Is your credit card making you sick?

By Kathryn Vercillo

Spending is on the rise in the midst of flu season. What you may not realize is these things feed into each other.

The more time spent with others and the more money your hands touch the more likely it is that you're going to get sick. And if you think dirty cash is the only way that money makes you ill, think again. Those credit cards you whip out to pay for new gadgets and dinners with loved ones are also covered in germs.

5 reasons credit cards collect germs

Here are the five biggest reasons credit cards are likely to carry germs:

1. Flu germs remain alive on surfaces. That includes the plastic of your credit cards. These germs can live anywhere from a few hours to several months!
2. Germs thrive in the conditions where you keep your credit cards. Most people store credit cards in wallets, purses and pockets. These are all dark, warm, slightly moist places--great conditions for germs to thrive.
3. You're too casual about where you place your credit cards. You set credit cards down on counters and stick them into restaurant cardholders. Instead...

By Jim Sloan

Editor's Note: Thank you for your interest, these offers have expired and are no longer available.

If you're one of those chaps who likes to hop the pond for a quick getaway, you've got to take a look at the British Airways Visa Signature Card.

For a limited time, British Airways and Chase Card Services are offering new sign-ups to the British Airways Visa Signature Card a bees knees bonus of 50,000 bonus Avios.

You need a good to excellent credit score to be considered for the card...

By Jennifer Rose Hale

Every now and again you go to the mailbox only to discover that, indeed, "the check is in the mail": blank checks, ready for your signature. If you're like many consumers, you get two types. The first, for your bank's checking account, often features kittens, patriotic images or American landmarks.

The second? Those are a mysterious "gift" from a credit card company. You may receive them from a company you already do business with, or they may arrive, unsolicited, from a new bank.

Just what are those checks, and what can you do with them?

Credit card checks: better interest rates or fast cash

Checks from credit card companies can have two primary purposes:

By Richard Barrington

In George Orwell's "1984," the totalitarian regime often confused the populace by using contradictory phrases such as "war is peace" and "freedom is slavery." The common credit card term "minimum payment" might contain a similar sort of contradiction, because by making minimum payments, you'll find yourself shelling out the maximum amount of money.

The reason is that the longer it takes you to pay down a credit card balance, the more interest you will pay on that balance. Thus, making the minimum payment each month will mean racking up more in the way of interest charges. Just how much more may surprise you.

The true cost of minimum payments

Suppose you shell out $1,500 for a home theater system. It's a big investment, so you put it on your credit card so you can pay it off over time.

For this example, let's assume your credit card charges a minimum payment equal to the larger of 3 percent of your outstanding balance, or $10. These are fairly typical minimum payment terms.

Under those terms, if you make just the minimum payment every month (and assuming you add nothing else to your balance) it will take you over ten years to pay off that $1,500 purchase. Meanwhile, interest charges, at a fairly typical 15 percent rate, would have totaled $810.41. Thus, you would have increased the total cost of that

By Joe Taylor Jr.

In college, grades are given out based on how you rank against your peers, and credit scores work the same way. So how do you stack up in terms of credit history?

Researchers working for major credit bureaus and scoring agencies, including Experian and Fair Isaac Corporation, regularly review data from their company's comprehensive collection of personal credit reports. Their statistics can shed light on whether your own credit history stacks up with that of the typical American consumer.

Ask yourself these questions to find out:

Do you use more than two credit cards? If so, you're packing more in your purse or your wallet than the typical American consumer, according to Experian. For the first time in years,

By Jim Sloan

In recent months Americans in general have been making a determined effort to pay down their credit card debts. Maybe you've been part of this, changing your spending habits, and using your paycheck to pay down your credit card debt along with your student loans. That effort will only be helped by new legislation passed last year to combat some of ham-fisted habits of credit card companies.

How do these new regulations affect you?

New financial regulations to limit customer exposure to fees and rate hikes

New restrictions on credit card companies--and credit card users, for that matter--come from a combination of the 2009 Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act and new Federal Reserve regulations mandated by the law. The Fed's rules, according to the law, must make sure that late charges and penalties--a major source of taxpayer headache and credit card company income in recent years--are "reasonable and proportional." The rules apply to many types of credit cards, from high interest credit cards to zero balance transfer cards to even the best cash back credit cards.

Just how effective the new law and regulations will be remains to be seen. But as a consumer, it's important for you to keep in mind what your rights are.

Credit cards and credit scores

Some of the new regulations are related to not only to credit cards but also to your