113. What does it take to get a great credit card deal? Does it take making a vow?

In order to get a great credit card deal, you need to be ready.

In order to be ready, you need to understand what to look for.

Now, with all the credit card noise out there, what’s the best way to show you some nice tips?

Through good old-fashion humor of course!

Humor is a nice way of making even serious, complicated things easy to handle.

Let’s take making a vow for example. Making a vow is serious business. When you vow, you are literally promising to do certain things (and, in a sense, promising to not do certain other things).

What kind of vow should you make if all you want is a great credit card deal?

Let’s take a crack at it and see how it plays out…

“I, (plug your name here), take you (plug credit card and credit card company name here) to be my credit card,

to use properly and to pay in full from this day forward,

for better but hopefully not for worse,

for richer but definitely not for poorer,

in (both?) sickness and in health,

to be able to consolidate with low interest and no fees and get rewards on things that I like,

from this day forward,

until a better credit card deal do us part…

but I will not look if you make me happy,

I know, you will keep me as long as I remain a good customer,

for my credit score to benefit, though, I should not go over 30% of my available limit,

I need to be honest with you though,

I will keep you as long as you:

  • do not increase my interest rate  or “universal default” me whenever you want…simply because you think I have too much available credit or I was late on any other account that showed up on my credit report.
  • do not hit me with balance transfer fees that’ll wipe out any low rate offer you are marketing.
  • do not “bait and switch” me by enticing me with a nice credit card deal and low rate you had me “preapproved” for and then telling me my rate is actually higher…that’s uncalled for.
  • do not give me less grace period than say 30 days…please.
  • do not two-cycle bill me. I will make it a point to pay in full every month. However, if for some reason I have to carry a balance for a month or two (around the holidays maybe), don’t try to to sneak this trick on me. You know that interest is regularly assessed at the beginning of each period ($0 balance), but with two-cycle billing, you assess interest by calculating the average daily balance for the last two billing cycles - so you hit me with higher interest charges - how sneaky!
  • do not punish me with higher interest because I have not used the card - don’t be jealous.
  • do not hit me with astronomical conversion fees. When I travel, I will call you to let you know what country I’ll be in (so you know it’s me), but please be fair.
  • speaking of travel, it would be nice to have a rewards program with miles I can redeem on any airline.
  • speaking of rewards, do the words flexibility and reality mean anything to you?

You offer such a great credit card deal

…we are going to have a wonderful time together!

I can live without you though.”