Comment by jkaplowitz

And many of the best fancy cards provide enough value in the various benefits they offer to outweigh the fee for many of those customers. This is often true not only in terms of luxury experiences like lounge access, but even in terms of cold hard financial value. Examples include a certain amount of annual statement credit against certain types of transactions, points that can be directly or indirectly redeemed for lots of types of purchases, and so on.