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About LinkBacksWell Discover certainly is not a leader on most things but they do seem to learn over time (sometimes painfully for their customers). While my card issuers, particularly Citi have been both extremely generous in lowering my APR - now down to 3.99%- yes three point nine nine, after repeated requests to Discover and previously using their absurd fill out the form and mail it back request process, Discover has my rate down below 10 now and did it on the phone.
It sounds too like they have lightened up on the credit risk side too on issuance and credit limits
Nice to see them focusing on the key things that matter and not just the the cosmetic or or not critical items.
These guys may begin to earn their way out of the sock drawer or back of the wallet.
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Discover starting get with the program on APR's
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The thing is, everyone has a different set of things they feel are priority for a given card. In your case it's APR - for the case of many on here, it's rewards. For me, it's service. For other folks, it's CLIs. Very few issuers manage to bat 1.000 across the board (and if they did we'd ALL be applying for that card).
Personally I couldn't care less what my APR is - I have yet to pay a penny of interest on any of my cards (nor is it in the cards for me to do so, horrible pun there sorry). It could be 100% for all I really care. Go nuts, because you'll never see it. I'd prefer a stable lender who stays away from gimmicks, has top customer support, and tosses you a CLI now and again.
So just saying really that everyone has different priorities. You do have some incredible APRs there. Do you carry a balance at all?FICOS
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right you are
Yes of course different things matter to different people and at different times. same holds true for the card issuer; different things matter.
But when you boil things down to the core elements the issuers are extending credit at a price and allowing transaction to take place. All else is secondary and wouldn't matter unless credit was extended and transactions permitted. That's where I was focusing my thoughts when referring to the key things matter.
To oversimplify, my take is that Discover has less access to capital than the bigger issuers and has less diversity of products, so when things get tight, as things did a few years ago, these guys and Amex in particular too , might have much less flexibility to juggle and greater need to pull in their horns faster and more deeply. I think that a fair amount of that is what happened too in the real world. If so, its nice to get the sense that Discover is gradually becoming more competitive. But I also think that the words that they advertise and impression that they convey is really out of sync with reality/ although its even more extreme for AMEX. Just my opinion.
I do carry a balance from time to time on certain cards when it makes sense to me to do so.
If you want to keep your costs, or your potential costs down ( if you ever need or want to revolve it is nice to have the best possible rates or prices), I think you have to ask your issuer. You'll get a real sense of just how competitive they are, which is both good to know and good to have. What's the downside ? And it separates facts from image.
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