topic Re: Lowest CC APR available in Credit Cards

Lowest CC APR available

Anonymous — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 00:29:48 GMT

I'm fixing to apply for a few cards soon, and I'd like opinions on FIXED vs VARIABLE APR. Some prime lenders offer low fixed APR of 7.99-10% and they also combine it with either rewards or cashback perks similar to cards that have otherwise higher (variable) APR. So, is there anything I need to know about FIXED or is it pretty clear that if I can get those low fixed apr cards, that's what I should shoot for?

The reason why I ask is that all those companies retain the right to some day change those fixed rates to higher rates. I'd like to know if anyone has had experiences with a company hiking the originally low fixed apr to the point where it's no longer better than a low variable apr offered by thousands of other lenders. I'm of course talking about situations that weren't caused by some screw-up by the customer himself.

Bottom line, if I have a choice, I should shop for lowest fixed apr with everything else that I'm interested in, right?

Re: Lowest CC APR available

Anonymous — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 01:26:38 GMT

ficus wrote:
I'm fixing to apply for a few cards soon, and I'd like opinions on FIXED vs VARIABLE APR. Some prime lenders offer low fixed APR of 7.99-10% and they also combine it with either rewards or cashback perks similar to cards that have otherwise higher (variable) APR. So, is there anything I need to know about FIXED or is it pretty clear that if I can get those low fixed apr cards, that's what I should shoot for?

The reason why I ask is that all those companies retain the right to some day change those fixed rates to higher rates. I'd like to know if anyone has had experiences with a company hiking the originally low fixed apr to the point where it's no longer better than a low variable apr offered by thousands of other lenders. I'm of course talking about situations that weren't caused by some screw-up by the customer himself.

Bottom line, if I have a choice, I should shop for lowest fixed apr with everything else that I'm interested in, right?

Personally I would go with low fixed. Yes I have read stories of rates being raised but no more so than on variable cards. The difference with variable is that they will rarely be as low as they fixed that you mention, moreover, they may not vary as much as they shuold. If your T&Cs state that your rate will never go lower than 'X' then that is your rate regardles of what prime does, unless of course it goes up. lol!!

Funny thing about those cards is that they don't adjust down but even if prime goes down, the minute it changes direction, the 'variable' interest rate starts to creep back up. That being said you can wind up paying a higher rate when prime recvoers even though prime isn't as high as it was when you apped.

Re: Lowest CC APR available

Anonymous — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 01:48:42 GMT

Personally I would go with low fixed. Yes I have read stories of rates being raised but no more so than on variable cards. The difference with variable is that they will rarely be as low as they fixed that you mention, moreover, they may not vary as much as they shuold. If your T&Cs state that your rate will never go lower than 'X' then that is your rate regardles of what prime does, unless of course it goes up. lol!!

Funny thing about those cards is that they don't adjust down but even if prime goes down, the minute it changes direction, the 'variable' interest rate starts to creep back up. That being said you can wind up paying a higher rate when prime recvoers even though prime isn't as high as it was when you apped.

Thanks. I will continue to work on lowering my current variable APR cards by calling every 6 months, but for new cards, I'll go for the lowest fixed APRs possible. The thing is that since these cards also offer all kinds of perks, I'm not sacrificing much, if anything, but am gaining the ability to save on higher finances charges in the future.

Re: Lowest CC APR available

Anonymous — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 01:51:17 GMT

I would go for the low fixed APR card.

However, I understand your fear. I have a fixed 5.9% APR on my MBNA card, which is now a BOA card - I thought BOA would have hiked it up after the buy-out. And ever so often, I get nervous when I get mail from BOA...lol...thinking it will be a notice about a hike...but this hasn't happened in the past 3.5 years I've had the card.

Message Edited by pjriverap on 10-17-2007 06:51 PM

Re: Lowest CC APR available

Anonymous — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 02:17:00 GMT

@pjriverap wrote:
I would go for the low fixed APR card.

However, I understand your fear. I have a fixed 5.9% APR on my MBNA card, which is now a BOA card - I thought BOA would have hiked it up after the buy-out. And ever so often, I get nervous when I get mail from BOA...lol...thinking it will be a notice about a hike...but this hasn't happened in the past 3.5 years I've had the card.

