Pre qualify, but w/highest APR

[chally]

Ok please help me understand. I paid off a balance transfer on a 0% Amex offer last week (0% promo ending in April). Statement isn't due to cut till 12th of April, yet I have 2 pre qualifies in the mail today, Barlays (a 1st) and Southwest. This isn't just coincidence - someone's paying attention. What I don't get is if  lender has this info and thows you a bone, why can't they see that your score is worth better than the highest APR they are offering?

[B335is]

APR is a strange one. I can't figure out any rhyme or reason. For instance, Synchrony always gives me the highest, no matter what. Discover gave me their lowest a few years ago when I had tons of inq. Chase Freedom also gave me the lowest one month after they approved me for CSP a few years ago. I think generally they look for decent aaoa and low utilization.

[Kostya1992]

Lower overall utilization = higher APR

If they see that you never carry balances, they might as well give you the highest possible APR so they could somehow make some money off of you other than swipe fees.

Just me 2 cents

[Anonymous]

Solution: never carry a balance.

Credit card debt is just about the worst, if you need low APR get a personnel loan or PLOC. You should never carry a balance on a CC (except maybe if you are gaming the 0 APR offers by investing the borrowed money).

[longtimelurker]

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@Kostya1992 wrote:

Lower overall utilization = higher APR

If they see that you never carry balances, they might as well give you the highest possible APR so they could somehow make some money off of you other than swipe fees.

Just me 2 cents

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Not in my experience!  My util is below 1% and I am getting the lowest APRs.

[jsucool76]

b335: I was under the impression 99.99999% of synch cards only had one Apr and everyone got the same one.

[lg8302ch]

It can get even  stranger.....same lender and difference in APR of 10+ %  on different cards 😇 but If it is not Chase you can work on APR similar as CLI, just keep asking until you get what you want.  So far all lenders but Chase were very  cooperative  Chase on the other hand has sent me nice BT offers on Freedom where they gave me highest APR and this did not make any sense to me because I thought they gave me this "horror" APR to make sure I would not carry a balance.  I gave up to try to understand their APR policy...lol...and simply smile at my 22,99% on Freedom.

[chally]

Thanks to all for your experience and replies, strange indeed! And thanks to Canadian-In-Seattle for a message that I should frame! As Johnny and Joan would say, So true, so true! 

[takeshi74]

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@chally wrote:

What I don't get is if  lender has this info and thows you a bone, why can't they see that your score is worth better than the highest APR they are offering?

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What you don't get seems to be that the creditors determine what your credit is worth -- not you.  If they're offering higher APR's then that's what they think you'll qualify for based on their criteria and you have some work to do if you're expecting lower APR's from them.

Despite what has been stated above in some posts, it's never just a matter of one or two factors but your entire credit profile.  A clean, strong profile will lead to lower APR's for products where lower APR's are available.

As always, don't rely on prequals and offers.

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@chally wrote:

I paid off a balance transfer on a 0% Amex offer last week (0% promo ending in April). Statement isn't due to cut till 12th of April, yet I have 2 pre qualifies in the mail today, Barlays (a 1st) and Southwest.

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Also keep in mind that the paid off balance hasn't reported so the offers won't reflect that activity -- if it has any impact.  You have no idea when the SP's for the offers were performed (unless you review the SP's on your reports) so it could be based on even older data.

[NRB525]

+1

Too fast expecting an update to the SP info.

OP you should update your siggy so you put a number on "better" scores.