Top Credit Card Deals

Deal or No Deal? How To Shop For A Credit Card

The credit card industry appears to be picking up strength in recent months, as evidenced by better and more attractive deals you'll find from banks and card issuers. If you do some comparison shopping across card issuers, you'll be happy to note that many credit cards now come with cash back bonuses, sign up bonuses and a whole lot of rewards points for new customers. These attractive deals and "extras" are what distinguish the credit cards we have listed on this page from the other cards we have on other lists. These deals are made immediately available upon first time use of a card, or after a customer fulfills some simple spending requirements.

What you'll find here are a great set of cards from well-known issuers that have some of the most favorable incentives around. Some of the bonuses are only available for a short period of time, while others may hang around for longer. The common thread though, is that these benefits are typically terminated or changed after a certain length of time. So it makes sense to monitor these offerings to see if a card you've got your eye on comes along with a particularly sweet offer at some point.

The types of incentives that are commonly found are as follows:

• High cash back rewards that typically range from $100 to $500.
• Gift card rewards from $100 to $500.
• High bonus point rewards of 10,000 points or more (often 20,000 to 30,000 on average).
• Longer introductory periods for 0% interest rates. This is less common.
• Cards with no balance transfer fees. This is less common.
• Freebies that come with sign ups (e.g. third party partnership certificates and coupons).

These are valuable extras you can receive by simply doing a little more research on your card of choice. Note that these benefits change a lot and will often be suddenly pulled from the line up. In some cases, the offer may come back within a year, such as in the case of "Back To School" promotions, holiday deals and promos for other seasonal events and periods. Of course, don't base your decisions purely on such transient features of these cards, but rather, on other qualities, features and characteristics of the card. While it's true that there is hardly any feature of a card that can be considered permanent, the card company won't usually tinker heavily with the brand, flavor or type of a card once it's released.

Thus, it is important to keep in mind that when choosing a credit card, it's best to select one with your eye on the long term benefits of the card. The deals you'll find may motivate you to consider a particular card, but make sure that its terms and features are in line with how you typically use your card or how you spend, in order to make the card worth owning.

Here are a couple of tips to keep in mind when applying for a card with associated deals:

• Choose a card with favorable interest rates if you know that you'll be keeping a balance. Your need for rewards should be secondary if you maintain a balance.
• Select a credit card with maximum rewards if you pay your balance in full at all times. You won't care for a 0% intro rate if you never have a balance anyway.
• Determine if you're better off using a general rewards card rather than a specialty card, based on your card usage patterns.

The bottom line is this: you should make your credit card selection based on your expected long term use of your card. Consider a card's special deals and one time features (such as cash back bonuses) to be icing on the cake when you are shopping for a new card.