Person who are obtaining the first time credit card may have several questions like what credit card should I get and what are the things should i know prior to apply for one. If you are one among them then you are on the right track.
Here we have listed some important top 10 things that any one should know before applying their first time credit card.
Low or 0% interest rate
Today you may have a good financial condition. So you may think like you can pay off your monthly payment due at full every month. It is good. So as of now you don’t need to bother about the interest rates. But what will happen if you fail to pay off and keep balance in your account due to unavoidable financial situation. So think off the future when sign up for the credit card. Obtaining the card with 0% interest rate is great. Most of the companies offer intro APR of 0%. Find out what will be the interest rate when this period gets over.
No Annual Fee
In the recent past, credit card companies were used to charge the annual fee anywhere between $20 & $100. But today the scenario has changed. Now most of the companies are offering the credit cards with no annual fee. So try to find out these. It is fairly easy task.
Grace Period
Almost all companies offer the grace period of 1 month on all new purchases. It is the time in which you don’t need to pay any interest for having balances because of newly purchased items. If you practice to pay off full on the payment due you can avoid accruing the interest after the grace period.
Credit card type
Visa and master cards are widely accepted card types in all retail store and online purchases. So regardless of from whom you are going to obtain the card (capital one, discover, chase…) make sure your card is either master or visa so that you can use it even at the times of emergency.
Ridiculous charges
Read the terms and fine print and ensure you are going to pay some ridiculous charges like “fee to access your credit card account, late payment fee, annual fee and some unreasonable fee”.
Rewards programs
Some credit card companies used to offer rewards cards or cash back offers for using the card. Make sure you are sign up with the one who are offering these kinds of rewards program so that you can save interest and money for your good credit behavior.
Fraud protection guarantee
Since you sign up for the first time credit card there is no way for you to come through the scenario where you paid for the fraudulent unauthorized activity. There are so many credit laws states that card holder should not get charged for the fraudulent activities. But in practice credit card companies charge you to pay at least portion of certain amount. So it is very important to sign up with the card that provides $0 fraud liability guarantee.
Online account Access
In this digital era most of the credit card companies provides online access to their customers to manage their balance transfers, bill payment through the secured websites. Ensure your desired company offers this useful feature since it saves your loads of time.
Toll-Free help line service
Major credit card companies provide the toll free help line numbers to contact their customer service. Check out whether your first time credit card offers this feature to you.
No or Low Balance transfer fee
This feature will be very help full when you transfer the credit card balance from one account to another. Some companies provide 0 balance transfer for few months at introductory period. Some charges around 3%.
Keep all these in mind and try to find a best card as an answer for what credit card should i get.
Can you get guaranteed credit card
Since you don’t have any prior history you can’t get the standard credit cards which will require good credit rating. So to help the people to begin their journey with the credit card some companies offers the guaranteed credit card for people with the no history and bad history.