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Credit Cards for Excellent Credit
If you have a clean credit history, you will have more options available to you in terms of the portfolio of deals available to you. Those with excellent credit may apply for credit cards from all issuers with a greater chance of being approved. What constitutes excellent credit? Most issuers would say that you need to be able to answer yes to the following questions in order to fit this criteria. Have you had a loan or a credit card for at least five years? Do you have a credit card with a credit limit greater than $10,000? Have you never been more than 60 days late on a loan, credit card, or medical bill payment? Have you never declared bankruptcy? If you can answer 'yes" to all of those questions then you are in good shape. This is the base criteria that most banks are looking for to be eligible for credit cards for excellent credit.
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- 0% intro APR on purchases and balance transfers for 15 months, then the variable standard purchase APR of 10.99% - 20.99%*
- 5% Cashback Bonus® in categories that change like gas, restaurants, department stores and more. Limitations apply*
- Up to 20% Cashback Bonus at popular retailers when you shop online through Discover.com
- Discover is ranked #1 in customer loyalty--16 years in a row! (2012 Brand Keys Customer Loyalty Engagement Index report)
- 24/7 access to a U.S.-based Account Manager within 60 seconds
- $0 Fraud Liability plus mobile and email fraud alert options
- Great rewards with no annual fee, no rewards redemption fee, and no additional card fee
- *Click apply to view rates, fees, rewards, limitations and other important information
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Intro APR
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Intro APR Period
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APR
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Annual Fee
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Balance Transfer
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Minimum Credit Required
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0%*
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15 months on purchases & balance transfers*
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10.99% - 20.99% (Variable)*
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None*
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Yes*
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Excellent
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Our Strategy for Those with Excellent Credit
If you have excellent credit, you're pretty much in the driver's seat when it comes to shopping for credit cards. The strategy that we suggest to those with excellent credit is to carry two credit cards minimum. The first for rewards and the second for when your rewards card is not accepted by a particular vendor. Personally, we feel that American Express has an excellent rewards program. It's called Membership Rewards and it operates just like most points based systems. You receive one point for each dollar spent and you may use the points for travel through American Express Travel or to purchase gift cards, merchandise or pretty much whatever you can think of. If you have Excellent credit and would like to consider one of these offers, you may either apply for a charge card which requires you to pay-off charges at the end of every billing cycle, or a regular credit card which allows you to carry a balance while paying interest. Keep in mind that American Express charge cards all come with annual fees but the versatility of the rewards program in our opinion make it worth it nonetheless.
Because American Express isn't accepted everywhere due their higher than normal fees imposed on merchants, we suggest that as a back-up you carry another credit card which is not an American Express: a Visa, Discover, or MasterCard. Some of these cards also have very good rewards programs and if you have excellent credit, the elite pricing structures are very competitive. In addition, longer durations of 0% APR terms are coming back and issuers that offer credit cards from these networks are starting to really provide shockingly long interest free periods, especially for balance transfers, for those with excellent credit. Luckily, many of these do not have annual fee either.
Be very careful though that you do not overestimate your creditworthiness. The algorithm and methods to determine creditworthiness used by banks are impossible to guess. Based on the countless emails we have received from visitors to our sites who have been shocked by their credit scores once they actually viewed them, we have found that most people do not keep as good an eye on their credit profile as they should. In general it is safe to say that if you are responsible with your bills and have had loans in the past that were current that you have good or excellent credit. Unfortunately over the past two years with the hit that the economy has taken, several people's scores have been lowered by no fault of their own. Believe it or not this can happen. The most common example resulted from several banks who arbitrarily lowered credit limits. In many cases, there was no real good reason why this happened to so many consumers. There were several lenders who sent out letters via the United States Postal Service to their customers with notices stating that after a review of their credit history, we regret to inform you that we feel the need to lower your credit limit. Speculation leads one to believe that these actions were in response to an internal problem within the financial institution in several instances. A source very close to CardBeacon.comreceived one of these announcements. She had a credit score in the high 700's across the board, a mortgage that was in good standing, and several credit cards all with zero balances. She received two letters for two of her cards both of which had credit lines of above $5000 stating that her credit limit had been reduced to $100 for each card. Both cards were issued by the same institution. This ended up having a negative effect on her credit score, and was of no fault of her own considering that she had excellent credit and was never late on any payments. Though this is an isolated incident, the real point is that knowing where you stand from a lender's perspective is a good idea when applying for a credit card geared toward those with excellent credit.
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