In the USA my expectation is that the higher fees cover two things. The first is much higher all around credit limits - with higher fees you can handle more delinquency. In the UK it's typical to get a credit limit of around 10% of your salary, whereas from what I know it's easier to get a higher limit in the US. That may be a good or a bad thing. The second thing is that some credit cards are basically an asset transfer from the poor to the rich. Get a Chase Sapphire Reserve? $500 fee per year, then you get $300 back immediately on travel, $0.015 on travel per dollar spent ($0.075 if spent on flights), $25/year value on global entry applications, and various free other things (airline lounge, auto rental insurance, etc etc). You don't get that if you're poor.