Category: Credit Cards

Credit cards are increasing in popularity and nowadays most of us in America have at least three credit cards. But most credit users start accumulating new credit cards after using the first one for at least 6 months to a year. It is obvious that these users might have accumulated some credit balance over this time. Now, when they decide to get a new card, they might opt for a transfer of the outstanding balance to the new card. But it is necessary to compare credit card balance transfer offers before taking this decision.

Low balance transfer offers

When credit card users compare credit card balance transfer offers, the main criterion that they should consider is the balance transfer rate offered by the new credit cards. It is obvious that unless the balance transfer rates offered by the new credit cards are lower than the previous credit card, there is no point in attempting to transfer the balance from the old card to new card.

Nowadays, there are many credit card companies that are trying to get new customers and one of the most common ways in which they lure customers is with low balance transfer offers on their credit cards.

Usually these offers are very low when compared to the rates on balance transfer that these credit card users are currently being applied.

0 balance transfer rate offers

No matter how low the offers on balance transfer rates may be, nothing can compare to the 0% balance transfer rate offers. Since there is a lot of competition going around, credit card companies want to get the better of their competitors. No wonder that most of the latest offers on balance transfer rates are in the 0 % range.

Points to check when you compare credit card balance transfer offers

When you compare credit card balance transfer offers, be sure to check if the low rates apply only to balance transfer rates or to all transaction on the new credit card. Many a times, people jump to conclusions and think that the rates applied to balance transfers are applicable to all transactions on the card, but that has to be confirmed from the terms and conditions first.

Another point to note is about the balance transfer rates that will be applied after the offer period comes to an end. This is very important because any amount that is pending after the offer ends will be charged at high interest rates.

There might also be charges like annual charges or extra charges that are combined along with 0 % or low interest rate balance transfer offers. It is better to read through the fine print before you transfer your balance to the new card.

It is necessary to compare credit card balance transfer rates offered by the various credit card companies before you transfer your balance to the new card. Read the fine print and double check the terms and conditions to avoid pitfalls later on.

Much has been said and heard about low introductory rate credit cards already. Most of you know that these credit cards offer a low rate of interest as an introductory offer and also that these low rates are valid for a short time only. We all receive several offers promoting low introductory rate credit cards each day in our mail boxes, inboxes, magazines etc. Though the basics about these cards are well known, there are certain facts that are yet unknown to the general public. Let us try to understand how these low introductory rate credit cards work.

What should you know when looking for offers?

When you are trying to find the best offers for low introductory rate credit cards, there are certain factors that need to be taken into consideration. The annual charge on some of these cards may be quite high and that makes such offers not so worthy of your attention. But at the same time, if you find that some of these low rate credit cards are charging a high annual fee while charging lower interest rates on the balance, then such offers are really worth your while.

Annual charges are a onetime fee irrespective of your outstanding balance, but interest rates are dependent upon your total outstanding balance and also takes in to consideration any delayed payment etc. So it makes better sense to opt for a slightly higher annual charge when compared to a higher rate of interest.

What is the relation between low introductory rate credit cards and credit score?

Your credit score has a huge say when it comes to low introductory rate credit cards. It goes without saying that the better your credit score is, the more are the chances to get one of these credit cards issued to you. Most of the offers related to these low introductory cards are specifically targeted to consumers with excellent credit history and score. But that does not mean that these cards are exclusively meant only for them.

It is possible to get hold of these low introductory rate credit cards, even if you have bad credit. Just apply for a checking and savings account with a bank or credit union. Then you can apply for a low rate credit card via your bank. Your chances of getting a low rate card issued are good if you apply via your bank, but do not expect a large credit limit to go with it. Often times you have to compromise with a lower credit limit when you want to get low introductory rate credit cards with bad credit history.

Not everyone gets to enjoy low introductory rate credit cards, but if you get one then consider yourself lucky. These low rate credit card offers will help you pay off your outstanding debts on your credit cards without having to pay through your nose towards interest charges. Even if you are offered these low rates only for a short while, you are bound to gain from them in one way or another.

It is tough to avoid the marketing by credit card companies and banks because wherever you turn, you are greeted by exciting offers. You must have heard a lot of mentions about 0 APR in these offers and wondered what does 0 APR mean.  In order to understand about 0 APR, you would need to first understand what APR means.

What is APR?

APR is the acronym for Annual Percentage Rate, and is also frequently known as nominal APR. APR is the rate of interest that will be charged on your outstanding credit. So, if your credit card carries a nominal APR of 10%, it denotes that you will have to pay $10 per year as interest for every $100 credit availed by you. Nominal APR is calculated as simple interest rate for 1 year.

What does 0 APR mean?

Based on what you read and understood in the previous section, you now know what 0 APR means. It means that you will be charged 0% interest on your credit card usage. To put it more simply, it means that you can make use of the credit for free, without any charges whatsoever applied to you.

What does 0 APR on balance transfer mean?

