Consumer Reports Defines Best and Worst Credit Cards

One of the biggest questions that people have when considering getting a new credit card is how to tell if a credit card is good or not. For the most part, what a good credit card is depends on your own specific needs, spending style and repayment habits as a borrower. However, there are some basic things that you want to look for when trying to choose the right credit card for you. If you’re thinking to yourself that you don’t have the time to sift through all of the credit card offers that are out there in search of the right one then you’re in luck. Consumer Reports has just defined the best and worst credit card offers on the market so that borrowers can make better decisions more quickly in regards to which is the right credit card for them.

Consumer Reports chose one dozen credit cards that are considered to be really good credit card offers. They did this after looking at various factors to make this decision. Those factors included interest rates, a range of different fees and some of the tricks or “traps” that might be hidden in the fine print of the offer. These are the same things that you would want to look for if you were reviewing the best credit card offers out there for yourself. Consumer Reports found that the best credit cards have interest rates between 4% and 14.99% and offer better rates to borrowers with a good credit history. They also found that these cards had fees but that these fees were considered to be reasonable. Furthermore, there were no major hidden tricks in the fine print of the applications for these cards.

Consumer Reports also realizes that not every borrower is the same and divided up their “best credit cards” list to show that some apply mostly to those people who carry a credit card balance and that others apply more to those people who are going to be paying their monthly balance off in full each month. This is another thing that you would want to take into consideration if you were going through credit card applications yourself since the needs that you have as a borrower are different depending on your standard repayment plan. Borrowers paying off their credit cards every month can reasonably get a higher interest card with fewer fees and better rewards whereas borrowers that need to carry a balance must concern themselves more with the interest rate on the card.

Consumer Reports did not only let people know which types of credit cards were the best credit cards to consider getting. They also looked at some of the worst credit cards out there. One example that is given is a credit card which has a reasonable interest rate of under ten percent but which drowns the borrower in fees including a set-up fee, a program fee, an annual fee and a monthly service charge. Someone looking only at the interest rate on a card may not realize what a bad deal this is which is a reminder to us as consumers that we really need to know what we are looking for and to get assistance from reports such as this one to help us make the best choices for our bank accounts.