Goodbye usairways mastercard!
 

Let me start out by saying I have a very good credit rating -- AmEx Platinum Card holder, AmEx Delta Reserve, never (NEVER!) carry a balance, etc. Using my cards for work and personal use, last year charged more than $150K in total -- this year will be a bit less, about $120K.

Have the USAirways World Elite Mastercard, and have never -- let me repeat, never -- been late, had a payment returned, and have never carried over a balance.

I received a letter today informing me that should I miss a payment, the late payment fee will be $39.95. Same for a returned payment.

Which is bad enough, but if I have a "penalty event" (defined as a late payment, going over my credit limit of $25K, or having a payment returned for insufficient funds) the interest rate on all new and outstanding balances goes to prime plus a margin of up to 26.99%.

Based on the August 1 rates, they tell me, that rate would be 30.24%. I was not aware that a 30% interest rate on a credit card was even legal! And in the event of a late payment or returned payment, that would be IN ADDITION to the fee of $39.95.

Clearly Mastercard and Barclays Bank do not want my business. And, by extension, neither does USAirways.

I had already moved much of my flying to Delta after the charge-for-water fiasco, with only about 45K miles this year on USAirways. Now the rest of it will follow. Which will also obviate the need for me to renew my USAirways Club membership when it expires next month.

Nice job, USAirways, in driving away one more frequent flyer -- great partner you have there in Barclays. Nothing remotely like this ever happened when your partner was Bank of America.

Seriously?

Yes -- quoting verbatim from the letter I received.

I hate to tell you the truth but most credit cards have gone that route.

HTSC

IME, the flag of the card has zero input in this matter.

IIRC, usury varies from state to state, but *generally* under 33-1/3% APR is legal.

Read the fine print even closer.... if you default on one card (for any reason?: over limit, late, NSF/dishonored check, etc), there is a pretty good chance the rates will go up on other TOTALLY UNRELATED cards.

I think it's safe to say you are living in the past, in many ways. Under the current administration, as a necessity of survival, banks have needed to find new ways to screw the consumer, all of which are generally independent of the "name on the card."

I usually don't care what the interest rate on my cards are, unless it's at 0 or similar. :)

I never activated my new card and they have been harrassing me non-stop to do so. Here's another reason for not doing it. Thanks OP.

haven't all cards been upping all the penalizing fees? and across the board...not just to those who miss payments, late payments, etc.

Thanks to the government's new "consumer friendly" credit card rules - which gave the banks 6 months to plot their revenge on the consumer - the card companies have ALL been upping interest rates, slashing credit limits (sometimes to less than the balance on the card), raising fees and doing whatever they can to get new rules in place before the new rules.

I have one friend who was approved for an AMEX Platinum, had it for 2 months, and AMEX summarily canceled it for no reason whatsoever. I know someone else who had a perfect payment record, yet their credit limit slashed from $28,000 to $9,450, which was $50 more than his balance at the time (as a result of monthly charges - he paid in full every month and charged a lot.)

There isn't enough money to go around right now with tight credit markets, giving the banks great latitude to squeeze their customers and try to self select the best customers so once the new rules go into effect their portfolios will be more profitable.

That being said, I don't feel quite as bad - my interest rate on my US Mastercard was just hiked to 22.9%.

Yeah I got a similar letter. I have a high score as well and am never late, etc, etc.

These banks and CC companies are really going to hurt themselves more than help themselves in the long term...imo. Once the economy comes back around I will get rid off any and all cards except one and use only Debit and cash. They want to screw us while we are down to help them why they are down, that is just the wrong way to do business. I left the US BofA Visa a while back because of this as well.

Arent the "best" cutomers the "worst" ones? The ones that continually go over the limit and make late payments.

That is why they are cutting back on the people that pay on time and pay off the balance every month...They dont make money on them...

If you don't pay late, you don't carry balances and you never go over limit (assuming you don't have a "no max spending limit" card), why would any of this bother you?

It's all a non-issue to me. The only annoyance for churners and "stoozers", besides the lousy rates on savings and CD's today, is that balance transfer fees are constantly increasing with no limits, or if a limit exists it's more than I can recover in savings interest in a promo period.

Boo.

Bingo. We have a winner.

While nearly every credit card provider is changing terms and conditions now, before the credit card act reforms take effect, I can tell you with 100% certainty that neither of my AmEx cards have come anywhere near to this level of usury.

I even have a Macy's department store card that I thought set the bar for ridiculous terms and conditions that is now significantly superior to this POS.