Speaking of 0% interest rates, you might have come across several credit card offers that promise 0% APR on balance transfer. If you were wondering how to deduce any meaning out of that, here is a detailed explanation. Most of the credit card users carry a balance on their credit cards. This balance is the credit that has already been availed of by the credit card user but has not been repaid till date.

Credit card companies offer an option of transferring the unpaid balance on your credit card to any new card that you may decide to sign up for later on. But there is usually a fee/interest rate applied for this balance transfer.

0 APR on balance transfer means that you can repay the outstanding balance on your credit card at 0% interest. What more can you ask for than this? It is as good as using the credit card company’s money for your needs and that too for free.

Are 0 APR offers good for you?

If you are seeking a one word answer to whether APR offers are good or bad for you, I must say that they are good, but under certain conditions. 0 % APR rates are mostly short time offers proposed by credit card companies to entice new customers. Many of these offers usually promise a 0 APR for 12–18 months and then charge very high interest rates after this period is completed. Be wary of such deals and say yes only if the post-offer interest rates are affordable to you.

When we are given thousands of different choices, making a selection or even a decision becomes a tough affair. Now, if these choices were related to credit cards, the decision-making process could only become more complicated.

Any credit worthy individual knows how important it is to select the right credit card and also realizes the fact that a bad credit card decision could mean a very bad financial decision which could have lasting impact and effects. Now, all these facts only serve to add to the existing confusion on how to choose the best credit card. Let us see if this problem can be solved for you in today’s post.

Before you choose the best credit card

To choose the best of anything, you first need to know what you are searching for. Additionally, you must be well aware of the choices too. Unless you know of all the options that are available for you to choose from, making an appropriate selection is not practical. So, before you choose the best credit card, get familiarized with the wide variety numbers of choices that are available.

While there are plenty of choices for credit cards, you also need to realize that not all are suitable for you. For example, if your credit score is in the bad credit range, there is no point reviewing or comparing the credit cards that are meant for people with good and excellent credit, simply because you are not going to be eligible for those cards. You will have to limit yourself to the cards meant for people with bad credit and then choose the best among them.

In the same way, there is no point looking at credit cards that provide excellent travel miles and benefits for frequent flyers, if you have no plan to travel by air anytime in the near future.

Ascertain your needs before you go about choosing credit cards.

How to choose the best credit card?

Now that you have your first step covered, you can proceed towards the next step in choosing the best credit card for you. The next logical question is where to check for the best credit cards and find the offers. Online reviews of credit cards are recommended due to a variety of reasons. First, you can get all the reviews for free without having to spend a cent of your money. Second, you have a huge number of choices online. On our site, for example, we have a huge selection of the best credit cards in the market. Do take a look.

Before worrying about how to choose the best credit card, you have to get your priorities straight. You also need to realize your limitations, if any. Only after you have successfully completed these two steps, can you proceed forward with selecting the best credit card for you. You will find the best credit card offers on the Web and applying for them online is also very expedient.

Almost every website that focuses on credit cards review has emphasized how crucial it is to compare the features of different credit cards before you settle for just one of the rest.

But for a person who is not much credit card savvy, doing a credit cards review can seem to be a huge task that is not only undecipherable but also a difficult nut to crack. So, for the benefit of such credit card users, today’s post is directed at tips to help you get your credit cards reviews right.

Select a wish list of criteria

The first step to getting your credit cards reviews right is selecting one or a few criteria, based on which you will be comparing the credit cards that are available. According to their personal requirements, each credit card user has a specific set of criteria that he/she is interested in. Some of the usual criteria used for credit cards reviews by users are the interest rates, APR rates, bonuses, and the like. The interest rates are probably used more frequently by all categories of users, be it students, business people, or the general public.

You can use other criteria like the best card for getting travel miles, gas cash reward cards, cards that offer the minimum maintenance charges, cards that give the biggest amount on cash back rewards etc.

What criteria credit cards review sites use?

The general public or the credit card consumers are interested in getting credit cards review done by professional people, so that they can trust the verdict that is given. There are a lot of websites online that do reviews of credit cards.

But not all of them are run by professional financial experts. If you are looking for credible reviews, then you should use the websites that are managed and overseen by financial experts or credit card review experts.

At DontSpendMore.com, we have compiled a huge selection of credit cards, in case you want to use it as a comparison point.

These websites usually categorize the credit cards reviews according to user preferences. They categorize the reviews under many different sections like:

1) Credit cards meant for specific groups of people: Student credit cards, business credit cards, etc.

2) Credit cards meant for specific categories of credit scores: Good credit, bad credit, no credit, etc.

3) Credit cards that offer rewards and bonuses

4) Credit cards that offer low interest rates

5) Credit cards with low balance transfer rates

6) Credit cards with instant approval

7) Secured credit cards

8) Credit cards without foreign transaction fee

9) Credit cards that are best for going green. These include credit cards that are completely bio-degradable after exposure to landfill conditions.

Remember, whatever are your criteria for comparing credit cards, you always have professional credit cards reviews to help you do that in the most professional manner. Just ensure that you combine your own research with the review results to be doubly sure of getting the best card for your needs.

