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Best Credit Cards - Find the Best Credit Card Offers
At Card Beacon, we give you all of the necessary tools to allow you find the best credit card offers yourself in a quick and easy format. The purpose and vision is to allow for objective credit card search with complete transparency. Though we do classify certain products based on their attributes, for example balance transfers or rewards, we urge you to use our advanced credit card selector to compare credit cards with the characteristics that matter to you most. Our site also contains many other useful resources such as user reviews and forums where you may discuss all issues pertaining to personal finance. If you still don't find what you are looking for, check with our frequently asked questions sections where answers to common inquiries are posted. You may also contact us via email and a representative will get back to you in an expedient manner.
For those of you who are new to these items, there are two different types of offers available, charge cards and credit cards. A charge card requires you to pay all balances in full at the end of each billing cycle. They also typically come with an annual fee. Though not perfect for everyone, they are designed primarily for financially stable individuals who either don't want to deal with the hassle of carrying cash, make many online purchases, or simply want to earn rewards on purchases for everyday spending. The justification for carrying this type of offer is that the rewards programs attached to them usually are some of the most competitive and in most cases justify the annual fee, depending on the consumer's yearly spend. Exclusive deals are also sometimes available to certain consumers with gold and platinum status. American Express charge cards are the most prevalent in the United States market which come with the Membership Rewards program.
Credit cards on the other hand do not require you to pay off your balance in full every month. There is a minimum payment which is typically calculated by either a percent of your balance or a percentage of your balance plus fractional interest. The methods vary from issuer to issuer and we urge you to play around with some of our minimum payment calculators that are attached to offers displayed on our website to see how they work in conjunction with interest accrual. People with good to excellent credit may also benefit from deals with 0% introductory APR's that allow a certain timeframe interest-free for either balance transfers or purchases. The best credit cards in our opinion, offer 0 apr terms for both.
The most important thing that one should do before applying for any financial product is to understand exactly what they are signing on for prior to committing to them. With mortgages, banks are very upfront with the impact the size of the loan will have on your financial situation. They typically present you with an interest trail that shows month by month what amount of your payment is applied to interest and what is applied to the priniciple. If you read the trail, it's rather shocking how much you spend on interest until you actually start chipping away at the loan you took out. Unfortunately, this information is not usually available with credit cards due to the size of the loan. With mortgages, banks are taking a much larger risk because the size can be hundreds of thousands of dollars. Therefore, they need to cover themselves and make sure that you as the consumer are completely aware of the costs and to make sure that you want to go through (and afford) the monthly payments. Credit cards are a much lesser risk as most initial credit lines are much lower.
Because this information is not readily available in most cases, we encourage you to calculate a minimum payment on a potential card before you apply for it. This is the purpose of our minimum payment calculator. This is a useful tool especially if you are intending to use your new credit card for something that you potentially can't afford, whether that be to subsidize the cost of a vacation or to buy a new television. We also offer balance transfer calculators for credit cards that come with balance transfer offers and deals. In many cases, you may save money with a 0% balance transfer, but many times the fees associated with performing the transaction counter-act the savings. All calculators factor in duration of interest free grace periods, regular rates, annual and balance transfer fees. They also inform you whether or not you will save or lose money. Obviously, the best credit card offer to perform a balance transfer is the one that saves you the most money, unless of course the rewards program is too good to pass.
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