Why switch your Credit Card?
If you stay with the same credit card provider over a long period of time you will most likely pay more interest on your credit card bills than if you switched cards to take advantage of a lower APR.
It’s a sad fact of life that today loyalty no longer pays, in fact quite the opposite: quite often it is the loyal customer that is penalised. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the credit card market.
Every day new credit cards come onto the market with special low interest rates for balance transfers, introductory low purchase APR rates all to entice credit card consumers to switch and benefit from these rates.
They are able to do this because a certain percentage of people will either be too busy in the future to think about changing their credit card again, or just forget to switch once the interest free period runs out.
0% Interest Balance Transfers - beware
Quite often what the new provider does not tell you is that any new purchases that you make on their credit card will be paid off before the transferred balance so quite often after the introductory period runs out the customer has paid off less of the balance transfer than they thought or sometimes has paid off none of their original credit card balance at all.
On the following pages we’ll attempt to list the current UK credit card deals and introductory credit card offers and review their interest rates and other vital information so you can make an informed decision about switching.
In recent years the online credit card comparison market has really taken off and there are dozens of website where you can compare balance transfers, interest rates and even apply online.
With so many types of credit card on the market it can be difficult to make a choic:, some offer a low interest rate on purchases, whilst there are also those that are reward cards or points cards that accrue loyalty points as you spend on them - normally to offset against purchases with the issuer. There are also now a large range of charity credit cards which enable the user to give a percentage of what they spend on their card to the charity of their choice. Low interest credit cards stipulate a low rate of interest which never changes, they won;t offer an interest free transfer period but if you budget they could well save you money over time ane hale reduce those credirt card bills.
Remember, the secret to successful switching and credit card savings is to arm yourself with all of the available information on fees and hidden costs , make sure your balance goes down and switch right away when the interest rate goes up.
Don't allow yourself to be caught out by a false sense of security, that is what the credit card companies are banking on. Most of all do not be loyal.
Once your interest free period is over move on to the next provider. Nowadays many cards do have a transfer fee but so long as you follow the rules above you should still save money overall on what you would have paid in interest charges.