Although credit card companies have been making it more difficult for consumers to gain access to new credit cards and reducing the quality of 0% offers all year long, the credit card market has help up surprising well.  Until now.  David Reilly of the Wall Street Journal eloquently described the present situation for credit card card issuers as the, “worst of time and the worst of times.”

Why?  Credit card issuers are being hit with a Perfect Storm.  Both Bank of America (BAC) and Citi (C) announced rising credit card delinquencies in the past few days.  This, of course, cuts into their profits.  However, this shouldn’t have been a surprise to anyone.  What makes this situation particularly dire is the freeze up in commercial lending.  The credit card companies are being forced to pay significantly more to borrow the money they lend to consumers, cutting deeply into their profits. 

Without a sharp and immediate decrease in the cost of borrowing money for banks, consumers can expect to see higher interest rates and the quick elimination of 0% APR offers.  If the credit crunch continues to worsen, the concept of a 0% APR may soon be little more than a memory.

Smart Balance Transfers has been sounding the alarm for quite a while now.  Consumers paying double digit interest rates on their credit card debt may want to start listening.  If you don’t lock in a 0% APR now, you may not be able to find one soon.

To learn more about available 0% APR credit cards, please see the credit card offer section of this website.

The proposed Credit CardHolders’ Bill of Rights (see http://maloney.house.gov/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=1569&Itemid=61) is supposed to help consumers.  And in many ways, it would.  Unfortunately, like most legislation, it couldn’t come at a worse time.  As the credit crunch intensifies, this consumer friendly bill may backfire, drying up available credit to those who need it most.

According to the bill, the Credit CardHolders’ Bill of Rights would do the following:

• Protect cardholders against arbitrary interest rate increases
• Prevent cardholders who pay on time from being unfairly penalized 
• Protect cardholders from due date gimmicks
• Shield cardholders from misleading terms 
• Empower cardholders to set limits on their credit
• Require card companies to fairly credit and allocate payments 
• Prohibit card companies from imposing excessive fees on cardholders
• Prevent card companies from giving subprime credit cards to people who can’t afford them
• Require Congress to provide better oversight of the credit card industry
• Contain NO rate caps, fee setting, or price controls

Now, its hard to argue with the benefits many of these goals would provide to consumers.  Unfortunately, many of these proposed changes, if enacted into law, would fundamentally change the way credit card companies do business.

For example, interfering with the fees credit card companies impose on consumers who pay late or go over their credit limits would alter credit card risk management.  The people who are getting charged these fees are failing to use their credit wisely.  Unfortunately, responsible credit users will pay the price for the irresponsible credit management of others.  This price may be a reduction in 0% offers, higher interest rates, and a return to annual fees.

Another major sticking point is protecting cardholders against arbitrary interest rate increases.  Here, the definition of arbitrary is the point of interest.  Many credit card companies utilize a wide range of data on consumers, such as their credit scores and recent credit history, to determine the interest rates they charge.  When a consumer’s credit score drops or credit report changes, credit card companies “reprice” the consumer’s interest rate to control risk.  Without the ability to reprice debt from consumers that become risky, credit card companies will again rob Peter to pay Paul.  And, in this case, Peter is the consumer that pays his bills on time.

While the Credit CardHolders’ Bill of Rights is not expected to become law this year, many believe it will pass early next year.  In the interim, credit card companies may be bracing themselves by limiting the availability of credit to otherwise worthy consumers and making it harder to get 0% interest rates.

The next few months will be interesting in the credit card world.  And consumers should be prepared.  If you don’t have a 0% credit card in your pocket today, you may not be able to get one two or three months from now, regardless of how good your credit is. 

This website was designed to help consumers save money with 0% interest rates.  In the coming months, that may be a difficult mission.  However, until this bill passes, its a good time to take advantage of the 0% deals available. 

For more information, you can compare 0% APR credit cards and apply online at our main site.

Over the past few months, credit card companies have been sharply reducing the length and quality of 0% introductory offers, slashing credit limits, and raising the requirements on consumers applying for credit cards.  And things may be getting worse as the credit crunch wears on.

An article in today’s Wall Street Journal by Mark Gongloff aptly titled, “Credit Cards Next in Line For Tightening,” shines a light on the not so bright future of credit cards.  In the article, the author quotes Richard Moody, chief economist at Mission Residential.  His words should send a shiver down consumer spines.  He states, “Banks are…trying to raise rates and tighten terms on payment.”  In other words, if you haven’t locked in a fixed rate or taken advantage of a 0% APR offer, you may be in for some uncomfortable increases in your current interest rate.

Furthermore, credit card companies have raised the credit scores required for approval for many of the best deals, leaving consumers who are looking to refinance to a 0% rate out in the cold.  As I’ve written previously, those 0% rates may soon expire as well.

What options does this leave consumers?  If you don’t have a 0% credit card, get one now.  Not only can you save a substantial amount of interest on your current credit card balance, you can shield yourself against increases.  If you’re one of the lucky consumers who does not carry credit card debt, you may also want to consider a 0% APR credit card as an insurance policy in case you may need to use your credit card in the near future.

Whatever your current position, it is better to act now than wait for things to get better.  And with a 0% credit card, you can limit your interest expenses during the next year, which may be the roughest many of us have ever seen.

For more information on 0% credit card offers, please review the appropriate section of our website.

