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When you have bad credit, you're at the mercy of your credit card companies. Forget low rates: If your financial situation is bad, you'll have to take higher fees, fewer rewards, and unforgiving late fees. You're in no position to bargain.
The good news is that when you have good credit, the tide turns in your favor, and you can use that to your advantage. Customers who have good credit scores are often able to make demands of their credit card companies that other customers could never get away with -- and the credit card companies will give in!
Better rates. Credit cards with no annual fees. More rewards points. These are some of the things you might ask for, and that you can get if you have good credit, do some research, and aren't opposed to asking the creditor directly for what you want. "A creditor wants to keep business," said Tokusan Svenson, from American Consumer Credit Counseling. "If a consumer has the freedom to move their balance, a creditor is more likely to give some kind of concession."
Below are some tips on making the most of your situation when it comes to your credit cards.
Before anything else, you need to find out what your credit score is. You need to know it's relatively high before you go making demands. You can visit MyFICO.com to find out your score, or you can get a hold of any of the three credit bureaus: TransUnion, Equifax, and Experian.
Once you've determined that your credit is indeed praiseworthy, decide what you want most from your credit cards. If you have an ongoing balance on a card, a lower interest rate might be most important to you. If you currently pay an annual fee, maybe you want to have that eliminated. If your card has travel perks such as air miles or other rewards, you might want an increase in those.
Keep a list of the various parks and advantages, listed in the order you want them. You'll need this list when you start comparing cards.
Now you have to do some research. Browse the Internet looking at all the many credit card offers that are available to you. Keep track of the best credit card offers, and what their downsides are. The site Bankrate.com helps you compare credit card offers, and is very useful. Be sure to read the fine print! Be on the lookout for low rates that become ridiculously high after six months, or for hidden fees on things like balance transfers. They can be pretty sneaky sometimes, especially in that fine print! Something like that can change good credit card offers into bad ones.
Once you've looked at the details at several credit card companies, you've got the information you need. You'll be able to go to your current creditors and show them what you could get by switching to the competition. If you've been a good customer, they'll want to keep your business. They'll make concessions to keep you on their team, rather than losing you to other banks.
Can it be as simple as just ASKING for what you want? You might be amazed how often it works. A poll conducted by the U.S. Public Interest Research group in 2002 said more than 50 percent of those surveyed had gotten better interest rates from their credit cards simply by asking.
So there's your first step: Call your credit card company and say something like, "I've noticed my interest rate is 14.9%, and I'm looking at the Citibank MasterCard offer I've been given, and its rate is only 9.9%. Is there any way you can lower my interest rate to match that?"
Whoever you're speaking to in customer service might say no. They're the corporation's first line of defense; their job is to keep the company from losing any money whatsoever. They're supposed to say no. Ask to speak to a manager. Those supervisors are supposed to do what's in the best interest of the company, which in many cases is to lower your rate rather than lose your business.
For all of this to work, of course, you have to stay on top. Make more than just your minimum payments each month, and keep your balance low -- less than half of your credit limit, if possible. Those elements make you a favorite customer of the credit card companies, so they'll do things to keep your patronage.
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