Evaluating Credit Card Offers

Some Tips from One Debtor to Another...

If you’re anything like me, you get two or three credit card offers a day from banks and companies all over the country. I don’t have any special background in financial planning, but as I’ve read up on credit card offers and tried some out myself, I’ve come up with a few ways to sort out the good ones from the bad. What follows are some of the points on the credit card offer evaluation rubric I tend to use. You may have heard these before- there’s not much new under the sun. Hope you find some of these concepts useful.

Happy anniversary! Check for an annual fee. I usually do this first when I am evaluating a credit card offer because it takes the least amount of time to process. You’re going to charge me fifty bucks, seventy bucks, a hundred bucks a year to use your credit card? No thanks, I think I’ll go elsewhere. Annual fees can be a real kicker if you’re on a budget or if you don’t realize you’re being charged until after you sign on for the card. On the other hand, if the credit card offer has other features you really like and you go in knowing you can afford the fee, more power to you. For me though, with so many cards not including annual fees, the appearance of one is a deal breaker.