Recently, Chase changed the terms and conditions to many of their online credit card offers, particularly with regard to balance transfer fees.  Previously, Chase was one of the few remaining credit card issuers that still capped balance transfer fees at a set maximum.  For example, 3% per transaction with a maximum fee of $75 or $99 dollars.

However, as has been the case with Bank of America, Citi, and Capital One, Chase has lifted the maximum dollar amount on balance transfer fees to infinity.  For example, if you transfer a $5000 balance to the popular Chase Platinum Visa® Card, the cost will be $150.  Prior to this recent change, it would have been $99. 

As we’ve written recently, the credit crunch and resulting turmoil on Wall Street is having a very negative impact on the quality of credit card offers available, even to people with superb credit.  Unfortunately, things are likely to get worse.  Consequently, we continue to encourage anyone who is considering a balance transfer credit card to do it now while decent, low fee 0% offers are still available.

April 28 2009 Update:  After a visitor posted on this site recently, I took a look at this posting from October of 2008 and really got a sense of how much the balance transfer landscape has changed, particularly in regards to fees.  Today, every major issuer is charging full 3% balance transfer fees on 0% deals and Bank of American has announced plans to raise balance transfer fees to 4% on June 1st.

While everyone enjoys being correct about a prediction, on this matter, I truly wish I was wrong.  Unfortunately, most of the dire predictions I began blogging about late last year are coming to fruition.  And, while my prediction that 0% balance transfer offers may soon disappear has yet to become completely true, these offers continue to be for shorter durations, regardless of the company.  So, lets all hope I’m wrong about 0% rates disappearing.

Updated April 25th 2009:  This offer is no longer valid.  Information regarding this deal has been left up to document changes in the credit card industry.

Small business owners looking to eek out an extra 3 months on a 0% APR balance transfer have extremely limited options.  To be precise, they have one.  At present, the only credit card on the market offering a 0% APR for 15 months on balance transfers is the Advanta Platinum.

Just how much you can save with a 0% APR for 15 months obviously depends on the amount of the balance you transfer.  For example, a person with a $3000 balance transferred from a credit card charging a 14% interest rate can save over $100. 

An additional benefit of the Advanta Platinum Card is that after the 15 month 0% APR introductory period ends, the ongoing APR is a fixed 7.99%, significantly lower than most current offers.

You can learn more about the Advanta Platinum card and apply online to take advantage of a 0 APR for 15 months here.

While the majority of credit cards only offer a 0% APR for 12 months, there are a few major credit cards that offer a 0% APR for 15 months.  Unfortunately, no credit card currently offers a 0% APR for 15 months on purchases and balance transfers.  However, there is one credit card on the market for each 0% category.

The first of these credit cards is Blue from American Express.  This credit card offers a 0% APR for 15 months on purchases.  Aside from offering a 0% rate, this card also offers no fee rewards and charges no annual fee.  Once the zero interest period expires, this card offers a variable 11.24% interest rate on remaining balances.

The second offer comes from Advanta.  They offer a 0% APR for 15 months on balance transfers with their Platinum Rewards card.When the zero interest rate expires, this card offers a low 7.99% variable APR on remaining balances.  This Advanta credit card offer is aimed at businesses.

As noted above, no credit card is currently offering a 0% interest rate on purchases and balance transfers.  There are, however, many credit cards that offer a 0% APR on purchases and balance transfers for 12 months.  You can review these offers and apply online by visiting the 0% APR credit card section of Smart Balance Transfers.

Note:  The information in this posting is accurate as of 5/29/08.  Before applying online for a credit card that offers a 0% APR for 15 months, be sure to examine the application to verify that the offers described above are still current. 

Time to say goodbye to David Spade and say hello to the crazy credit card guy.  Capital One has recently begun an advertising campaign for its Capital One Card Lab, an online tool that lets consumers build their own credit card…kind of.  Consumers with excellent credit card will be able to get a credit card as designed.  However, people who are unsure of their credit or have lessor credit than they percieved may get something slightly different than what they created in the card lab.

For this review of the Capital One Credit Card Lab, we’ll assume we have excellent credit, which gets us through the first step of this 4 stop process.  Step two is where things get a little complicated.  On this page, you are able to choose your interest rate, your introductory interest rate and your rewards.

In an attempt to build the best rewards credit card available, I selected to get 1% cashback on purchases with a special 2% intro rate for 12 months.  After selecting this, a number of options were removed, including every possible APR below 15.9% and a 0% on balance transfers.  I then chose to get a 0% APR on purchases for 1 year.  The result:  the only available interest rate was 19.9%. 

Ultimately, the card I created was not nearly as good as a number of cashback credit cards already on the market.

Disappointed, I tried the Capital One Card Lab again.  This time, I designed a card for someone with good credit.  The results were equally unsatisfying.  I opted to get a 0% APR for 9 months on purchases (the longest available duration), a standard 1% cashback reward option and was ultimately offered a card with a 18.9% APR.  Compared with other offers on the market for individuals with good credit, this lab creation was a complete dud.  There are probably 30 other credit cards available with better terms.

The Capital One Card Lab is graphically impressive and fun to play with.  But choosing a credit card is not about having fun.  While some people with excellent credit may be able to create a card that offers good rewards, individuals who don’t meet Capital One’s harsh criteria for excellent credit will find much better deals elsewhere.