A fourth tier of credit cards has begun to emerge

By Ted Rossman, Bankrate.com

For a long time, credit cards have generally fallen into three tiers: no-annual-fee cards , mid-tier cards with annual fees around $95 and premium cards with annual fees measured in the hundreds (these used to cluster around $400 or $500 per year, now it’s more like $800 or $900 in many cases).

The upmarket migration of luxury credit cards such as the Chase Sapphire Reserve® and American Express Platinum Card® has created a large (and growing) gap between the traditional middle and premium tiers. And we all know that businesses see gaps and like to fill them with profit.

In this case, they’ve begun to do that by introducing a fourth tier of cards — upper-middle-class cards, if you will — and I expect more cards at that level are on the way. This is goo