Elsewhere on social media, a different kind of creator flashes a metal card, walks through an airport lounge, settles into a lie-flat seat, and tells you this could be yours if you just sign up, with the link in bio.

The credit card influencer industrial complex has never been bigger, or more consequential. At a moment when American credit card debt has hit an all-time high of $1.28 trillion and average APRs have climbed past 21%, a generation of consumers is making financial decisions based on 45-second videos created by people who are paid to get them to apply.

A record high, and rising

Americans’ total credit card balance hit $1.277 trillion as of the fourth quarter of 2025, the highest since the New York Fed began tracking the data in 1999. The average cardholder now carries between $6,500 and $6,800 in revolving debt, well above pre-pandemic levels. According to Bankrate’s 2026 survey, 47% of American cardholders carry a balance from month to month, with the rate climbing to 53% among millennials and Gen Xers. That’s complicated with interest rates: the average APR four years ago was less than 15%. By 2024, it was over 21%, and a growing number of Americans now face rates above 30%. As Fortune reported in January, credit card companies are taking larger interest payments from those who carry a balance and redistribute them as rewards to people who don’t.

Nick Ewen, editor-in-chief of The Points Guy, holds 28 active credit cards. He audits every one when the annual fee posts. His wife carries a handwritten cheat sheet of which authorized-user card to use for which purchase category, updated every three months. When asked which card to get, he recommends a lifestyle audit. But he, a man whose full-time job is monitoring credit cards, has a cheatsheet to stay on top of the perks, and the balances.

“I have never once paid a cent of credit card interest,” he says. “If you are carrying a balance month to month, you should not be in this game.”

“These premium cards, the increased annual fees and all of these new benefits, it takes time to understand them and to utilize them properly,” Ewen says. “You have to be honest with yourself. Are you going to take the time to learn how to use all of them? Because if you don’t, you’re leaving money on the table, and there is most likely a lower fee or a no fee card that would be a better fit.”

Richard Kerr, GM of travel at Bilt and a veteran of the points-and-miles space since before Instagram existed, uses an analogy he returns to in every talk he gives. Picture a traffic jam on the 405 outside LAX. Everyone within a mile gets out of their car. You ask all of them to explain the best way to use airline miles.

“Three people are going to know how to answer that question,” Kerr says. “It is such a niche space of how many people fully understand this.”

“I would say 90% of people who ask me what travel card to get, I end up not recommending a travel card for them,” he says. “I’m like, tell me where you’re flying this year. And they’re like, ‘Oh, we might go see grandma in Florida.’ You probably don’t need a travel card. You probably need a shopping or cash back card.”

Kerr has watched the influencer ecosystem grow around credit cards for over a decade. He doesn’t dismiss the influencers outright. But he doesn’t endorse what the ecosystem is producing either. “They’re doing a good job doing what their job is, which is influencing people to make decisions. I just don’t know if encouraging that deep of a rabbit hole behavior is a good thing.”

Kerr got into the points-and-miles world by creating a viral Facebook group about credit card rewards before eventually joining The Points Guy. The Instagram points influencer, he notes, didn’t exist when he started. “It’s really done its job,” he said, “and sold the dream to people who probably don’t need that dream sold to them, and should just be getting a flat 2% cash back card.”

A generation going deeper

A 2026 Bankrate survey found that 34% of Gen Zers have no emergency savings at all. Members of Gen Z are carrying $500 more in credit card debt than millennials did at the same age. And a lot of it is induced by what they see on social media. The problem is so widespread in China that the country last year passed a law requiring any content creator discussing medicine, health, law, finance, or education to prove verified professional credentials before posting or going live.

What the content doesn’t show is the effort it requires: tracking rotating bonus categories across multiple cards, comparing portal prices against direct booking rates, understanding transfer partner valuations, running an honest annual calculation of whether each card’s benefits exceed its fee. Ewen and Kerr do this professionally. The person who signed up for a $695 card after a 45-second video almost certainly does not.

“The average American is not going to do that,” Kerr said, advising most to realize that they just don’t have enough self-control and these cards were not meant for them.

Matt Schulz, chief consumer finance analyst at LendingTree, said the influencer incentive structure makes this worse. “I don’t think a lot of influencers do a good enough job explaining how hard managing points and miles actually is,” he told Fortune. “And I completely understand why they don’t, because it’s in their own interest not to.”

Credit card affiliates earn commissions when a viewer applies through their link. Schulz says the sign-up bonus itself is frequently misunderstood. “People don’t necessarily understand that the sign-up bonus is actually a ‘spend $5,000 in three months and then get the bonus’ bonus,” he said. “People end up getting over their skis, and when you’re talking about 25% APRs, it outweighs the perks in a big hurry if you end up carrying a balance.”

Most luxury travel content, Schulz noted, is funded not by personal spending but by business expenses run through a card. “That’s how a lot of big influencers afford all of this. They’re putting all of their business expenses on credit cards and turning it into first class on Emirates to Dubai. And the average person is like, ‘I just want to go to Disney once a year.'”

“We’ve seen data over the years that say that most people just want a simple card,” Schulz says. “And for most people, the extra effort isn’t really going to move the needle all that much.”

Ewen, Kerr, and Schulz all arrive at the same recommendation for most consumers: a no-annual-fee card with a flat 2% cash back on everything. “Never a wrong way to go,” Kerr says.