Credit Tips: The Best Credit Card

Posted On: July 1, 2005

Author: credithelp
Title: The Best Credit Card
Date: Wed Dec 01, 2004 4:24 pm

Which card issuers have the best reputations right now and which have the worst ones? I guess this is an opinionated question but was curious.

Author: Nightstar
Title: The Best Credit Card
Date: Wed Dec 01, 2004 4:34 pm

Providian is one of the creditors at the bottom of the list, but they have been trying to change that - like giving credit scores to customers (I believe they are allowing consumers to view the credit card model scores) not just the generic ones the bureaus would sell to the customer.

American Express, I was just horrified with the slam site I read, their employees are rude beyond beleive, almost like a god complex.. I think they are over rated, like Discover myself.

Citi Bank I think of in the middle like Capital One, easy to obtain on a regular basis, but they can be preditory, on catching people with high interest rates…

Household is another lower lender, being that they deal more in the sub market, like Best Buy, and other stores that would only offer 18% interest rates.. same true with Lowes, JC Penney, K-Mart, Yonkers, Sears… all of them department stores are not worth the 10% discounts they offer to get customers just for the high rates, if you are in the habit to holding balances.

I hear Native say a lot of good stuff about Bank of America though, and they just took over another sub lender Fleet… will be interesting to see how that goes.

I really don’t know too much about other creditors out there, very limited experience myself… like Chase, Bank One, First USA, Pulaski, think of them mid to upper range creditors.

Author: guessindigo
Title: The Best Credit Card
Date: Wed Dec 01, 2004 5:50 pm

This is my list

Top Issuers (aka the BEST)
MBNA
Citi
AMEX
Chase
Bank of America

Mid Issuers (aka Just OK)
Household
Providian
Direct Merchants Bank
Capital One
Discover

Bottom Issuers (The WORST)
Cross Country
First Premier
Aspire

Author: consumercity
Title: The Best Credit Card
Date: Wed Dec 01, 2004 6:03 pm

From my own personal experience, I consider Citi Bank to be the best. I have a card from them with an interest rate that is about 45% of what I had with Capital One.

I don’t recommend Capital One because their interest rates are too high and they won’t offer better terms to customers that have been with them for 5 years and never paid late. Also, every time I called Cap One’s customer service department they aggressively tried to sell credit insurance and credit monitoring services.

Before selecting a company, you should type their names into some search engines and see what kind of complaint sites turn up. Also, there is a lot of valuable credit card info on this site.

Basically, this question has no answer. Most of those who are posting have good experiences with some banks and bad experiences with others. We all have different credit profiles and have different issues.

For example,

Quote:
I don’t recommend Capital One because their interest rates are too high.

I have one CapitalOne account with a 7.9%. I’m currently on a 2.9% balance transfer on it, good for the life of the loan. I have a second one with an 8.9% rate. Both cards allow no-fee balance transfers treated as purchases with a 25 day grace period.

At one point, CapitalOne called me concerned about my account and said it was going to reduce my $20,000 credit limit to $16,000. It said it would restore the credit limit to $20,000 if I made a $2,000 payment. So I did–and it pushed the limit back to $20,000. No problems since.

On the other hand, I am livid with rage at the way I was treated by BankOne and MBNA. I’ve had no problems with Citibank, Chase, AmericanExpress or Discover. Generally I’ve found Customer Service from all the banks to be polite and fairly responsive, even when I don’t agree with the outcome. I’m always considerate and cordial when I call, regardless of how I feel inside.

Different strokes for different folks, as they say!