Negotiating Lower Credit Card Interest Rates
Saturday September 22, 2007
If your credit card interest rate is too high, you can usually get it lowered by calling your creditor and simply asking for a lower rate. If you're a valued customer, it's likely that your request will be granted. You should postpone your request, however, if you've been late on a credit card payment or gone over your credit limit within the last six months. You're more likely to have your request denied if you haven't been using your credit card responsibly.
When you've been making timely payments for several months and you don't habitually max out your credit card, you can usually negotiate a lower credit card interest rate.
When you've been making timely payments for several months and you don't habitually max out your credit card, you can usually negotiate a lower credit card interest rate.
Comments
Great advise, people will be amazed at what they can get only by asking! I had interest rates lowered many times on different cards.
conversely, I have great credit, have never been late and have rarely gone over my limit in the last 20 years and this has *never* worked for me. none of my creditors over the years have ever been willing to drop my rate. i still question the validity of this advice as it has been nothing but a waste of time and source of frustration for me.
I, too, have excellent credit-it’s the debt I want to pay down. I pay double the min. and never late. I have had a card for 10 years now and the APR was 10.99, not too bad, with about $4500 on it, a fraction of my $15000 limit. I received an offer for a balance transfer to 5.99 fixed until paid off, even with the fee to do so it would save me a lot of money. Called the lender and they wouldn’t budge at all!! I’d say unless you are paying 15-20% or more, they probably won’t do much for you, though it cannot hurt to try. All they can say is no, but you don’t know if you don’t ask. I kept getting the new customer intro rate on my cable for a year, half price for 3 months was the deal but I kept asking and they kept giving.
I’m having a hard time paying off my $65K debt.. Since I graduated college 70% of my paycheck goes to pay loan/cc debt. never late on my account, I keep asking Citibank to lower my credit card (16%) rate but they just keep saying sorry thats something we cann’t do. bank of america was 14.95% and a year later I noticed a 28% annual interest rate. I called and they told me. “we considered you to be a risky client” I paid that one off first. Should I file for chapter 11? how would that affect my credit?
Thanks for the suggestion!
I was able to drop my CC rate from 21% to 8.6% - just by asking for a interest reduction - for the life of my balance.
My card company also offered to go drop it to 5% temporary, but it would only last for 6 months then go back to 21%.
I called Chase, who took over Washington Mutual, to find out why my 13% apr is now 22%. They are basically getting rid of customers with low to average fico scores by raising the apr to exorbitant rates. I’ve had a perfect record for the 5 years I’ve had the card. But I was just short of being hung up on by the account manager when I asked for my previous apr to be reinstated.. I have no idea of what’s going on with these banks. All I know is when I send the balance tomorrow I will not get another Credit Card. I just hope more people follow suit and boycott this crooks.