Well I have a First USA Visa and a Citibank Mastercard that I use for most of my online shopping (when I don't use my Visa Check Card that is) and I'd have to say that each card/company has its own distinct advantages and disadvangates.
For instance.
My First USA card has a 12.9 Fixed APR which wasn't too bad for a college kid back when I was in school and they don't send you very much junk mail, with the exception of checks you can use on your account which I found came in very hand because they let you obtain a lower APR for a few months. But they also, like spider said, had a bad habit of saying that my payment was late even though I sent it in anywhere from 1 to 1 1/2 weeks ahead of the due date which resulted in 2 late fees when I first started using it.
About 6 months ago I got a Citibank Mastercard that has a 9.9 fixed APR which again is pretty **** good, becuase I wanted to transfer my high balance from my Visa over to it and get a 2.9 APR for 6 months so I could do some hard core paying off since I'm out of college and have a real job now. Now where First USA was lousy at processing payments, Citibank is excellent, I can send my payment in 3 days before the due date and it always gets there on time with no hassles and no late fees. They also have really nice online account reporting so I can check out when transactions cleared and stuff with no hassle, and their CS people are usually really nice when I have to call them about something. But like any credit card company they also have their drawbacks, and the one that stands out the most for me is that they are really bad about getting telemarketers calling you for some "free upgrade" or "new card" or "special offer" all the freaking time (i know, i used to be one of those telemarketers) and since I got that card I have noticed that I've been getting about 4x as many telemarketer calls as I used to.
If I were you, I would just get a visa check card from your local bank that withdraws from your checking account to use for your online shopping, because you won't rack up large CC debt (like me
) and you will still get all the nice Visa customer support that you would with a real CC.
Well thats my opinion on the matter, and I just have one parting piece of advise for you. Make sure you can pay off what your put on your CC right away because it does pile up, I know it did for me, and now paying it all back sucks (about one pay check a month for me goes right to Citibank to try and get that thing paid off by the end of the summer).
JD
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Anandtech = Staples' ****