Financial Planning

Have you got a little luck with your credit cards lately? At least I din had any luck when we had some issue with our Atlanta credit card whose accounts got closed with some warning. The Atlanta closed their credit card division primarily due to tough business conditions.

Many rumors have emerged regarding the personal credit cards. We have been using the reward card which is managed by Citibank. For years we were happily using the card until the last year when we faced some sort of inconvenience, said one of the local resident of USA.

There are rumors in the market that the BOA is trying to make some changes to their credit card terms. There are talks that the company is planning to re introduce the annual fees in cards that had never been before. Most of the customers feel that this is a serious blow to the services of BOA. As a customer what they want is only good credit card reward programs with no annual fees and it would be really a shame on the part of BOA if they introduce any such annual fees for the customers who are associated with them for decades.

All these issues has come up with the context of new credit card rules which has the Credit Card Act of 2009 which also intended to protect the consumers from credit card companies. The few changes in the Act are:

1.)   The bill payments of the credit card will be applied to the highest interest portion on the balance and not on the portion that generates lower interest rates. This is totally a contrary that was proposed by credit card companies where a person can keep his/her high debt interest amount for as long as he/she wished to.

2.)   The rate of interest will be limited. With the new rules coming into existence no one will get increased rates for existing balances unless he/she falls on the account he/she dealing with a promotional rate.

3.)   From now on there will also be limits on the ‘over the limit fees’. Before you are allowed to change your credit limit you will be allowed to opt in and if you are charged above your credit limits then you have to incur penalties and also interest on those penalties.

4.)   The terms and conditions of the credit card can be changed only when you are given 45 days notice. The reward points for example can be easily altered to the potential expiration of their rewards.

Some of these changes have already brought in to the act and some of them will be effective from the early 2010.

Get aware of Bank of America Hat Tricks

BOA has clearly stated that annual fees are not the same as the interest rates. The credit card Act protects people from unexpected changes in the interest rates; the common man is subjected to think that annual fees are something different altogether and are not subject to the same rules.

The last point is that the BOA will definitely check to test their customer base with their new annual fees which is very annoying for the customers who are part of BOA since decades. Who will be ready to pay an annual fee of $30 every year. The only way to come out of this bad idea of annual fees is to have your kids in to 529 savings plans.

Let’s wait and watch what the Bank of America has in the soup for its premier customers.