Comments on: 7 Unwritten & Often Forgotten Credit Card Secrets

By: renee

renee — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 07:28:10 +0000

hello, i understand the whole threatening to take your business elsewhere tactic, but every credit advice website ive looked at pretty much states that closing credit cards is a bad idea because that good spending history eventually falls off your credit report and also hacks at your credit to debt ratio. its been explained like having straight A’s and not having that on your record pretty much, and all though i see most of your advice as helpful, i dont think you should be telling people to close accounts

By: Shirley

Shirley — Sat, 05 Feb 2011 12:24:41 +0000

We also do this, including utility bills, to the tune of $600 per year back. That’s a GREAT return on a $0 output and a very little bit of bookkeeping!

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sat, 05 Feb 2011 06:35:09 +0000

I work for a credit card bank the advise given here regarding fee negotiation is not correct and is nieve. when you call your credit card up and ark for a fee to be waived and they say no and you push back and threaten to close your account and they

By: Luke

Luke — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 13:04:09 +0000

A great way to take advantage of credit card I’d to use the cashback bonus. I usually will charge everything on my discover card. However, I make sure that I’m already able to buy the product before I charge it. This way I can pay it off in full each month and I never pay a dime in interest. Since I use the card a lot, I get cash back from discover sometimes up to ten percent of the purchase (it depends on the promotion they are doing). If you were smart and knew how to control yourself, using the card only for emergencies would be stupid if you can get cash back. Just live with in your means. It’s that simple.

By: valerie

valerie — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 17:32:20 +0000

My husband and i are going through a divorce, and i am taking all of the credit card debt. Our credit is shot due to unemployment, and i need to know if there is a way to change the liability on the cards from his name to mine? I can’t find anything on the internet that tells me how to do this. Any ideas?

By: Jim

Jim — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 12:49:16 +0000

They won’t be able to do the match idea you suggest but you could always try to convince them to put your APR back to 9%. If not, I think a balance transfer to another card might be in order.

By: Credit Card Ques

Credit Card Ques — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 00:58:54 +0000

I have an open and active credit card with Citibank. I been making all my payments on time for years and been a customer for almost 5yrs now. There APR just went up because the of the economy so they say. I realize last mth I just max out my card. Is there a way to give them about 30% (give or take) of the balance and they can credit me 10% or even 30% (like match on match)?
For example CC balance is $6000 and I want to pay them $2000. Can they credit me $1000?
I was asking this because I cant pay there new APR. It went from 9% to 23%! So I was thinking give them a big lump and they credit me something and the mthly payments will lower and they will get there money faster.

By: joe

joe — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 02:04:30 +0000

This info is now outdated. These rules don’t apply to the credit card industry anymore.

If you try to pull the “i’ll move my business elsewhere” line with them, They’ll be more than happy to let you take your $8000 balance that you make $200 payments on every month to another financial institution…go ahead, owe them money, is what they’ll say to that.

Only the very affluent qualify for any potential “retention” offers.

CC companies are in a risk reduction mode right now, and probably will be for quite some time.

By: 10s.Star

10s.Star — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 22:44:51 +0000

I’ve done it before and still in the process of a similar arrangement….0% INDEFINATELY. I told “them” in both cases of my intentions. The banks set up these programs based on statistics. You are on the right track. Use Autopayment option. Of course, DO NOT do this if you are planing on buying a house or car or quoting insurance. It will adversely affect your credit score through new credit request, increasing credit ratio and skewing credit utilization distribution.

By: 10s.Star

10s.Star — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 22:28:11 +0000

Competition….If you did not have a competing bank to transfer your balance, you did not have the upper hand.
Get another card, transfer the balance, keep the existing card for later negotiation…Do not close the account.

By: 10s.Star

10s.Star — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 22:20:25 +0000

Why put money towards a purchase in the first place? A little insult onto your injury…You missed out on the cashback rewards, the interest on the $100 in the bank for an additional 40+ days, & you risked losing the $100.00 by having it on you.

Unfortunately, the same result would happen if you used 2 or more credit cards to divide the camera’s cost…even if both cards had the theft “insurance”.

By: franky

franky — Mon, 25 May 2009 21:34:59 +0000

you had already paid every payment to that company and they saw no reason to change the interest becuase it was making money off you,so they called your ‘bluff’,i definately would’ve ended that contract a long time ago!

By: franky

franky — Mon, 25 May 2009 21:29:39 +0000

Ask to lower the payment then pay it all off in a single pay,if you try to pay it over 12 months they can change the pay dates(inducing late fees) or change the interest rate(not saying they will,but they can).
Also you want to keep your balance to limit ratio low for the rest of those months to achieve a higher score over the course of the year vs. trying to put each paycheck in payments.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sat, 23 May 2009 23:59:37 +0000

i have a chase credit card with 17, 750.00 the balance is due end of july-this has been 0% interest for 12 months-it was a balance transfer. Would you pay it off-which I can do, but this will deplete savings just leaving 2,500 or would you do another 12 month balance transfer 0% interest for 12 months? I pay the minimum each month and save enough to pay the card off by the 12 months. the offer I have for balance transfer says I can write a check up to 20,000 deposit in my account and use as I would like (it is from chase-so I can’t write the check directly to chase to pay off the chase credit card. Would I be doing the wrong thing, in your opinion, to write the check for 20, 000, deposit it in an account to draw interest until it is due in 12 months?

By: bruce

bruce — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 19:37:12 +0000

Discover is accepted very few places outside the US. Get a capitalone card