CNBC Points Pro wants you to know that credit cards with benefits cost money. This is the kind of insight you get when journalism meets a PowerPoint deck from 1987.
The headline asks which card offers primary rental car insurance, lounge access, and 2X points. The answer is seventeen of them. Maybe thirty. The Chase Sapphire Reserve does it. The Capital One Venture X does it. AmEx Platinum does most of it while charging you $695 to feel important at airport bars where well drinks cost $19.
But here's the twist that CNBC wants you to understand: these cards have annual fees. Revolutionary stuff. Next week they'll investigate whether mortgages require monthly payments.
The real comedy is watching retail traders optimize credit card rewards like they're running a proprietary trading desk. They'll spend fourteen hours researching whether the Citi Prestige or the Hilton Honors Aspire has better airport lounge shower access, then use the card to book a Spirit flight to Orlando. They'll calculate the effective return on dining spend down to the third decimal point, then eat at Chili's.
Primary rental car insurance means the card covers damage first, before your regular insurance. This matters if you rent cars. It does not matter if you drive a 2011 Camry with 140,000 miles and spend your weekends watching TikTok videos about passive income.
The question "how much do they cost" appears in the summary like it's profound. They cost between $95 and $695 per year. You can Google this in four seconds. But CNBC needed content and someone had a quota to fill, so now we're pretending this is analysis.
The target audience is people who think lounge access will change their lives but can't afford the sandwich once they get inside.
Photo by on Unsplash
Leave a Comment