Lowest Cap1 APR?

[designated_knitter]

In my recent exercise of getting a credit consolidation loan from my CU, I was going through all my credit cards and printing off statements for the banks....

i have 4 cap 1 cards:

• Cap1 QS1 -- was originally either and Orchard Bank or HSBC that got PC'ed to QS1.  Interest rate = 20.5 percent.
• Cap1 QS1 -- a couple of years old and started life as QS1.  Interest rate = 23.15
• Sony -- about a year old.  Interest rate = 25.15
• Cap1 Platinum -- was originally either Orchard Bank or HSBC and was told it was never eligible for PC.  Interest rate = 10.13 percent!!

I was stunned.  Sure -- I don't get any cashback or rewards... but 10 percent interest rate on a sub-prime card?  who cares.

I'm just really curious why that lowly Cap1 platinum interest rate is so low.... it is my oldest card.  Payment history is comparable to the other cards --- if not actually worse from "back in the bad old days" compared to the cards that were opened within the last 2 years.  Spend has been relatively low since I would reach for the QS to get the cash back.  Balances are comparable across all cards.

So are all my other Cap1 cards just whackadoodle high or is my Platinum an anomaly for some reason?

Thanks.

[Anonymous]

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@designated_knitter wrote:

In my recent exercise of getting a credit consolidation loan from my CU, I was going through all my credit cards and printing off statements for the banks....

i have 4 cap 1 cards:

• Cap1 QS1 -- was originally either and Orchard Bank or HSBC that got PC'ed to QS1.  Interest rate = 20.5 percent.
• Cap1 QS1 -- a couple of years old and started life as QS1.  Interest rate = 23.15
• Sony -- about a year old.  Interest rate = 25.15
• Cap1 Platinum -- was originally either Orchard Bank or HSBC and was told it was never eligible for PC.  Interest rate = 10.13 percent!!

I was stunned.  Sure -- I don't get any cashback or rewards... but 10 percent interest rate on a sub-prime card?  who cares.

I'm just really curious why that lowly Cap1 platinum interest rate is so low.... it is my oldest card.  Payment history is comparable to the other cards --- if not actually worse from "back in the bad old days" compared to the cards that were opened within the last 2 years.  Spend has been relatively low since I would reach for the QS to get the cash back.  Balances are comparable across all cards.

So are all my other Cap1 cards just whackadoodle high or is my Platinum an anomaly for some reason?

Thanks.

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I don't really have a good answer for this question but it seems to me that the older versions of these CC's act quite differently from the newer ones. That being the case, if I were you, I'd jump on live chat and ask what offers are available to you. Tell them that you have these older cards and would like to consolidate some (or all) of them, possibly all into 1 CC. You may get 1 better offer sith a combined CL and lower interest rate. There are many posts here about the quirks of the older QS1's & Plat's.

IF you can combine them into 1 you may come out better re-applying for a new Cap1 card altogether and then combine the (new) older acct into the new CC. It seems like a lot of hoops to jump through but I think at the end of the day you may come out better for the exercise.

[gdale6]

Orchard Bank used to give out some fantastic interest rates I also have one from that era, its my lowest CL but I keep it around just in case I need to finance something for a few months for the low interest. Cap-1 never gave out the interest rates that Orchard did and its highly doubtful they will in the future.

[designated_knitter]

What is interesting to me is that I could have sworn that a couple of years ago when I checked (and when my payment history was more "checkered") the rate was in the high 20s...  I wonder if they lowered it over the years because of good consistent ontime payment history.  I'm glad I kept that sucker out of the debt consolidation.