There’s another catch if you’re not using a card with rewards. (As I understand it this is mostly a U.S. thing, other countries don’t do this.)

Every year when I take my big vacation my wife and I get 1-1.5 of our international business class tickets paid for by rewards on one card and about half of our hotel suites (about 10-11 nights) paid for by rewards on another card. If you’re paying cash or using a card without rewards, you’re paying for my vacation.

Places with different prices for cash and cards are vanishingly rare. Mostly because card processing companies try to penalize places that do this. So everyone pays higher prices to pay for the higher processing fees for reward cards. If you aren’t getting something back you’re just paying for people that are.

I just scrolled past three depressing posts because I didn’t want to deal with it this early and clicked a comic instead, only to have it be this comic.