After my rant about how credit-cards-are-out-to-screw-you I thought I would write about how to pick the best credit card for you.

You might be just looking for your first credit card, a balance transfer or a better deal.

Balance Transfer

Since I still have a balance on my AMEX I decided I should transfer.

So I applied for a new credit card last Monday (and applied to transfer my AMEX balance onto the new card). About 10 days later I have received my new card and have transferred my balance to a interest rate over 10% lower for the next 6 months.

Doing your homework – Comparison Sites

The good news is – there are heaps of sites to compare credit cards (as financial institutions pay for signups).

Picking the best card for you

There are a number of factors to think about including:  Annual Fee, Rewards, Balance Transfer conditions, etc.

I originally got a credit card with a nil annual fee.  But then I went on the rewards program. The cashback I got from the rewards was more than the annual fee.

But an annual fees add to your costs – and can make the benefit of a lower interest rate be wiped out in a few years.

How much will it save me

I ran my calcs through a spreadsheet I made. Obviously if you make minimum repayments on your credit card you pay astronomical interest (and the.

But even If I managed to pay the debt off in a year – I would still save about $300.

Some Comparison Sites

http://www.creditcardfinder.com.au - Has a great compare list with different categories like low interest cards, best credit cards,  balance transfer cards, no annual fee cards (my personal favorite), etc. View a few lists to see different cards to decide what you might want.

 http://www.whistleout.com.au/CreditCards - Probably the best search function - once you answer the questions about what you want the left hand toolbar allows you to refine your search.

http://www.comparecreditcardsaustralia.com.au/ – The site looks pretty good although I picked up a few minor errors in their information.  E.g. the Citibank card didn’t have an annual fee but on the Citibank site in the fine print showed $49 then $89 in the 2^nd year.

http://www.creditcards247au.com/ – nice listing of benefits, http://www.creditcardcompare.com.au

http://mozo.com.au/  has credit cards and other comparisons

Related posts:

1. Credit Cards are out to screw you
2. Save+pay off your credit card at the same time
3. What to do if you find a wrong or fraudulent charge on your credit card
4. I am a FRAUD (I have credit card debt)

Tags: best credit card, comparing credit cards, picking the best credit card

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 28th, 2010 at 10:24 am and is filed under Debt. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.