Message Edited by pjriverap on 10-17-2007 06:51 PM

5.9% is a super APR! Do you know of any company that is offering anything lower than 7.99% (fixed)? I would definitely want to take a look. By the way, how much can your card carry?

Re: Lowest CC APR available

fused — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 02:33:37 GMT

My DW has a BoA Worldpoints MC at 7.99%, Pulaski bank also offers a 7.99% MC and Visa with a special 6 month BT offer. I'm not too sure how stringent there underwriting is. Here's the link.

http://www.pulaskibank.org/index.cfm?afid=999

Message Edited by fused on 10-17-2007 04:33 PM

Re: Lowest CC APR available

Anonymous — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 02:37:03 GMT

I would also go with a fixed rate. However, do keep in mind, that somewhere down the road, the issuers might change your terms, and change your fixed rate to a variable one. I've had this happen to me a few times. Some credit card issuers will also offer you variable rates, but the rates will never be permitted to be lower than a certain percentage. For example, they might offer you PRIME+1%, but stipulate that this rate can never be lower than 7.9%. In short, I find fixed rates much more attractive than variable ones.

Re: Lowest CC APR available

Anonymous — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 02:43:16 GMT

@fused wrote:
My DW has a BoA Worldpoints MC at 7.99%, Pulaski bank also offers a 7.99% MC and Visa with a special 6 month BT offer. I'm not too sure how stringent there underwriting is. Here's the link.
http://www.pulaskibank.org/index.cfm?afid=999
Message Edited by fused on 10-17-2007 04:33 PM

I appreciate it. I have already stumbled upon the Pulaski bank offer and have it in mind for when I apply for a few soon. Definitely good APR. I'm lining up all the 7.99% offers with options that interest me, but it looks as if currently no company has offers lower than 7.99% fixed. The times have changed. However, I think that if I got a bunch of variable-APR cards and then worked hard on trying to get them all down to as low as even 9%, I'd probably run into walls getting this close anyway. The lower you can get those variable rates the more time you'd have to wait to get the next decrease, and there'll be a point where the bank will not justify anything lower. What can you tell me about the Pulaski deal? How well-established are they? Or is this a recent move that they are trying to make because they are trying to make it in the game?

Message Edited by ficus on 10-17-2007 07:43 PM

Re: Lowest CC APR available

fused — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 02:47:17 GMT

I haven't heard of any fixed rates lower than 7.99% here or on other credit forums but that doesn't mean they might not exist.

Re: Lowest CC APR available

Anonymous — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 02:48:18 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I would also go with a fixed rate. However, do keep in mind, that somewhere down the road, the issuers might change your terms, and change your fixed rate to a variable one. I've had this happen to me a few times. Some credit card issuers will also offer you variable rates, but the rates will never be permitted to be lower than a certain percentage. For example, they might offer you PRIME+1%, but stipulate that this rate can never be lower than 7.9%. In short, I find fixed rates much more attractive than variable ones.

Change fixed to variable? So it's not just increasing the rate, they just turning the tables completely. I guess this is what they mean when they say "anytime, for any reason" on the T&C agreement. Under what circumstances did those things happen to you? Did you pull something or were all those times random occurances? Anything higher than 7.9% can easily fall under the category of "PRIME+1% but "CAN NEVER BE LOWER THAN 7.9%" depending on how they view it. :-) But I guess, nowadays, anything lower than 10% is better.

Re: Lowest CC APR available

Anonymous — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 02:51:33 GMT

@fused wrote:
I haven't heard of any fixed rates lower than 7.99% here or on other credit forums but that doesn't mean they might not exist.

Perhaps they do exist as card offers to long-time customers? But still, I'm sure that the times have changed as more and more people have gotten into debt over last few decades. One member on the forum mentioned once how he's gotten promotional checks at 0.99%/1.99% (for 6 months) and 2.99% (for life of balance) from Chase. Now that's some cool beans!

Re: Lowest CC APR available

Anonymous — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 02:53:45 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:

@pjriverap wrote:
I would go for the low fixed APR card.

However, I understand your fear. I have a fixed 5.9% APR on my MBNA card, which is now a BOA card - I thought BOA would have hiked it up after the buy-out. And ever so often, I get nervous when I get mail from BOA...lol...thinking it will be a notice about a hike...but this hasn't happened in the past 3.5 years I've had the card.

