low interest
Credit Card Q&A: What does New Credit Card Rules Mean to You
The fact that Federal Reserve approved new credit card rules means that, before it’s too late, it’s time now to apply for balance transfer credit cards with low interest and low transaction fee.
Federal Reserve released a set of new credit card rules that will take effect starting July 2010. Based on these new rules, credit card companies must:
- Raise interest rates only on new credit cards and future purchases or advances, not on current balances.
- Give you 45 days’ notice before any changes are made to the terms of an account, including slapping on a higher penalty rate for missing payments or paying bills late. Under current rules, companies in most cases give 15 days notice.
- Apply any payment above the minimum to the part of the balance with the highest interest rate.
Credit card companies must not:
- Place unfair time constraints on payments. A payment could not be deemed late unless the borrower is given a reasonable period of time, such as 21 days, to pay.
- Place too-high fees for exceeding the credit limit solely because of a hold placed on the account.
- Unfairly compute balances in a computing tactic known as double-cycle billing.
- Unfairly add security deposits and fees for issuing credit or making it available.
- Make deceptive offers of credit.
- Charge upfront fees for subprime cards (high-interest cards for people with low credit scores, typically with $500 credit limits) that exceed half of the credit-card limit, or require full repayment in less than a year.
The rules were approved by the Federal Reserve, the Treasury Department’s Office of Thrift Supervision and the National Credit Union Administration on Dec. 18th, 2008.
For consumers, these rules will protect those debt-ridden, cash-strapped from being charged sky-high interest rates by credit card companies. They will also prevent consumers to fall in the trap of getting a 0% Balance Transfer card, but actually ended up paying high interest for that balance because credit card companies allocate payment to low interest balance tiers first. Finally, credit card companies will be prevented from taking negative actions such as “universal default” against consumers.
For credit card companies, these rules will definitely shrink the profitable margin of credit card industry, since they eliminate many levers that they could use to bring profit and prevent credit risk: such as raising interests without notice, payment allocation, charging late fees etc.
All in all, while the new rules bring more power to consumer side of the game, the credit card companies may respond by cutting credit card offerings. While consumers may have better than before leverage to get more transparent terms and be treated more in expectation, credit may not be as easy to obtain as before. After all, there will still be more than a year before these rules take effect, which gives people enough time to digest the impact and take action, but one thing is certain: more and more people are taking actions to be more and more financial disciplined.
Important Disclaimer: the credit cards information in this post were accurate as of the date of publishing, some or all of the card programs may be discontinued, their terms may be changed after wards.
Card Comparison: Low/No Fee 0% Balance Transfer Credit Cards – December 2008
As credit crunch continues, credit card companies are shrinking their credit exposure. Legendary financial analyst, Meredith Whitney claimed that $2T of credit line, or 45% of US consumer’s liquidity is going to disappear in 2009 as a result of credit card companies’ effort of reducing their exposure to credit card debt.
At such time, it’s even more important for consumers to find good credit cards that offer low/no fee balance transfer, here is the December list:
| Card Name | BT APR, credit needed and credit limit | Transaction Fee | |
 |
IberiaBank Visa® Platinum Rewards Card |
0% for 6 mths, requires Good Credit | None |
 |
IberiaBank Visa® Gold Cash Back Rewards Card |
0% for 6 mths, requires Good Credit | None |
Important Disclaimer: the credit cards information in this post were accurate as of the date of publishing, some or all of the card programs may be discontinued, their terms may be changed after wards.
Card Comparison: Best and Worst Credit Cards, according to BusinessWeek
Recently, BusinessWeek ran an interview with Greg Doherty, editor with Consumer Reports, a prominent consumer products rating agency. When asked about his pick of a credit card best for all situations, Greg pointed out the fact that there is virtually no such credit card which is best for every one under every circumstances. Greg also pointed out that even for a relatively good card, “it may not stay a good card forever“. The rankings of credit cards always are dynamic.
He broke down best credit cards to two categories that serve people with different needs best. For those who regularly run a balance/debt, they should consider low rate/low fee credit cards, for those who don’t run a balance/debt, best cash back rewards credit card makes more sense. As of now these are his picks of best low rate/low fee credit cards:
| Card Name | Regular APR and Credit Needed | Fee and Intro APR | |
 |
Capital One Platinum Prestige |
8.9%, requires excellent credit | No annual fee, 0% intro APR until Oct. 2009 |
 |
Capital One Platinum Prestige – Visa |
8.9%, requires excellent credit | No annual fee, 0% intro APR until Oct. 2009 |
 |
Clear from American Express |
as low as 10.99%, requires good credit | No fee of any kind, 0% intro APR for 12 mths |
|
IberiaBank Visa® Platinum Rewards Card |
9 – 11% depends on creditworthiness, requires good credit | No annual fee, 0% intro APR for 6 mths, earn 1 bonus point for every $1 in qualifying net retail purchases |
As for best cash back credit cards, Greg picked these:
| Card Name | Reward on each $1 spent | Fee and Regular APR | |
 |
Capital One No Hassle Cash Rewards |
2% on purchases at gas stations and major grocery and drug stores, 1% cash back on others. Requires good credit | No annual fee, 13.9% regular APR |
 |
Capital One No Hassle Cash Rewards – Young Adults |
2% on purchases at gas stations and major grocery and drug stores, 1% cash back on others. Requires good credit | $29 annual fee, 16.9% regular APR |
 |
Chase Freedom Visa |
3% in Your Top 3 Everyday Spending Categories, 1% in others. Requires good credit | No annual fee, 14.99% regular APR |
 |
Discover® More Card |
5% Cashback Bonus® in categories like travel, home improvement stores, gas, groceries, restaurants, movies… 1% on others. Requires good credit | No annual fee, 10.99% regular APR |
And here are his picks of the “worst” credit cards, the reason I am listing them out is in case you are holding a contrarian view… 
| Card Name | Regular APR, Credit Needed and Fee | Grace period | |
 |
HSBC American Dream Card |
14.99% or 21.99%, requires fair credit, no annual fee | 20 days after the previous billing cycle provided you paid bal in full. |
 |
New Millennium Bank Secured Platinum Visa® |
19.5%, bad credit OK, $59 annual fee, $99 application fee | NO grace period |
 |
New Millennium Bank Secured Platinum MasterCard® |
19.5%, bad credit OK, $59 annual fee, $99 application fee | NO grace period |
Important Disclaimer: the credit cards information in this post were accurate as of the date of publishing, some or all of the card programs may be discontinued, their terms may be changed after wards.
