Posts Tagged ‘Credit card’:


5 Considerations When Picking A Private Mastercard

Published by Bruce Stuart in Credit on January 28th, 2012 | No Comments »

These days many Visa card companies offer advantages to lure new shoppers starting from special offers with zero p.c interest for transferred balances, Reward Programs offering airline mileage and cash back, and discount programs with select merchants. While these offers might be very enticing, there are five key factors, none of which include perks, that you must consider when selecting a credit card.

FEES

One of the first things to consider when choosing a Mastercard is the quantity of costs linked with using the card and the totality of every one of them if sustained. Firms can charge a spread of fees with the commonest being annual, closure, over-the-limit and late charges. Because, not all companies charge an identical costs and the level of the costs can also differ, it's very important to read all the small print and details that accompany any credit card offer.

Annual Fee

A once a year fee is a membership or collaboration fee that is charged for having a card. An annual fee can range from $25 to $50.

Closure Fee

Some corporations also charge a closure charge when an account is closed. This charge also falls in the $25 to $50 range.

Over-the-Limit Fee

An over the limit fee is assessed when the sum of your purchases and costs surpass the amount of credit you have available for new charges. Generally speaking, this fee is around $25.

Late Fee

Late penalties are charged when payments are past due. Some firms assess late charges as early as one day after the payment date due. Late payments can also trigger a rise in your annual p.c. rate.

YEARLY P.C. RATE

The once a year percentage rate (APR) is by far one of the most important, if not the most significant factor to think about when picking a Visa card. The APR, which is stated as a annual rate, is the rate applied to outstanding balances. Low rates are preferable since this means you will be coughing up less to use a Mastercard. One single credit card can apply a different APR for balance transfers, cash advances and purchases.

Credit Arrangement

You must also consider the level of credit that is being offered when choosing a Mastercard. A credit limit is the quantity of cash that can be found for purchases, cash advances, balance transfers, fees and financial charges. Credit limits can start as low as $200 for dept store credit cards and go into the thousands for major mastercards (Visa and Credit card) dependent on your credit rating and income.

SECURED VERSES UNSECURED CARDS

Another factor to think about when selecting a card is whether the card is secured or unsecured. Users of secured mastercards pay a deposit to obtain credit. These offers often appeal to 2 classes of individuals, those that are very young and are having a complicated time building credit and those who have blemishes on their credit reports that hinder them from obtaining unsecured credit. The borrowing arrangement for secured mastercards is usually decided by the amount of your deposit.

Unsecured visa cards are by a large margin the most commonly held cards and tend to have higher credit limits.

Introductory Period

The final factor to think about, the introductory period, is the length of time you've got to pay your Mastercard balance in full without accruing interest charges. The ideal card will have a honeymoon period of 25 days or longer. If you carry a balance from month to month you will pay interest with no regard for how many days are in a honeymoon period with only new purchases being exempt for 25 days. The grace period is generally not applicable to cash advances and balance transfers.

Perks AND REWARDS

While not one of the five key things, I continue to felt it necessary to write a blurb on advantages. Many credit card corporations offer benefits as a motivation to lure new customers and reward constant ones. Perks can include a Rewards Programme that awards you with airline mileage and cash back on your purchases. Some cards also offer reductions at select merchants and card registration, which protects you if your card is mislaid. Unless you're a frequent user of credit, advantages should be the last item you consider when selecting a Visa card because the largest payoffs have a tendency to go to the largest spenders.

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Understanding the Southwest Airline’s Frequent Flier Program

Published by Jessica Healy in Credit on January 21st, 2012 | No Comments »

Understanding airline rewards program can be challenging, and when Southwest airlines redesigned their rewards in 2011, it meant that all of their frequent flier customers had to go back to the drawing board and get a solid understanding of how the rewards program now works. Here, we will take a quick look at what the rewards can do for you.

Southwest basis the amount of points you will need to fly based on the dollar amount and class of the flight. Here is a list of miles needed to fly based on numbers taken from Southwest’s site.

Business Select: 120 points per dollar

Anytime: 100 points per dollar

Wanna Get Away: 60 points per dollar

Scenario: This means that if you were booking a $200 round-trip ticket, you would need 20,000 points for an “Anytime” fare. Compared to a lot of programs this is a bargain, especially considering that there is no blackout dates. Plus they do not have any reserved seat restrictions as do most other airlines. This makes your points much more valuable, because if there is a seat available, you can use your points to fly.

