The Credit Card Rewards Game Is Changing (And Banks Are Winning)
Frugal Friends Podcast
Jen Smith & Jill Sirianni | Backyard Ventures
4.6 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 28 April 2026
⏱️ 49 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Credit cards once felt like endless possibility and hope as if it’s free money. But lately people are noticing something strange as points are harder to use, more complicated and annual fees keep going up. In this episode, they explain what’s happening, if it is still worth it and what to do instead.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The credit card rewards game is changing and banks are winning. |
| 0:08.3 | Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast where you'll learn to save money, embrace simplicity, and live a rich in your life. |
| 0:18.1 | Here are your host, Jen and Jill. |
| 0:28.9 | Welcome Frugal Friends. I'm Jen friends i'm jen i'm jill and for years both jill and i have been avid travel rewards credit card optimizers we have had so many different types of credit cards |
| 0:37.1 | from probably every single bank out there. |
| 0:40.9 | But we, probably like you, if you are also in the rewards game, have noticed a major shift in |
| 0:49.6 | the last few years. And according to news, more shifts are coming, starting with one of our |
| 0:58.3 | favorite, favorite brands. And so we really thought it needed to be discussed what is happening |
| 1:04.7 | to travel awards. Is it worth using them anymore? And if so, how? And if not, what do we do? So that is what we are diving into |
| 1:14.0 | in this episode. Points are harder to use. Perks are more complicated. Annual fees are going up. |
| 1:20.4 | Oh my. Yeah. What's a girl to do? What we're going to tell you? But first, I am running a marathon. And I, if you guys know, |
| 1:31.2 | you know that I've been running Disney races for years now. And honestly, that's another thing. |
| 1:37.2 | That's another episode that may bear, bear creating. You let us know in the comments if you want |
| 1:43.7 | a similar episode on how Disney is |
| 1:46.2 | becoming unaffordable and unattainable. Becoming? But anyway. Always has been. Anyways. |
| 1:55.4 | So I'm running the Disney World Marathon with a few friends in January. And we are doing it. We are not giving our |
| 2:02.4 | money to Disney. Instead, we have decided to raise money for the Ronald McDonald House charities |
| 2:08.2 | and give our money to them. But that means we have to give a lot more money than if we had just |
| 2:13.2 | paid the fee to Disney. And so if you are familiar with Ronald McDonald's House, you know that it |
| 2:18.9 | keeps parents and families who have a child in the hospital close to their child and they don't |
| 2:24.7 | have to worry about the fees of a hotel, especially if they're using credit card rewards and they can |
| 2:30.7 | no longer afford hotels with their rewards. I digress. So a night at Ronald |
... |
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