Alliant CU raising APR rates - A LOT

[Anonymous]

Got a letter from Alliant today announcing their change to Variable APR - EXPECTED.

But, they also are raising the rates.  The new (Feb 2010) BEST RATE is prime plus 5.99% making it currently 9.24% and never to be lower than 8.99%, on purchases.  I currently have fixed 8.5%.  So if I keep best rate, it will be 9.24%.

Cash advances are now prime plus 14.99%, making Feb 2010 rates 18.24% and never to be lower than 17.99%.

So, unless they offer special BT offers, this is not longer a BT card.  It used to be same rate cash and purchase and while 8.5% isn't the best rate, it is by far from worst.

[DI]

CU's are taking small baby steps to start acting like big banks.

Message Edited by DI on 12-03-2009 01:59 PM

[Imhotrodcrazy]

I received a "generic" letter last week from CCCU about changing their fixed rate cc's  to a variable rate along with increased rates,  also taking effect Feb. 2010.

[Anonymous]

Others have changed to variable, which is to be expected.  But this is the first real hike.

USAA went from a 7.9% best rate to 8.9%, but no difference between purchase or cash.

Navy Federal went variable, but rates stayed the same for me.

PSECU stayed the same, though variable.

PenFed stayed same with variable, though all ready high at 13.25%

Even BoA stayed same for me at 13.24%.

Alliant really stood out with their cash rates.

[Anonymous]

8.5% to 9.24% is A LOT? Seems perfectly reasonable when other banks are going from 9.99% to 29.99% 

 As for cash advances….always bad to treat your CC like an ATM and so less of an issue. If increasing cash advances a lot meant being able to keep the APR down then I think it's well worth it. 

Message Edited by idmd on 12-03-2009 04:40 PM

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

8.5% to 9.24% is A LOT? Seems perfectly reasonable when other banks are going from 9.99% to 29.99% 

 As for cash advances….always bad to treat your CC like an ATM and so less of an issue. If increasing cash advances a lot meant being able to keep the APR down then I think it's well worth it. 

Message Edited by idmd on 12-03-2009 04:40 PM

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When compared to the competition, which I noted above, they didn't really do all that well.  While the purchase "best possible" rate has not changed significantly, it did go up 0.75% when compared to my other cards did not go up at all.

When compared cash rate to cash rate, they do very poorly.  Credit is credit, and when evaluating a product, you have to evaluate all of its features. 

My favorite accounts are NFCU, PSECU, USAA, Addison.  The accounts have great rates, including for cash, and no fees (well USAA can have some small fees depending on how used).

I like having flexible and reliable use of my available credit.  I am disciplined and capable of managing it.  For those who are not, then I can understand not wanting the temptation.  But for my purposes, I like the options, even if I don't use them routinely.

Message Edited by txjohn on 12-03-2009 05:21 PM

[haulingthescoreup]

I think the only option involving APR's that might catch my eye would be BT rates. I don't carry balances, and I sure as heck don't do cash advances, but it's nice to have a card or two to which i can shift some money if necessary. I've had 0% APR cards on which I've never carried a balance, because it just makes me crazy to do so, even if it's technically crazy not to.

So by this criterion, my good-rates cards are Bank of America and Penfed, even though their regular rates are pretty stinky.

BofA will give you a good BT rate if you wait them out long enough (currently I have 0.99% APR with the evil uncapped 3% BT fee for 9 months, having already used the 0% APR/ 3% fee when I opened the card).

Penfed still has 4.99% for 24 months, and there's always the possibility of that summer rate reappearing.

It's all in what you need/ want in a card, which is why it's SOOOO important for readers of this forum to see how a raved-about card would actually work for them. This is the ultimate example of YMMV.

[wmarat]

LOL

[Anonymous]

Geez, you really had me going there for a moment. I thought that you were referring to an increase in rates on Alliant's deposit products, which, if true, would have been truly fantastic news. Several of my CDs are maturing - the 1st one rolled over yesterday - & the current barely-above-zero rates are killing me. Back in the early summer of 2007, my local CU was paying over 5.25% on 30-month CDs. Today's rate on that maturity is just 2.15%. 

Just a little over a year ago, HSBC was paying a decent 4% on 6-month jumbos. Now that's dropped to a bit more than 1%. 

 I know that the current climate is hard on borrowers, but it's just as hard (in a different way, of course) on us savers.