you need to raise a complaint to get it back.

In terms of whether it’s worth it, how likely are you to use the extra voucher?

[BA Flyer IHG Stayer]

But what if you don’t hit the £ 20k spend?

Surely that £ 160 card fee could be seen as a bit of insurance to make sure you get the voucher? Plus then it means as you say you can switch any spend over the £10k to another card.

What other benefits would you be giving up by downgrading? I’m not au fait with the VS cards but surely there must be more benefits to the paid for card than only earning the voucher on a reduced spend.