Balance Transfer Essentials

There you are, at your kitchen table, flipping out as you stare at this outrageous balance you’ve got on your high interest credit card. Watch out for those double-digit rates, the higher they are the worse it is for you. What’s a self respecting consumer to do? There are a number of options. We’ll outline a few of them here and you can dig a little deeper on the ones that seem to make the most sense to you. Let’s dispense with the obvious. Go to your bank vault (you do have one of those don’t you?) and get out all those stacks of green and pay the whole thing off in one lump sum. Okay, obviously not really an option for the average person. The next best idea is to do a balance transfer. No, this doesn’t involve joining a high wire act and balancing first on the left foot then the right, though too much debt can make you feel about that stable. Balance transfers are simply the process of taking your credit card debt from one card and putting it on another card. It’s that simple. One thing you can try is to negotiate with your current credit card company. They love their customers to stick around but it’s only right that in exchange for that loyalty you get a little something in return. Certainly you should ask for a lower rate and suggest ever so politely that if they won’t play ball that you’ll take your business elsewhere. There are other credit card companies in the sea after all. Use your muscle as a long time good customer on this one. If you have been with a company for a while and pay your bills on time and especially if you carry some amount of balance, you are your credit card company’s best friend so don’t let them bully you. Don’t like the answers you get? Ask for a supervisor or a manager and keep on going till you get someone with the real authority to make an actual decision. They still won’t play. It’s time to shop. If you decide to play the field and see which company is going to give you the most love, you need to be careful that they don’t pull the old bait and switch on you. It’s not unheard of, for example, for a credit card company to offer super low rates on balance transfers. Before you sign on the dotted line, ask at least this one very important question. How long will this great low-rate last? Don’t let yourself get lulled into false security. “Oh great, this rate is only 6%. My troubles are over!” What you need to know is; is this rate good for a month? Six months, a year or what? Because guess what happens if you don’t ask? The lovely “introductory” rate will vanish like Cinderella’s glass slippers and coach at midnight. And there you will be back into double digits hell again. Yuck.