Negotiating interest rates on credit cards

[xxsvtcatxx]

I finally did it after 4 years of working really hard on my credit...  My Fico went from drastically low to high 700s.   I thought that was it.  I was good just needed to stay on this track.   Make the right choices. 

I got a rude awakening today.  I wanted to share this story because when I searched not much came up about this topic. 

I never watch daytime television but there was a Dr. Oz program on at lunch and out of the far corning of my hearing I heard "negotiate your interest rates.... call that number on the back of the card... the worst they can do is say no."

Now I've heard store cards are impossible for that so I didn't bother. 24.9999999% is fine because I don't carry a balance on those.

At this point I was very interested to see who would budge.

 Here's my experience:

Alaska - Bank of America was 14.99 went down to 11.25  - customer service had to transfer me to a different dept but overall was friendly but "sale-sy" (tried to send me over to apply for another card. I declined)

Amazon - Chase 19.24 wouldn't budge!  As a side note customer service was lacking - not only could I hardly understand him but he was not friendly.  After this experience I plan on unlinking this card from my amazon account and instead using my american express for those points.  I'm paying off this card ASAP and it's getting cut into pieces!  (I went for this card after having an amazon store account and there was some sort of incintive to get this card.)

American Express 20% to 16.75% - this one shocked me because I was a day late on a payment back in october of last year they had increased my interest rate to 22%! I had no idea!  The woman on the phone said "mistakes happen, let's get you back to your original interest rate."  

Wells Fargo College Card 11.15% - wouldn't budge! But they did offer me a 0% interest for 6 mos on my next purchase. (I declined for now) Customer service was nice enough.

This process took me under 30 minutes and I learned alot about who I'm borrowing from.  

I would like to know if anyone has any experience with this? Or if there's anything else I should be doing? (Aside from paying my balances!)

[Skye12329]

Store cards are practically impossible. However i thought i read on here someone had a sears card and they were able to get it lowered.

As for lenders, its true it doesnt hurt to ask. Discover, Citi, and Amex i see on here lowering a bit. Chase never budges.

[OmarGB9]

^Add cap1 to the list of no-go's on APR reductions.

[ddemari]

I can't get any where with cap1 on Apr redux. Chase is pretty much impossible. Boa and Amex are very good from what I see. Congrats on your success

[Anonymous]

Interesting to hear about the Cap 1 problems. I tried to get a Cap 1 QS CLI about 6 months back and they wouldn't budge (this card was my first ever and started as a Journey student card), but at the end of my struggles they offered to lower my APR by 4% so I went ahead and took that. I never use the card, however, because the limit is too low to really be of use to me.

[youdontkillmoney]

Did the customer srvc reps do any hard pulls, that you know of; I know for an increase in credit limits they do a hard pull.

[Anonymous]

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@youdontkillmoney wrote:

Did the customer srvc reps do any hard pulls, that you know of; I know for an increase in credit limits they do a hard pull.

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No hard pull for the APR reduction. I had a thread about this QS a while back, but didn't realize APR reductions were such a big deal with Cap 1. That kind of sucks considering I was hoping for the same with my Venture down the line as I use that card all the time but not the QS.