Want a better credit card?
Aug 20th, 2007 by Vinny
A lot of people get sucked into credit cards without looking for the best deals. A great site to check out is http://www.creditcards.com/. They get their’s from you clicking on the credit card deals, but it’s nicely sorted by the different types of cards. Read the fine print very carefully when looking at a credit card. The best way to gain credit is of course to always pay them off every month (yeah in a perfect would we could all do that).
Some things to note:
- Check for yearly “maintenance” fees. Just about any good card will be free.
- Check the monthly interest cycle, for example Visa usually charges a two month interest daily balance cycle, which means you pay interest for two months if you couldn’t fully pay one month off. MasterCard and AMEX are typically just one month cycles.
- If you’re going for a no interest for X months on a balance transfer or purchase, make very sure that you do not get penalized for making additional purchases. Some companies love to pay off the new balance before the old balance, thus you get charged lots of interest. These cards are best for a balance transfer, which you pay a little every month on that balance while not using the card for anything else.
- Rewards: Some are better than others! I personally prefer the cash back cards as its real money in your pocket, not a certificate for junk. I tried a Borders card for a short while, and the gift certificates you get back usually entice you to buy more than what the certificate allows. The certificates are not cash refundable (but for some reason they keep giving me cash back) so make sure you get purchases as close to the limit, otherwise that $500 you spent to get a $5 certificate was in vain!
The credit companies make a killing from the merchant every time you use a card (per transaction and a percent of the total), so this is how they afford to give you money back. There is almost no reason to use cash these days.
