If you use your airline miles card a lot, some issuers will waive the annual fee if you threaten to cancel. I dropped mine anyway. For me the miles just aren't worth much anymore - almost every time I want to use them I would have to use 50K to get the flights I want. In some cases I can buy the same flights for $200!

So I'm now using a BankOne no-fee 1% cashback Visa. I've gotten in on some good promotions, like last fall when they gave double cashback for 2 months while Marriott was also giving double points on a Visa promotion - kind of a "double-double dip". There's a double casback promo on now too but only for charges above $600 each month on certain items. It doesn't include hotels so I won't benefit much from it.

There's no hassle getting the cashback - the last check arrived about a week after I requested it...