BTW, here's some quick math on fee vs no fee credit cards.
I've got the basic BMO no-fee cashback Mastercard, which has 1% cash back. The BMO World Elite costs $120 per-year and has 1.5% cash back.
I regularly put about $500 a month on my card, so I get $5 per month/$60 per-year (pretty much a free videogame, which beats my old Airmiles card, which only ever gave me a toaster). If I put $1000 per month on it, I'd earn $120 per-year, which is technically enough to pay for the upgrade to the World Elite card.
But why would I ever do that? The free card puts money in my hand. Spending that free money on a credit card takes my free money away and puts a slightly different color plastic rectangle in my hand. I would rather keep the $120, thankyouverymuch.
Okay but, the fancy upgrade card gives me 1.5%, so at $1000 per month spending, I'd get $180 in rewards. Which means it pays for the card, and it also gives you $60. Which really just means that it's giving you $60, for $1000 a month worth of spending, when the free card could've given you $60 at $500 a month, and at this $1000 level it could be giving you $120.
What you need is for the annual fee card to pay itself off, AND beat what the no-fee card could've been paying you.
Which in the case of these two BMO cards, is $2000 per month in credit card spending.
With $2000 per month, you're getting $240 cashback per year with the 1% card, and $360 cashback per year with the 1.5%. That gap finally covers the $120 per year difference that the annual fee card costs. That's the point where (if your spending is steady and reliable) you should switch to a paid card, because anything you spend beyond $2000 is where the paid card starts to pull ahead of the free card.
Is your wife spending more than $2000 a month on her credit card?
(The math gets way less simple when you get something like 4% back for groceries and gas.)