An annual fee is only worth it if the benefits you actually use, plus the points you actually redeem, exceed the fee and beat a no-fee alternative.

List benefits you genuinely used last year and value them at what you would have paid without the card. Unused credits and lounge visits you never took are worth zero.

Calculate points value from real redemptions, not headline rates. Forty thousand points redeemed at one and a half cents each is six hundred dollars; the same points left unredeemed return nothing.

Compare against a no-fee card, not against nothing. Only the extra value over the free alternative needs to beat the fee, and downgrading often beats cancelling.