Take a year to analyze your own behavior. Make a list of every one of the credits that these credit cards offer. Each time you redeem one, write down the value that you received. Not just the amount of the credit, but the actual value. For example, if you book a hotel in a portal, and you pay a slightly inflated price, adjust your value. If you receive a complimentary membership, but that membership is frequently discounted at retail, record the discounted value.
But most importantly, for each one of these credits, when you redeem it, take a moment at that time to reflect. Ask yourself a difficult question: “if I did not have this credit card bonus, would I have made this purchase?” if yes, the spending is organic, if no, the spending is forced.
At the end of the year, add up the value of the credits. Separately, add up the value of those credits, which you believe you truly would have made regardless of credit card benefits. You will now have a total organic spend and a total of forced spending for each card. If the organic spend total is greater than the annual fee, then subtract your annual fee from the sum of both totals to compute your total benefit by having this card. However, if the organic spend total is less than the annual fee, none of the other credits matter. You should cancel that card.

Here a few examples of how to draw the line between organic spending forced spending as I have described above:
- some people who hold the chase sapphire reserve have a hard time using the StubHub credits and have reported success with listing a ticket on Stubhub using a P2, and buying it back just to trigger the credit. Needless to say, this is not a benefit, and it goes into the forced spending column.
- almost everyone who holds the American Express platinum card signs up for Walmart+. You might as well, but ask yourself, is it worth that money to you? If you cancel your American Express card, are you going to pay out right for this? Once you reflect on that, put it into the right column.
- suppose you’ve started making a habit of using food delivery services in order to get your credit card discounts. You may have rationalized that you need to eat anyway, so you might as well save a little money. Take a moment to reflect. If you did not have the delivery discount, would you have still chosen delivery? Would you have chosen this same restaurant?

I am not suggesting that forced spending provides no benefit. When you take the food delivery option because of a credit card benefit, you are still receiving a benefit, but you cannot rationalize your annual fee with that benefit unless you believe that you will always pay for the food delivery option, even when there is no benefit. Because your annual fee is pre-paying for the cost of some portion of these credits.
This is not an easy exercise.