Card Comparison: Low/No Fee 0% Balance Transfer Credit Cards – October 2008
In the past few months, people are seeing a declining volume of 0% balance transfer offers. By 0% balance transfer offers, I am referring to not only 0% introductory rate, but also with low balance transfer transaction fee. For this reason, Clear from American Express Card doesn’t fall into our list, although it charges no balance transfer fee, it does charge a fixed 5.99% BT rate.
In my August post, I promised to follow up with updated listing of good balance transfer offers. Here is our October list:
| Card Name | BT APR, credit needed and credit limit | Transaction Fee | |
 |
Bank of America PetRewards® Platinum Plus® Visa® |
0% for 6 mths, requires Good credit | None |
 |
Discover® Miles Card |
0% until the last day of the billing period ending during October 2009. Balance transfers must be made before Jan. 1, 2009, requires Excellent credit | 3% with a $75 cap |
|
Discover® More Card |
0% until the last day of the billing period ending during October 2009. Balance transfers must be made before Jan. 1, 2009, requires Excellent credit | 3% with a $75 cap |
 |
Discover® Open Road Card |
0% until the last day of the billing period ending during October 2009. Balance transfers must be made before Jan. 1, 2009, requires Excellent credit | 3% with a $75 cap |
 |
Advanta Platinum with Unlimited Rewards |
0% for 15 mths, requires Good credit, max credit limit: $50,000 | 3% balance transfer fee with a minimum $10 and maximum $90 |
 |
The Kiva BusinessCard from Advanta |
0% for 15 mths, requires Excellent credit | 3% balance transfer fee with a minimum $10 and maximum $90 |
 |
BP Rewards Visa® |
0% fixed APR for 12 months (Elite and Premium pricing) or three months for Standard pricing), requires Good credit | 3% with a $99 cap |
 |
Chase Business Rebate Visa®
|
0% for up to 12 mths, requires Good Credit | 3% with a $99 cap |
 |
Chase Free Cash Rewards Platinum Visa®
|
0% fixed APR for 12 months (Elite and Premium pricing) or three months for Standard pricing), requires Good Credit | 3% with a $99 cap |
 |
Chase Business Platinum Visa®
|
0% for up to 12 months (only those balances that are business expenses may be transferred), requires Excellent Credit | 3% with a $99 cap |
Important Disclaimer: the credit cards information in this post were accurate as of the date of publishing, some or all of the card programs may be discontinued, their terms may be changed after wards.
Card Comparison: Low/No Fee 0% Balance Transfer Credit Cards – August 2008
With dark cloud of credit crisis still over America, good balance transfer credit card offers are harder and harder to find. While you might receive offers of 0% APR for 12 month and no transaction fee in 2007, now the offers don’t give you both at the same time. You either have 0% APR and pay 3% transaction fee, or have high APR and pay 0% transaction fee. It doesn’t mean there is no deal at this tough credit environment, here we listed out credit cards with introductory balance transfer offers ranked by attractiveness.
Note: this list might change because card companies update their terms and conditions frequently, I will publish updated list in the future.
| Card Name | APR | Transaction Fee | |
 |
The Discover® Open RoadSM Card for Students |
0% for 12 mths, require Excellent Credit | 3% balance transfer fee with a minimum $10 and maximum $75 |
|
Discover® More Card |
0% for 12 mths, requires Excellent Credit | 3% balance transfer fee with a minimum $10 and maximum $75 |
|
Miles by Discover® Card |
0% for 6 mths, requires Excellent Credit | 3% balance transfer fee with a minimum $10 and maximum $75 |
 |
Blue from American Express® |
0% for up to 15 mths, requires Excellent Credit | 3% with a $99 cap |
 |
Chase Platinum Visa® |
0% for 12 mths, requires Good Credit | 3% with a $99 cap |
 |
HSBC Platinum MasterCard® with Cash Back Rewards |
0% for 12 mths, requires Good Credit | 3% balance transfer fee with a minimum $15, no upper cap |
|
Capital One® Platinum Prestige |
7.9%, requires Excellent Credit | None |
 |
Bank of America Platinum Plus® Visa® Card |
0% for 12 mths, requires Good Credit | 3% transaction fee, no less than $10, no cap |
Important Disclaimer: the credit cards information in this post were accurate as of the date of publishing, some or all of the card programs may be discontinued, their terms may be changed after wards.
