Australian Credit Cards Best

Choosing the right credit card for your situation is not as difficult a task as you may assume, despite there being some 250 cards available to Australian users. With the advent of comparison websites, such as RateCity, the process of finding Australian credit cards suited to your needs becomes a simpler task.

Tailor the card to your needs

A good starting point when choosing the best credit card for you is to first identify your spending habits. Consider if you are able, or intend to pay off the balance of your credit cards in full each month, or alternatively carry debt over from one monthly period to the next and thereby incur interest charges.

If you pay off the outstanding balance each month in full, the Australian credit cards best placed for you may be those with the longest interest-free periods (at least 55 days interest free, for instance).

Consider rewarding yourself

Rewards credit cards, which usually (though not always) have higher interest rates and annual fees, can make sense for you if you’re the sort of user who doesn’t pay interest on your credit cards (because you pay your card off in full each billing period) and if the cards’ annual fees are at the lower end of the scale. Again, you can easily compare credit cards to check fees, interest-free periods, interest rates and whether rewards programs apply, at RateCity.

Balance transfer

A balance transfer is something you can consider if you are having trouble paying off the balance from your present credit card, and are carrying high interest debt from one month to the next – which with many cards can be 20 percent or more.

The Australian credit cards best suited to you if you are in this indebted position may be those with the lowest balance transfer rate, held at that low rate for the longest time. Beware however, that once the introductory period is over, the rate may 'revert' to a much higher rate. 'Free days' also rarely apply until a transferred balance has been paid off in full.

Compare credit cards with a balance transfer bonus rate at RateCity, and you’ll be shown some credit cards with zero or close-to-zero interest rates (at the time of writing). Just make sure you also check the ‘revert rate’, the purchase rate and number of interest-free days on purchases, because this can vary significantly between cards.