Best credit cards dealsBest 0% APR Cards For Good Credit. Special Offer For Bad Credit!

It’s that time of year again – time for holiday shopping and all the “deals” that go along with it.  This year, prepare yourself for your shopping trips by checking out AFFIL’s tips for avoiding holiday hazards.

With most people’s budgets already stretched thin, it’s especially important to make sure that your 2009 holiday shopping doesn’t give you a post-holiday financial hangover.  You can help prevent this by following these tips:

• Check the fine print before you load up on gift cards. While they’re set to improve when all the provisions of the Credit CARD Act take effect, you could still be burdened with service fees and expiration dates in the meantime.
• Avoid costly cash advances whenever possible. They’re the Grinch’s (and the credit card company’s) best friend.  The interest rates on this borrowed money are much higher than on purchases.  The best plan is to avoid all advances – including payday loans – because they’ll end up costing you long after your presents have been unwrapped.
• Check your balance before you hit the mall (or the web). As we mentioned last week, Americans were charged more than $65 million in overdraft fees on Black Friday alone.  Make sure you have the money in your account before you spend it, and avoid lining the pockets of the big banks with your hard earned cash.
• Be wary when shopping online. For more on how to spot scams, click here.
• You know those zero-percent financing offers that seem too good to be true?  They usually are. Consumer Reports has the f

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Credit cards featuring interest rates of maximum 16 percent may sound too good to be true, but if a number of congressional Democrats have their way, this could be coming soon to a credit card near you.

Last Wednesday, U.S. Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-Fairport said she planned to introduce legislation next week which, if passed, would cap credit card interest rates across the board at 16 percent APR. The bill, referred to as the Renewing America’s Commitment to Consumers Act, would also limit credit card fees, including late fees, to a maximum of $15.

“Watching how credit card companies have exploited people by increasing rates up to 30 percent and more is criminal, and this bill will allow us to put an end to this,” Representative Slaughter said in a statement announcing the bill. “Thin

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Only days after announcing plans to expand lending in 2010 to provide business owners with more business credit cards, access to working capital, lines of credit and commercial mortgages; it looks like Chase is already starting to follow through for those with business checking accounts. This is in the form of two new cards called the “Ink” and the “Ink Capital” each with “Exclusive Benefits”, which were created to thank business owners for utilizing multiple Chase accounts to run their businesses.

While each credit card has no-fee associated with it, each offer is very different on the rewards current checking account owners receive.

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Is your credit rating good? Do you have an existing plastic? Are you considering getting an instant approval credit card as a second card? I personally know of people who applied and were instantly approved to have another card. These days, it only takes a minute or two to apply online or via telephone. Demand for instant credit probably started when retail stores offered incentives, like discounts, to customers who actually buy in the store. People started to believe that they are getting their money’s worth because of this price slash.

Getting instant approval credit card, though, needs to pass through a qualifying process. Unlike popular belief, being qualified for an immediate approval is not that easy. Y

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If you struggle with bad credit, you are not alone. According to the credit rating agency Fair Isaac, more than 70 million people in the U.S. have credit scores low enough to qualify them as subprime borrowers. Because people with bad credit typically can’t get approved for prime credit cards, they instead often turn to the so-called subprime credit cards when they want to apply for a credit card.

Subprime credit cards, or unsecured credit cards as they are also called, have met with much criticism because they come with very low limits, as low as $250, and they charge hefty fees for the services they offer. T

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