Frequent fliers such as yourself are normally pretty interested in making sure their miles do not expire. With Southwest’s program, you will need to earn more miles once every 24 months to keep you miles from expiring. You can do that by flying, or by getting their credit card.

Earning rewards is the name of the game. Every time you fly on a Southwest flight, you can get more points added to your account. The number of points you earn is based on the dollar amount and type of flight you are taking, at 1/10 of the value it takes to redeem. This means that a Business Select flight gives you 12 points per dollar, an “Anytime” flight gives you 10, and a “Wanna Get Away” fare adds 6 points per dollar back to you.

They offer 2 credit cards, both through Chase bank. The first card, the Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards Plus Visa costs $69 per year and the Premier card costs a little more at $99 per year. At the time of this writing, most of the new cards were being offered an interest rate of 14.24% variable APR. Base on my research, I actually think the card with the higher annual fee is better. Each year these cards receive an annual bonus of points. The Plus card gives 3,000 bonus miles, while the premier card is given 6,000 bonus miles. In “Wanna Get Away” fares, that means that a premier card holder could book a $100 flight with his bonus miles alone.

For your daily spend with the Southwest car you can earn 1 mile per dollar, and paying for Southwest flights will give you 2 miles per dollar.

The other advantage of being a Southwest card holder is that you have access to their “More Rewards” program. This program allows you to use your miles for other items such as hotel stays and international travel. If you do not have this credit card, Southwest restricts you to using your miles only on Southwest flights.

Want to find out more about Southwest Rewards Credit Cards?

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10 Guaranteed Tips To Increase Your Credit Score

Published by Allan Henry in Debt Consolidation & Settlement on January 11th, 2012 | No Comments »

When your credit score is high you are considered a credible investor and your objective is to maintain your score to the highest number possible. How to do that? Follow these proven steps to do it:

1. Order individual reports rather than ordering in group. This will lessen your chance of getting involve in future problems. You can also start a dispute over the internet faster this way because ordering by bulk takes some time. Don’t worry about how much it would cost you by doing individual credit reports purchase because when you already get the scores that you want, every investment you made will be paid off!

2. Credit card agencies give the best customer service to their clients, so take advantage of this. Call them to increase your credit card lines so you can have the chance to earn up to 60 points which will improve your credit to more available ratio amounts on your bank account.

3. The ideal ratio to attain the cheapest debt-to-available-credit is 25%-35% You can achieve this by reorganizing your debt.

4. Pay down the cards immediately as soon as you can until your credit reports recognize your desired ratio.

5. The reason why your credit score decreases is because of the high debts shown on your credit reports. You can change this by looking for lenders who don’t mind tracking records or making reports of your debt. You may seek help from good friends and family who trust you with these matters. Just remember to invest your money wisely and don’t break the trust given on you!

6. There are really times where you can receive wrong credit reports that affect your score but it is easy to alter this. You can fax the incorrect credit report to the credit agency and in most cases they would correct your credit reports immediately.

7. Initiate a dispute over the internet for negative offensive reports about you. This will end your being reprieved due to some derogatory information on your credit reports. You will be surprised with the increase of your score when the issue is solved.

8. Of course you want your highest score to be pulled off by lenders on your purchases, but it doesn’t always get selected. Your middle score is the most significant score of all as it is the one being selected almost all the time by lenders. So always try to increase your middle score. Once you do this the maximum score that you had before will become your middle score!

9. Find people with good credit history. Family and friends are the best pick. Ask these people to put in your social security number to their account so all the years of good credit history will show up on your credit reports. When this happens, your credit score will increase accordingly. It won’t harm the people who added you to their account because they won’t have to add their social security number on your card, thus protecting their credibility.

10. When you receive credit reports telling there are credit file which haven’t been paid, you can call the collection company and ask them if they delete. Some agencies will take away the item from your credit report if the full account is paid. There are also instances where they can take away the debt from the credit agency immediately.

Allan Henry has been in the field of good credit score for a long time and maintains a website about how to build credit where you can get answers to the rest of your questions.

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