Message Edited by pjriverap on 10-17-2007 06:51 PM

5.9% is a super APR! Do you know of any company that is offering anything lower than 7.99% (fixed)? I would definitely want to take a look. By the way, how much can your card carry?

It's a BOA Marlins Baseball Card with a 12K Limit. The funny thing about this card is that I only applied to get a free t-shirt at the game...3 weeks later I got this card with an awesome APR...random, but good.

Message Edited by pjriverap on 10-17-2007 07:53 PM

Re: Lowest CC APR available

John060675 — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 02:58:32 GMT

Just for FYI, here is a link that compares a lot of the APR %'s

http://moneycentral.msn.com/banking/services/CreditCard.asp?iSearchId=2&Go=Go

Sorry, I know we are not supposed to post links to outside websites, but I think this is a good one.

Good luck!

Re: Lowest CC APR available

Anonymous — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 03:02:37 GMT

@pjriverap wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:

@pjriverap wrote:
I would go for the low fixed APR card.

However, I understand your fear. I have a fixed 5.9% APR on my MBNA card, which is now a BOA card - I thought BOA would have hiked it up after the buy-out. And ever so often, I get nervous when I get mail from BOA...lol...thinking it will be a notice about a hike...but this hasn't happened in the past 3.5 years I've had the card.

Message Edited by pjriverap on 10-17-2007 06:51 PM

5.9% is a super APR! Do you know of any company that is offering anything lower than 7.99% (fixed)? I would definitely want to take a look. By the way, how much can your card carry?

It's a BOA Marlins Baseball Card with a 12K Limit. The funny thing about this card is that I only applied to get a free t-shirt at the game...3 weeks later I got this card with an awesome APR...random, but good.

Message Edited by pjriverap on 10-17-2007 07:53 PM

Applied for a t-shirt and got a CC? That's rather bold of them, unless the t-shirt application required that you put down your date of birth and ss#, which is absolutely required when applying for credit cards. Very strange. If more strange things could be this pleasant, though.

Re: Lowest CC APR available

Anonymous — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 03:05:01 GMT

@John060675 wrote:
Just for FYI, here is a link that compares a lot of the APR %'s
http://moneycentral.msn.com/banking/services/CreditCard.asp?iSearchId=2&Go=Go
Sorry, I know we are not supposed to post links to outside websites, but I think this is a good one.
Good luck!

Great link! Thanks. I see a Simmons First Visa Platinum at 7.25%. Very cool Credit Card Analyzer tool at that link. Lists quite a few low-APR offers.

Re: Lowest CC APR available

Anonymous — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 03:07:42 GMT

Can someone tell me what a subprime lender like Cap 1 doing offering Capital One(R) Platinum Prestige at 7.40% APR? Who are they trying to get with that? I thought they specialized mainly in subprime?

Re: Lowest CC APR available

Anonymous — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 03:14:23 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:

@pjriverap wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:

@pjriverap wrote:
I would go for the low fixed APR card.

However, I understand your fear. I have a fixed 5.9% APR on my MBNA card, which is now a BOA card - I thought BOA would have hiked it up after the buy-out. And ever so often, I get nervous when I get mail from BOA...lol...thinking it will be a notice about a hike...but this hasn't happened in the past 3.5 years I've had the card.

Message Edited by pjriverap on 10-17-2007 06:51 PM

5.9% is a super APR! Do you know of any company that is offering anything lower than 7.99% (fixed)? I would definitely want to take a look. By the way, how much can your card carry?

It's a BOA Marlins Baseball Card with a 12K Limit. The funny thing about this card is that I only applied to get a free t-shirt at the game...3 weeks later I got this card with an awesome APR...random, but good.

Message Edited by pjriverap on 10-17-2007 07:53 PM

Applied for a t-shirt and got a CC? That's rather bold of them, unless the t-shirt application required that you put down your date of birth and ss#, which is absolutely required when applying for credit cards. Very strange. If more strange things could be this pleasant, though.

It was one of those random college offers: "Apply for an Marlins MBNA today and get a free T-Shirt even if your not approved for the card!" I was a sucker for free stuff during undergrad!

