So many credit card offers, what to do?

Just browse through the daily newspaper and you will be overwhelmed by the number of credit card offers advertised. Move around the town and you will find credit card offers being advertised everywhere. Same is the case is with television which seems to host a number of credit card offers too. So, the credit card offers are there everywhere. Why are there so many credit card offers? Well, quite simply because credit card business is a highly profitable business for the credit card suppliers.

In this situation, when there is no dearth of credit card offers, which is the best credit card offer?

There is nothing like a best credit card offer, really. A better question to ask would be – ‘Which credit card offer is the best for me?’ The spending habits of one person are different from that of another person. Their living styles vary and hence their needs vary too. So for deciding on which credit card offer is best for you, you need to evaluate your needs vis-à-vis your lifestyle and your spending habits (and not go just by the recommendation of someone). For example, if you frequently travel by air, a co-branded airline credit card might be more suited to you than the general purpose one. These airline credit cards offer discounts, rebates and other kind of rewards when the credit card is used for making payments (the rewards are even higher when these credit cards are used for paying for the airline tickets or other airline products). Similarly, if you have a favourite retail store where you do a lot of your shopping, it would be beneficial to check if the retailer is a credit card supplier too and if there is a credit card offer that suits you. A lot of big retail chains do offer co-branded credit cards to their customers and these credit cards offer rebates/discounts etc when they are used for making payments at the retail store. As such, you get reward points for making payments at any place but the rewards are higher on the payments made at retail store. On similar lines, we have credit cards for gas stations and grocery stores too, which you can opt for if you have a favourite gas station or a favourite grocery store where you shop a lot.

So, if you look around, you will find a lot of lucrative credit card offers. However, this doesn’t mean that you enrol for all the credit card offers. You need to first evaluate your needs and rank them. Then you need to evaluate what all credit card offers suit your needs. And finally you can make your choice and go for a credit card offer that covers most of your needs and gives maximum benefits.

Is consolidating credit card debt a good option?

Well, the answer will more often be yes than no. Consolidating credit card debt is often regarded as the first step towards credit card debt elimination. However, even before you move to take first step towards consolidating credit card debt, you must understand that consolidating credit card debt (or balance transfer) is an action that you are taking to eliminate credit card debt. Consolidating credit card debt is not a means of deferring the problem for later.

Consolidating credit card debt is indeed a good option in more than one sense. Not only do you get relief from the rapid increase in your credit card debt, but also get other benefits too. Offers for consolidating credit card debt are in abundance and are very attractive indeed. Almost all the offers for consolidating credit card debt have an initial low APR period during which the APR is generally 0% (or some low figure). In fact, this is one of the main things which make consolidating credit card debt a very attractive option. Besides this low APR, the offers for consolidating credit card debt also include things like no interest rate on the purchases made during first 5 months (or some other initial period) of balance transfer. This is another thing that lowers the speed at which your credit card debt gallops. So these are the two most important benefits that credit card suppliers deploy to attract people into consolidating credit card debt with them. Then there are other benefits which include things like additional reward points on the member’s reward program of the credit card you are consolidating credit card debt to. These reward points can be redeemed for other attractive goods/rebates/rewards etc. Sometimes, the new credit card (i.e. the one you are consolidating credit card debt to) might be a credit card that caters more to your current spending needs both in terms of the credit limits and the way you spend your money. For example, the new credit card might be a co-branded one offered by an airline that you have started travelling with very frequently in the recent times and consolidating credit card debt on such a card may open up much more benefits as compared to your current credit card which was based on your needs at the time of you applying for your current credit card. The credit card you are consolidating credit card debt to might open up discount offers to you.

UK credit cards and balance transfers
Credit cards are pretty popular and in widespread use in UK. Credit cards are accepted at most shops and other merchant stores/outlets. As in the US, UK credit cards too are on offer from various banks and financial institutions. Again, UK credit cards too offer a number of benefits which vary from one UK credit card to another (though there are a lot of common benefits too which are same across various UK credit cards).

Due to the fierce competition in the UK credit card market, various UK credit card suppliers offer attractive balance transfer schemes too. There are some UK credit cards that offer 0% balance transfer for 9 months and there are others that offer 0% for 6 months. However, the catch here is that these UK card credit suppliers differ on their standard APR rate i.e. the APR rate which comes into effect after the expiry of the introductory 0% balance transfer offer. Further there are some UK credit cards that do not offer a 0% balance transfer but instead offer a better standard rate (APR) throughout. Some UK credit card suppliers combine 0% offers with accrual of points on a rewards programme. Another popular thing among UK credit cards is to combine cash back offers with balance transfers. Then there are some very attractive offers which give 0% not only on balance transfers but also on Purchases (for a short period like 5 month or so). You also have a few UK credit cards that can be procured by people with bad credit history too (of course, the decision on approval of such a credit card application will lie with the credit card supplier).

So what does one do if one wants to transfer balance to another UK credit card. Well, it’s quite simple. You need to take stock of your current financial situation and determine if a period of 6 months or 9 months (or maybe even 12 months) would be sufficient for you to fully payback the dues on your UK credit card. If the answer is in the affirmative, just go ahead for the UK credit card that offers 0% balance transfer for this period (even if the standard APR rate is a bit higher). However, the assumption here is that once you payback the debt on your UK credit card, you will stick to controlled spending and will pay your credit card bills in full amount by the due date for payment; otherwise, the choice of a higher standard APR will hit you very hard and you will be in deeper trouble. However, if you think that 9 months is not sufficient to pay back the debt on your UK credit card, then you should look to strike a balance between the zero APR period and the standard APR rate, and choose a UK credit card which leads to the least total outgo (you will need to sit with a calculator and calculate the total outgo on various UK credit card offers).

