Interest:

Ahhhh yes, credit card interest will be the death of us unless we do something about it. Credit cards can go from introductory 0% rates to as high as 30% if not higher. If you need to use credit then use it at the best rate possible. One trick that some people are not aware of is that if you call your credit card company and ask them to review your rate and see if they can lower it - sometimes they will! How do I know this, because I used to work for a credit card company. I saw rates go from 20% down to 10% just by the person calling and asking. It is not up to the credit card representative to determine this, the credit card rep puts in the request into the computer and the computer runs through some type of complicated calculations and returns an answer. It can't hurt to ask.

So they won't lower your rate and you are not happy with your current rate? We've all been there. What should you do? You are not at their mercy, you have options, and if you want to save yourself money then take advantage of those options. You should look at what other companies are offering and apply to a company with better rates. Check out some of the links on the side of this page for examples. Introductory promotional rates can be as low as 0% and some APR's can be as low as 4.9% fixed. It is true that the better credit you have the better rate they will offer you, but sometimes even if you have average to poor credit you may still be able to receive the 0% introductory rate (which is usually good for six months).