Everyone's situation is different. I do the travel hacking / points game. I am perfectly happy paying for an annual fee if I feel that the rewards from the card are worth more than the fee. Many times the fee is waived the first year. When the annual fee posts to your account, you have up to 60 days to cancel your card and the fee will be credited back to your account. The Chase Ultimate Rewards program is pretty decent because it has a good shopping portal and the UR points can be transferred to many programs. The UR program was an excellent way for me to get Amtrak travel that required 160K points.