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.
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.
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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.
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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.
A prompt this long is easy to save and never run, and writing tight rules like "count it as zero" is a skill you build with reps. 3 Minute AI gives you those reps in three-minute lessons, each ending with a task you run in a built-in chat lab, and there is a chatgpt track for exactly this kind of work. Daily lessons and two full courses are free.
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
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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.
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Five reads before your next renewal
Experian's breakdown of annual fees explains when a fee earns its keep and why carrying a balance wipes out the rewards that were supposed to cover it.
The Points Guy runs the numbers on the $795 Chase Sapphire Reserve and concludes it only pays off if you actually use most of the credits.
Frequent Miler's downgrade paths guide maps which cards each issuer lets you switch to, so you can drop the fee and keep your points alive.
Yahoo Finance on retention offers covers how to ask, when to call, and what issuers tend to offer before you close a card.
Frequent Miler's Coupon Book Tracker is a free spreadsheet for logging every monthly and yearly statement credit, which makes the "credits used" field in this prompt honest.
Poll: The prompt says your priciest card is costing you money. What do you actually do?
Hit reply and tell us why.