This is the most basic aspect that you need to consider before you decide on which UK credit card is the best for transferring balance. Other things like 0% on purchases, reward programmer points etc are secondary things.

Chase.com credit card offers

Online credit card applications seem to be the in thing and Chase too offers online credit card application facility. Here, ‘Chase.com credit cards’ refers to the chase credit cards that can be applied for online. Just for those who don’t know, ‘Chase’ is a brand that is owned by JPMorgan Chase & Co. (a leading global financial services firm).

By ‘Chase.com credit card offers’, I mean the credit card offers that are available at chase.com. Obviously, ‘Chase.com credit cards’ would be regulated by chase. Again, as with any other credit card supplier, ‘Chase.com credit cards’ on offer would be changing too.

Anyways; one night, before going to bed, I thought of just checking the chase.com credit cards section. Here is what I found:

There is a separate Chase.com credit cards section. As I browsed through the Chase.com credit cards section (the online application ones), the first one I encountered was called ‘Chase Cash Plus’ or the ‘Chase Cash Plus Rewards’. These promise faster rewards and offer 5% earnings on gas and on purchases made at grocery-stores/drug-stores. For other shopping venues, it offers 1% earnings. These earnings can be in the form of gift certificates or cash.

The next on the Chase.com credit cards section was the ‘Flexible rewards Visa signature card’. Here you earn a point for every purchase of $1. You can keep collecting these points and then finally redeem them for your choice of things (like cash, travel, gift certificates or some kind of merchandise). The redemption can start at 2500 points (and you get a bonus of 1000 points once you make the first purchase). Moreover, this one doesn’t have any annual fee either. So that was the second one in the Chase.com credit cards section.

Moving on in the Chase.com credit cards section, I found ‘Free Cash Rewards Platinum Visa card’. This one, as the name goes, offers cash rewards. You can get a $25 check or a gift certificate on redemption of 2500 points. Since there is one point earned for every $1 spend, this mean that you effectively get 1% cash back on these cards.

I had started loving browsing through the Chase.com credit cards section. So I moved on to the next one in the Chase.com credit cards section. The next one on the Chase.com credit cards section was ‘Chase Perfect Platinum MasterCard’ which doesn’t limit you to getting rebates only on a particular brand of gasoline; instead, you get rebates everywhere. ‘

Chase Platinum MasterCard’ was the next one in the Chase.com credit cards section. This one offers online account management i.e. monthly statements, bill payments etc can all be done online (also you don’t have any annual fee on this one).

There were few more cards on Chase.com credit cards section and one especially caught my attention. This one was at the bottom of Chase.com credit cards section and was called ‘Check Gallery Platinum Visa Card’. Here you could choose the design of your card from those available e.g. cowboys, smileys etc.

By now, I was so sleepy that I really had to shut down my computer and go off to sleep.

Note: The information given in this article was correct at the time it was written. However, the author does not guarantee the correctness and completeness of this information at any time.

Taking a step towards credit card debt elimination

So you have decided to go for credit card debt elimination and are wondering on what the methods for credit card debt elimination are. As they say, let’s take the bull by its horns and lay it all flat on the ground. There are generally 2 recommendations that are most common for credit card debt elimination: controlling the expenditures and consolidating debt. Let’s check both of these credit card debt elimination recommendations and check the list of things that you can do for achieving credit card debt elimination using these recommendations:

1. Control your urge to spend: The first thing to do for credit card debt elimination is to control your expenditures. Here we are talking about the payments you make using your credit card. Remember that the main reason being your getting into credit card debt is uncontrolled expenditures using your credit card. So if you are really serious about credit card debt elimination, this is one thing that will help in credit card debt elimination by preventing accumulation of further debt. Here is what you can do to control your expenditures:
a. You need to stay away from attractive offers that are put-up by various shops and stores. Don’t buy anything that you don’t really-really need. After all you are looking for credit card debt elimination not supplementation.
b. Leave your credit card at home. If you really-really need something, then you can fetch your credit card from your house. This will prevent you from yielding to the too-attractive-to-resist sale offers (that are actually there all the year round). This credit card debt elimination technique, again, works on the principal of ‘prevention is better than cure’. This will prevent unplanned expenses from happening.
c. Prepare a monthly budget and stick to it. This is really a very important credit card debt elimination measure. This budget will form the basis of your credit card debt elimination plan. So if you deviate from your budget, your credit card debt elimination plan will go for a toss.

2. Debt consolidation: Debt consolidation or moving from high APR credit cards to a low APR one is generally the first step (the first reactive step) for credit card debt elimination. Here are a few things that you need to do:
a. Do not go for the first balance offer you come across. Analyse various offers and choose the one that best suits you. This will be an important thing on you credit card debt elimination plan. Initial APR, Initial APR period and standard Apr, all need to be considered.
b. Read the fine print on the balance transfer offer and check the terms and conditions on these. These might affect your overall credit card debt elimination plan.
c. Compare other benefits e.g. rebates, reward points, etc, before you actually decide to go for one of the offers.

Credit card debt elimination is about proper planning and discipline. So make your credit card debt elimination plan and stick to it.