-lol

Re: Lowest CC APR available

Anonymous — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 03:20:04 GMT

That Simmons card also offers an unbelievable Cash Advance APR at 12.95% Fixed. This is like twice as low as just about any card offers for cash advances. Very interesting card for emergencies. Wow! Even their Penalty Rate is lower than what some cards have as their regular variable APR: 15.25% Why is this card not talked about? This is a monster card, unless I'm not getting something.

Message Edited by ficus on 10-17-2007 08:20 PM

Re: Lowest CC APR available

Anonymous — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 03:22:58 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:

@Anonymous wrote:
I would also go with a fixed rate. However, do keep in mind, that somewhere down the road, the issuers might change your terms, and change your fixed rate to a variable one. I've had this happen to me a few times. Some credit card issuers will also offer you variable rates, but the rates will never be permitted to be lower than a certain percentage. For example, they might offer you PRIME+1%, but stipulate that this rate can never be lower than 7.9%. In short, I find fixed rates much more attractive than variable ones.

Change fixed to variable? So it's not just increasing the rate, they just turning the tables completely. I guess this is what they mean when they say "anytime, for any reason" on the T&C agreement. Under what circumstances did those things happen to you? Did you pull something or were all those times random occurances? Anything higher than 7.9% can easily fall under the category of "PRIME+1% but "CAN NEVER BE LOWER THAN 7.9%" depending on how they view it. :-) But I guess, nowadays, anything lower than 10% is better.

Around 2001, First Card (who merged with BankOne, and then later merged with Chase) once changed my terms from a FIXED to a VARIABLE--I was carrying a balance, always paid more than the minimum payment, but they decided to change my terms. First Card (and even BankOne) was always one of those card companies that you were always glad that you dealt with over the phone, rather than face-to-face, with a "blunt instrument" within your reach.

Most recently, I was one of the victims of the massive Capital One rate hikes. I had a 5.9% FIXED at Capital One for a few years, and they informed me that my FIXED 5.9% would be changed to a VARIABLE that was around 15.99%. I really didn't care, because I didn't have a balance, and I already planned to close the account this December. About a week after my rate hike notice, Capital One sent me another letter about how they've noticed that I haven't used my account in a while, and what could they do to change that. I called the number they provided, and the rep then lowered my APR to LIBOR+something that I can't remember, so it ended up at 9.9%, but still a VARIABLE.

Re: Lowest CC APR available

Anonymous — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 03:26:55 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:

@Anonymous wrote:

@Anonymous wrote:
I would also go with a fixed rate. However, do keep in mind, that somewhere down the road, the issuers might change your terms, and change your fixed rate to a variable one. I've had this happen to me a few times. Some credit card issuers will also offer you variable rates, but the rates will never be permitted to be lower than a certain percentage. For example, they might offer you PRIME+1%, but stipulate that this rate can never be lower than 7.9%. In short, I find fixed rates much more attractive than variable ones.

Change fixed to variable? So it's not just increasing the rate, they just turning the tables completely. I guess this is what they mean when they say "anytime, for any reason" on the T&C agreement. Under what circumstances did those things happen to you? Did you pull something or were all those times random occurances? Anything higher than 7.9% can easily fall under the category of "PRIME+1% but "CAN NEVER BE LOWER THAN 7.9%" depending on how they view it. :-) But I guess, nowadays, anything lower than 10% is better.
Around 2001, First Card (who merged with BankOne, and then later merged with Chase) once changed my terms from a FIXED to a VARIABLE--I was carrying a balance, always paid more than the minimum payment, but they decided to change my terms. First Card (and even BankOne) was always one of those card companies that you were always glad that you dealt with over the phone, rather than face-to-face, with a "blunt instrument" within your reach.
Most recently, I was one of the victims of the massive Capital One rate hikes. I had a 5.9% FIXED at Capital One for a few years, and they informed me that my FIXED 5.9% would be changed to a VARIABLE that was around 15.99%. I really didn't care, because I didn't have a balance, and I already planned to close the account this December. About a week after my rate hike notice, Capital One sent me another letter about how they've noticed that I haven't used my account in a while, and what could they do to change that. I called the number they provided, and the rep then lowered my APR to LIBOR+something that I can't remember, so it ended up at 9.9%, but still a VARIABLE.

Isn't it pathetic how they first pull crap and then embarrass themselves trying to do damage control? :-)