Thursday, May 6th, 2010

Don’t credit card rates go down if a person is a good customer and always pays the monthly payment?

credit card rates
missy asked:


Don’t credit card companies reward those who are excellent customers who aren’t continuously maxing out their credit cards and who also always pay their monthly payments on time?

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 6th, 2010 at 12:00 am and is filed under Credit Cards. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

6 Responses to “Don’t credit card rates go down if a person is a good customer and always pays the monthly payment?”

FB Addict Says:
May 8th, 2010 at 2:48 pm

Not in this economy and financial climate. Even perfect customers are having their interest rates raised and fees increased.

ConcernedMom Says:
May 9th, 2010 at 2:21 pm

No. Unfortunately, the companies are out to make money … and how do they do this … off of the customer – YOU.

Here’s a link to a November 4, 2009 article by the Wall Street Journal about a Wednesday Nov. 4, 2009 vote by the US House concerning “Credit Card Rates”. It’s an excellent article.

Here’s the fist two paragraphs of the article:

“WASHINGTON–The U.S. House, in a slap at the credit-card industry, on Wednesday voted to freeze interest rates and fees for nine months and to immediately impose strict new credit-card rules currently set to take effect in February or later.

The 331-92 vote comes after lawmakers have been flooded with complaints from consumers furious that issuers raised interest rates, increased minimum payments and lowered credit limits. Dozens of Republicans joined Democrats to approve the measure.”

Caveman Says:
May 12th, 2010 at 3:22 am

Ah, Missy, what a fine question. You must be new to the “credit enslavement” market. NO – the rates do not automatically go down, in fact they rise automatically.

I learned this fact by accident several years ago. I received an offer from a credit card company with a certain interest rate. I checked my latest bill from my credit card issuer only to find that my rates had gone up considerably. I phoned the company and asked them why the rise in interest rates, to which I was told that I may have been late on a payment, blah, blah, blah. No solid answer.

Upon explaining about the nice offer I had received from credit card company B, I was told that my interest rate would be lowered to just under the company B offer. After some haggling, I was told that my card would maintain said interest rate for the duration. I stayed with company A until the account was paid in full. I then closed the account and have not had any credit card since.

Wise men have counselled that we should get out of debt and stay out of debt. Wish I had complied with that many years ago.

alexandra . Says:
May 12th, 2010 at 12:56 pm

Not that I’m aware of. As a matter of fact, my dad recently told me that he’d been really responsible with his credit card, and as a result, the company increased his limits without giving him any choice in the matter- making it easier to charge more if you’re the type of person to get caught in their mess. Moral of the story? They might say they care about their customers, but what credit card companies really care about is staying in business and making lots of money off us all.

Rolyn- yn flîn ddiawledig Says:
May 15th, 2010 at 1:42 pm

No, in fact they prefer it if you don’t pay off your bill each month…they get more money that way.

bdancer222 Says:
May 19th, 2010 at 1:31 am

Maybe. If you are consistently carrying balances and just making partial payments, even if they are always on time, you probably won’t be seeing any rate decreases. In fact, you may see an increase.

Best way to get a lower interest rate is to always pay off the credit card balance in full every month. You’ll get all sorts of special interest rate offers. And if you use most of your credit limit and pay off the card every month, they’ll keep increasing your limit.

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.