The process of choosing a credit card can often be very cumbersome and confusing. With so many options available and so much financial jargon and legalese thrown your way, even the most financially-savvy individual could easily become overwhelmed. This is where reviews of credit cards come in handy.

Choosing credit cards based on reviews of credit cards

If you choose your credit card based on reviews of credit cards, then you would be doing yourself a favor.

Quite a few number of people who choose a credit card are unknowingly using reviews of credit cards. They tend to ask around and consult the opinion of their family members, their colleagues or friends, or look it up on the Web.

How to best use credit card reviews?

There are many websites online that focus on reviews of credit cards and write exclusively on this topic. At DontSpendMore.com, we have compiled a list of several credit cards that you may want to consider while evaluating your options.

Using these online reviews of credit cards facilitates the research process and enables you to get a better overall picture.

Do your own research after reading reviews

You have to do your own research after you read the reviews of credit cards so that you get the best credit cards suited to your needs. Once you have the top 10 credit cards that are recommended by all the review websites, check each of them to match your needs. For example, if you are looking for a credit card with lowest APR or highest rewards, find such a credit card from the top ten cards that were recommended by the review sites.

It is important to check reviews of credit cards before you select one of them. Doing this can help you get the best credit cards and the best offers and you won’t have to repent your choice later on.

Plastic cards or credit cards were designed for convenience. If it was not for the extreme convenience and expediency offered by credit cards for shopping, cash withdrawal and cash advances, no one would bother to pay exorbitant interest rates for getting these cards issued.

The fact that people are ready to pay interest rates that are often sky-rocketing, just in order to possess and use a credit card is in itself a proof of the fact that people cannot even imagine their lives without a credit card.

Too convenient for comfort?

But sometimes when things get too convenient, it could turn in to a situation which is described best as ‘too convenient for comfort’. When you can conveniently shop around the entire month even without having a single penny in your bank account and then pay for all those transactions when you get a bill on a particular date of each month, it becomes too easy to overlook errors on the billing statements.

Are you taking the convenience for granted and failing to check if everything is alright with your bill? Errors in monthly bill statements are not uncommon and the faster you catch these errors the better for you. All credit card companies and banks have a fixed date or fixed number of days from the date of issue of bill to notify of errors in the statements and get them fixed.

What is a credit cards list of transactions and why do you need one?

In US, statistics reveal that an average person could carry up to four (or even five) credit cards. So this also denotes that most of the credit card owners are very credit savvy due to their extensive usage of credit cards. To help track expenditures and facilitate budgeting many consumers prefer to maintain a list of credit card transactions, either in the form of a log book or an electronic record of all transactions.

This credit cards list of transactions is a huge help when you have to verify your monthly bills each month to find any errors that may have cropped up. As you already know, the transactions happen throughout the month and it is not possible for anyone to keep a perfect mental record of all the transaction dates and amounts.

In case you have to quickly check your statement for any errors before the expiration of the time window, you have to have an easy reference to use and a credit cards list of transactions can be of immense help to you here.

I love the financial freedom that credit cards offer me. But do you know one thing that I do not like about credit cards? It is the statement of bills that the credit card company keeps sending me each month, without fail. It is not that I do not like to pay my bills or do not intend to pay back the dues that I owe the credit card company. It is just that I have a habit of meticulously going through the bill details to do a monthly statement review of credit cards I own.

This is not a waste of time, as many of you may be already thinking by now. Believe me, it is better to keep a check on your bill details and in fact I highly recommend every credit card user to do a monthly statement review of credit cards, without fail.

What is the need for monthly statement review of credit cards?

Usually the bill details are all fine and there are no problems at all. But that does not mean that your bill is going to be totally error-free every single time. There are high chances of finding charges on your credit card statement that have not been made by you or some interest was deducted which you are not accounted for etc.

What are the points to look for in monthly statement review of credit cards

Go through all the charges and confirm if they really belong to you or not

Always go through the credit card charges and check the dates of the purchases and all other transaction details mentioned in there. Many credit card users also maintain a list of all purchases and transactions that they conduct on their credit cards. If you too have some such list, compare the list details with the bill details to make sure everything is okay and matching perfectly.

Verify all payments

The next most important thing that you need to verify after the bill details is the outstanding balance mentioned on your statement. Check if the payments that you have completed have been taken in to account or not. Check the value of the outstanding dues and also look for mention of payment date and amount.

Check for any extra fees

Next thing to look for in your monthly statement review of credit cards is extra fees or charges. Sometimes extra fees like late payment fees, foreign transaction fees or some such charges may be seen on credit card bills. Make sure that these fees actually apply to you and also check the amount you are being charged as fees.

Doing a monthly statement review of credit cards should not be avoided or ignored. Some people think of such things as a huge waste of time and effort and even make excuses that they have many other important things to do. Remember that if your statement has an error in it and you fail to notice it and notify the credit card company before a certain time limit, the errors will not be rectified and you may have to pay for such an oversight.