How To Snatch A Good Credit Card Deal Even If You Have Bad Credit
By Tanya Coles
You must have heard people say – ‘I got a good card deal’. So if you happen to be looking for a card at that moment, do you just go with what your friend has told you as a good card deal?
Let’s check what one can term as a good card deal. A card deal is good if it works for you. So, if the card fits into your lifestyle in a way that rakes in maximum benefits for you, that is a good card deal. The most important thing to realize here is the word ‘your’ as in ‘your lifestyle’. So logically speaking there is nothing like a good card deal.
What it is - is good card deal for ‘you’ i.e. the individual who is going to use that card. This is because the lifestyle and the needs differ from person to person (and that is precisely the reason why every card supplier offers so many different kinds of cards). It might be true in some cases (where the lifestyle of two individuals/friends is similar) that the card deal which is good for one be good for the other too, however, this is just in a few cases.
You can always check with your friend who has recently got a card deal, since that might cut down the time needed for researching/hunting-for a good card deal. However, it’s really a matter of evaluating your own needs. If you travel a lot and to far off places by air, a card that offers you good rewards/rebates/benefits on travel would comprise a good card deal. Sometimes the airlines themselves have their own card issuing/supplying company from where you can get a good card deal.
For people shopping at a particular retail store or a shop, a good card deal would be a card that offers discounts, rebates and rewards on shopping. Again, the retail stores themselves might have cards on offer that could be beneficial to you. Then there are card deals that are linked to gasoline stores or big grocery chains. If you don’t have any specific needs, you might use a general purpose card that gives reward points on every purchase you make on your card. These points can then be redeemed for cash/rewards. Hence, this card could become a good card deal for you.
Good, for card deals, is really a relative term and there is no card deal which is equally good for all. Its easy to get a card if you have a good history, but what about those of us who are not so lucky in terms of past credit? Here is when a bad credit card would help you.
“Bad credit card” is used to refer to cards that can be obtained even with a bad rating. The bad credit cards provide opportunity to people (with bad rating) to improve their rating. In that sense, bad credit cards act as rescuer for such people. So, bad credit cards also act as necessary a training ground for people who have not been able to control their spending urge in the past.
Bad credit cards are commonly known as secured cards. The bad credit card (or secured cards) requires the individual to open up an account with the card supplier and maintain some cash balance in the account. Why is that required? Well, cards are a business for the card suppliers;
so how can they trust someone who has defaulted on his/her payments in the past? After all, a business is about profits and such risks are a threat to profits.
The bank or the card supplier will generally pay interest on the balance in your account. However, it’s best to check this with the bad credit card supplier/bank. The limit on the bad credit card is determined by the cash balance in the account and is generally between 50-100% of the cash balance. These bad credit cards are also referred to as debit cards, owing to the fact that they work less in a credit-giving manner and more in a debit-giving manner.
There are plenty of bad credit cards available in the market. When searching for the bad credit card that is best suited to you, you should consider four things in particular: the minimum balance that you are required to maintain in the bank account, the limit that you will receive (i.e. the percentage of your bank account balance that you are allowed to spend on your bad credit card), the fees/other-charges applicable to the procurement of bad credit card and the rate of interest that you will receive on the balance in your bank account.
An ideal bad credit card would have no fee/other-charges associated with it and would require zero or a very small amount as minimum bank balance. It would also have something like 90-100% of bank balance as its limit. Moreover, an ideal bad credit card would also offer a good interest rate on the bank balance.
Bad credit cards are really a good concept that provides respite to people with bad rating by letting them enjoy the benefits of cards while they mend their rating.
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