interest rates on your cards

[firedogut]

What are your interest rates on your cards?  Have you seen them spike up lately? How long have you had the cards?

Have you called and asked for a rate decrease?  If they gave it to you what did you say?

i'll go 1st

Discover Opened in 2000

Current rate 8.24% Variable Rate, was fixed but about a 1-1.5 years ago Discover stop giving fixed rates.

Cash advance: 23.99%

If paid late new rate would be :  12.24%


Master Card opened in 2001

Current Rate 6.99% Fixed

[MarineVietVet]

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@firedogut wrote:

What are your interest rates on your cards?  I have 7 cards. The rates run from 7.9% to 26.99%

Have you seen them spike up lately? Not lately. All my rate jacking happened 1.5 to 2 years ago.

How long have you had the cards? From 6 to 12 years.

Have you called and asked for a rate decrease?  No. I just decided I would play their game. I don't pay them any interest so I don't care what the rate is.

If they gave it to you what did you say?

From a BK years ago to:
7/09 TU-742 EQ- 779
8/09 TU-765 EQ- 783
9/09 EX pulled by lender 802

You can do the same thing with hard work

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[Anonymous]

What are your interest rates on your cards? 

11 credit cards with 10.49% to 30.99% interest rates, Citi being the lowest and HSBC the highest. Rates are distributed equally between 10%, 15%, 20%, 30% buckets with 2-3 cards in each. Also, have few stores cards with mid 20% rates.

Have you seen them spike up lately?

The only one that spiked recently was Citi, to 29.99% just before Credit Card ACT. Ironically, my lowest rate card is also Citi, 10.49%. Citi's customer service girl didn't have a good answer why there is such a discrepancy. What is really confusing for me is Citi's unwillingness to bulge on rate jack even though I put most of my transactions through Citi cards (due to generous rewards points program)

Capital One raised rates about  8 months ago, but I had 0% BT offer from them.

How long have you had the cards?

Avg of 4 years, the oldest for 7 years.

Have you called and asked for a rate decrease? If they gave it to you what did you say?

I usually call CC companies every 6 months or so and see what I can get from them. I usually say that I like the quality of the institution and our partnership in the past, but their card has higher rate than those on my other cards and then ask what they can do for me: interest rate decrease, BT offer, CLI, etc. My findings:

Citi:

Citi used to be pretty good and rates decreases, but it was 18-24 months ago. Not so much recently. They did allow product switch for one of my cards and then proceeded to gradually decrease interest rate by 2% over the course of few months. 

Discover:

Don't really use their card, but their retention department is awesome. You can talk them into giving you BT rather easily, plus they review your account for CLI periodically. I believe they offered me 2-3% interest rate decrease once.

BofA:

Periodically tried to rate jack me, but would revert to previous lower rate when I called them. Eventually left rate at ~10% with a condition that I don't charge anything on my card. 

HSBC:

Can't get anything out of them. My accounts suffered severe CLDs and have ridiculously high interest rates. Haven't used them in ages and consider closing them outright.

Chase:

Over the years I've had awful experience with Chase.

Chase periodically tries to rate jack me on 2 Chase (not WaMu) cards, but would revert to previous lower rate when I call them. Their anti-fraud department calls me every time I have a new purchase even if it's $10 charge. They also tried to lower the credit limit multiple times, but did reinstate it back after I supplied some info.

Capital One:

Haven't had bad or good experience with them. They seem apologetic about not being able to reduce the interest rate, but compensate by providing 0% BT offers.

[Anonymous]

I'm a PIF kinda gal. I never look at the rates because I don't feel that credit cards are good financing mechanisms.

[MattH]

AMEX Gold, Member Since 1982, 15.24% APR, was about 12% prior to the Great Rate Hikes of 2009

CHASE Visa, was Platinum Select until their recent re-branding to Slate, 11.99%, had long been under 6% prior to the 2009 hikes.  The card used to have a Member Since date printed on it but Slate cards don't have that printed on them (1994, started as First USA, then Bank One, then Chase in a series of corporate mergers).

Discover, Member Since 1994, 13.24% APR, had been somewhat lower until 2009

Citibank Master Card, Member Since 1987, APR 23.99%, had been lower...

The credit limits on the above cards range from a little over $10K to around $25K.  Balances fluctuate because I carry very little cash, tend to make major purchases quickly once my wife and I have decided to make one, and pay in full every month.

My wife is an authorized user on the CHASE card; she also has a Citibank card in her own name that she has had for quite a while (I forget exactly how long) on which the rate was increased in 2009.

In addition to the above there is also an AMEX Corporate Card (Member Since 1998) in my wallet, which is for work purposes only.  This one is paid by electronic funds transfer directly from our company's expense account system and has never appeared on my credit reports.

My wife and I regularly get balance transfer offers at substantially lower interest rates than those listed above, which we feed to the shredder since the only interest we pay is on the mortgage.

I do not believe these rate hikes are in response to anything my wife and I have done, since we both have FICO scores around 800.  I believe these are merely the general response to market conditions.  In the current climate, I think the only type of debt an individual should carry is debt where the rate is fixed by contract for at least three years (and even with fixed-rate debt, there should not be any penalty for prepayment).

Since we pay in full, my wife and I have not bothered calling them to argue about these rate hikes.

[score_building]

Matt- isn't amex gold a charge card that has to be paid in full, how is there an APR if it is not revolving?

[MattH]

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@score_building wrote:

Matt- isn't amex gold a charge card that has to be paid in full, how is there an APR if it is not revolving?

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Yes and no, my AMEX Gold allows some purchases to be revolved while some purchases must be paid in full.  Cutting and pasting directly from my account on the AMEX website it says:

Previous Balance as of Mar 18	808.97
Payments	-900.00
Due In Full Charges	71.72
Flexible Charges	2,000.00
Credits	0.00
Outstanding Balance	1,980.69

I have not bothered to learn their arcane rules determining which purchases are due in full and which are flexible, because I always pay the full balance.

[score_building]

now I get it, thanks Matt.

as of this post, my interest rates range from 6% - 18.9%  not incl. store cards.