It is a little-known secret that credit card companies don’t want you to know. If you call them and ask them to lower your rates, they might just do it. Of course, it helps if you are a good customer with a long history with the creditor and have good credit. It also helps to carry a moderate balance and make considerably more than the minimum payment each month. If the credit card company sees you as a low risk borrower and knows they receive monthly interest payments from you (i.e. you carry a moderate balance), they will want to keep you as a customer.
Initially, the credit card representative will tell you that it is just not possible for them to lower your rate. At this point, you should say something like, “Are you sure because I just received a pre-approved offer for a credit card with an interest rate that is half of what I’m paying you and will allow me to transfer my entire balance from this card to theirs for 0%. I’ve been with your company for a long time so I thought I’d see if there was anything you could do.”
The representative will tell you to hold on for a minute at which point she will put you on hold and curse the fact that it was her who picked up your call. Then she will come back and tell you the good news about your new lower rate or tell you to take a hike.
If she tells you to take a hike, you’ve only lost a few minutes of your time. If she comes back with a lower interest rate, you have just saved thousands of dollars a year and it only cost you a few minutes of your time.
The credit crunch has made this tactic more difficult than it was in years past, but if you are a good customer and have good credit, your odds of getting a lower interest rate are somewhere around 50%.
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