A Few Things About Balance Transfer Credit Cards

If you are one of the millions of people in the United States chances are, you know what a charge card is. However, for those of you who are not quite acclimated to the credit card industry, charge cards are plastic cards that are issued to people by banks. These plastic cards have a magnetic strip that contains information attaching the charge card to the account holder. When people use charge cards for purchases, the purchase totals will be added to the total amount due to the bank by the consumer. The banks make money off of the credit cards by adding an annual percentage rate and annual fees to be paid by consumers. However, lately the big credit card hype has been about balance transfer credit cards.

Balance transfer charge cards work just like regular charge cards. Consumers can apply for these accounts and if approved, they will receive a balance transfer credit card that they can now not only use for purchases but now for other balances owed. There are several benefits to balance transfer credit cards adversely, there are a few things that consumers should beware of when looking into a new balance transfer charge card.

Benefits of balance transfer charge cards:

Promotional interest rates: Because of the overwhelming amount of competition in the credit card industry, banks that offer balance transfer credit cards have been lead into offering a promotional interest rate. Promotional interest rates are low interest rates that start the day the consumers open the credit card accounts to the end of the promotional periods (usually between 6 and 18 months). In most cases, these promotional interest rates are 0% which really gives consumers a bit of leverage for the first few months of opening the balance transfer credit card account.

Rewards: Another great benefit to having a balance transfer charge card is the rewards offered. Remember above where I mentioned that overwhelming competition in the credit card industry forcing banks to offer lower interest rates? Well, it's this same competition that has brought about rewards in the credit card industry. Because just giving people a lower interest rate wasn't enough to attract enough consumers to credit card products, thousands of banks have decided to incorporate rewards programs into their balance transfer charge card products. Fortunately, many of these banks offer a wide variety of rewards that allow Americans to maximize on the benefits provided through their charge cards.

Beware of:

Annual fees: Because balance transfer charge cards offer so much to people by way of low interest rates and rewards, the annual fees for these types of charge cards will generally be a bit higher. Before consumers apply for new balance transfer charge cards, it's important that they are aware of and agree to the annual fees involved.

Interest rate: Many consumers who research balance transfers are getting trapped by a low promotional annual percentage rate without looking at the future interest rate for the charge card. Before people apply for any new charge card, they should be aware of all interest rates associated with the charge card including introductory interest rates, balance transfer interest rates, cash advance interest rates, purchase interest rates, ect...