Hello, sir or madam. Today, you took simultaneous actions in regards to my rewards account with you. You charged me the card’s annual membership fee, thus making me psychologically committed to keeping my account for another twelve months lest I “waste” that fifty bucks. At the same time, you significantly increased the card’s APR. This makes my psychological commitment an even sweeter revenue stream for you over the next year (by which time I’m sure you suspect I will have forgotten about these concurrent feats of fee-based genius).

Nice job. Very clever. It’s like a little game you decided to play with your cardholders. I like games, too. So since you like games and I like games, why don’t we play a quick guessing game. Cool? Okay, here goes. I’m holding up one finger over here on my end of the internet. Guess which one.