one thing that baffles me. why on earth do you guys want to keep upgrading?
does one knows that the annual charges of a platinum card is not exactly "token fee"?

so what if you've got it waived? but for how long? or how much does it cost you to remained waived subsequently?

it's a good thing that directaccess cards are free(without any CAVEATS). the rest have some interesting ways of masking their charges, weaving it with conditions.

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Added on May 4, 2008, 7:01 pmfor those of you who likes to switch cards(and canceling the former), there could be implications to your credit history.

This post has been edited by lwb: May 4 2008, 07:01 PM

it's sad that alot of folks are ignorant about credit ratings and how it impacts their ability to draw credit from financiers.

every transactions, including activation, suspension, and cancellation leave a record in a unified system.

there's a bunch of highly specialized analyst behind these system whose work is to analyse and provide their findings whenever a decision/qualification on loan/credit facilities are provided.

there's alot that tells of a person behavioral pattern when it comes to handling credit(or loan, should it use them interchangeably here).

it's therefore erroneous to think that i'm just referring the impact to credit card. what i referred to was your credit ability.

it's CCRIS..
references are everywhere.. we just don't read and pay attention to the same thing.

formal education has little do to with financial education..
i'm not angry through what i've said, you simply misinterpreted them.

This post has been edited by lwb: May 5 2008, 01:50 AM

i read in time magazine several months ago.. that the credit card craze is sweeping into china. an interesting take was that, some of those youngsters actually believe that their asset just swell with their credit limit..

they felt that if the credit limit is 10k, then they're 10k richer.. i'm not sure how much of branding/marketing creates such relation. it's a scary thought.

i still remember how i barked and negotiated downward my credit limit upon first sighting them. the person on the other end of the phone had to repeat back what he heard in case he misheard me..

credit card is an unsecure loan product and it offers the fattest margin on the retail side of banks today (correct me if i'm wrong)..

freebies/zipp/incentives/rebates/etc have it's way of being equalized from other less noticeable transactions/fees..

if i were you, i'd aim for a lower cost structure to protect myself. although it might be less colorful in terms of features and offers, but at the end of the day, i'd prefer to keep my earn more than to part them off to the plastics..

actually citibank do have really free credit cards.. without any conditions imposed to waiving their annual fees. these are called complementary cards.

it's one good way to have such cards.. don't have to worry that you have to swipe x-times to have a free annual fee.

hi tinkerbel,

you got that right.. you can sweet talk them to lower it to 250k for that citigold account. most banks have something similar.. i was surprized that public bank offers such cards too.