It’s a subject that makes my blood boil. Credit card rate hikes. It’s something that has gotten me very close to the point of cancelling the direct debits to one of my card issuers and refusing to accept their extortionate rate rises but that would ultimately do me more harm by tarnishing my credit file so it’s out of the question for the time being. When a rate that has been steady at about 16.9% gets massively increased to 29.9% without any justification it makes me wonder why I’ve been such a good customer all these years and never missed

Summer 2010 was a terrible one for the British travel industry as thousands of holidaymakers had their vacations disrupted through a combination of collapsed travel companies, threats of industrial action and even volcanic ash clouds! So, as people’s thoughts turn to summer 2011 and with such uncertainty in the travel industry, does it make sense to book your holiday on a credit card? Just over a month after Goldtrail’s collapse in July left thousands of holidaymakers stranded, another British tour operator, Kiss Flights, ceased trading leaving a further 13,000 people abandoned overseas. Fortunately, Kiss Flights were part of the Civil

How do credit card companies manage to offer 0% interest rates? I haven’t spoken to any credit card companies about this so this is purely speculative but I would imagine they borrow funds at a set interest rate for a set term. They then take on new customers at 0% in the knowledge that some of those customers will not clear their cards each month and will make purchases as well as transferring balances at 0%. These customers get charged a much higher rate of interest than the rate at which the card companies have actually borrowed the funds which subsequently covers the

Thanks to the introduction of Chip and PIN your debit and credit cards are “much less likely to be used fraudulently in the UK” according to Apacs, the UK payments association. However, in order for Chip and PIN to be successful, we all need to continue to look after our PINs to keep them out of the hands of fraudsters because they are the key to your money if your cards are stolen. As it is so important to your day-to-day finances, here are some tips on how to keep your PIN safe. Keeping your PIN secret • When you receive

You can now take control of your credit card finances with the three new calculators just launched on compareandsave.com. All three of our new calculators are easy to use and will display your results in writing, as a graph and in a table, giving you the information you need to know what to do next. We have also updated our Balance Transfer Calculator so it now has the functionality to allow you to input more than one existing card balance when working out how much you’d save by moving your debt. It’s only by using credit card calculators such as

In April, the Marbles credit card brand closed it’s doors to new customers. I don’t remember seeing much in the way of publicity about this but what has come to may attention is the fact that certain existing customers of Marbles have been seeing their interest rate slowly rise. I spoke to Marbles about this and although they are happy for customers to keep their card accounts and still use their cards for purchases, balance transfers etc. Some customers will be doing so at rates above 25% and in some cases over 29% after May 2009. These rate rises don’t

Isn’t it a good thing that credit card companies are finally going to be stopped from increasing their customers credit limits without consent! It’s like a breath of fresh air after a crazy time of money madness. I’ve had the letters: ‘we’re happy to say we’ve increased your credit limit’. My initial thought has always been ‘that’s nice’ and then it’s forgotten and the card stays in the drawer with even more credit available. The ideal use of a credit card is one of convenience though, not credit. Use it to buy everything and then clear the balance each month with your

But is it a good idea? On the surface the new Barclaycard ‘Breathe’ card looks fantastic for anyone that is environmentally concerned. 50% of profits donated to worldwide projects that help tackle climate change Discounts and low interest rates on selected greener spend such as money off insulation and discounts on bicycles at Halfords. The profits are already being used to support a number of pioneering projects around the world such as solar panels for schools in the UK, renewable energy and forest preservation, and wind farms and hydropower in China. It’s great to see companies doing this kind of thing and

After reading a misleading advert regarding an M&S credit card offer, a UK consumer withdrew a number of Euros expecting to pay no interest until January 2008. Turns out the offer was for ‘brand new customers only’ and their subsequent statement revealed £20 worth of interest. Several calls and appeals later, M&S finally repaid the interest but not without trying to dodge the issue first. Read the full story at thisismoney.co.uk

Could it be possible, that because there are a large number of websites advertising a particular product, they could affect how changes are made to that product? For example, credit cards. Some advertise 0% until May 200X….. Some advertise 0% for 13 Months. In order for the company advertising ‘May 200X’ to remain competitive, this needs to become ‘June 200X’ the following month. Websites advertising the ‘0% until May 200X’ need to be updated every month in order to stay current. So to make it easier for website owners (and, OK lets be fair, all the printed material and other advertising) to be